SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites using a first stage for 16th time
SpaceX tonight successfully launched 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral using a first stage for a record sixteenth time, all achieved with a period of just over three years.
The stage successfully landed on its drone ship in the Atlantic. In addition, the two fairing halves each successfully completed its ninth flight.
In those three years this one first stage flew almost as many times as all of the launches of Russia (24), ULA (20), and Europe (20). Somehow, with those sixteen launches I think SpaceX has fully gotten its full value for what it spent building and refurbishing that stage.
To understand how routine SpaceX has made all this, when that first stage landed tonight there were no cheers at SpaceX, at all. There was just routine silence, as the launch crew proceeded with what has become an entirely routine procedure.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
46 SpaceX
25 China
9 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads China in launches 52 to 25, and the entire world combined 52 to 43, with SpaceX by itself leading the rest of the world, excluding American companies, 46 to 43.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
SpaceX tonight successfully launched 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral using a first stage for a record sixteenth time, all achieved with a period of just over three years.
The stage successfully landed on its drone ship in the Atlantic. In addition, the two fairing halves each successfully completed its ninth flight.
In those three years this one first stage flew almost as many times as all of the launches of Russia (24), ULA (20), and Europe (20). Somehow, with those sixteen launches I think SpaceX has fully gotten its full value for what it spent building and refurbishing that stage.
To understand how routine SpaceX has made all this, when that first stage landed tonight there were no cheers at SpaceX, at all. There was just routine silence, as the launch crew proceeded with what has become an entirely routine procedure.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
46 SpaceX
25 China
9 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads China in launches 52 to 25, and the entire world combined 52 to 43, with SpaceX by itself leading the rest of the world, excluding American companies, 46 to 43.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Starship has all the interest now.
Falcon has become the new Delta II…boring
—that’s good.
Besides…all the kids are in bed.
Question:
How many Starlink satellites are already in orbit?
Can someone do the math and give me a rough marginal-cost estimate on these 16 launches?
(On thing Musk knows how to do– go to scale, asap.)
Wikipedia has a nice write-up/stats on the Falcon 9 first-stage boosters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_boosters
16 uses? But..but…that’s IMPOSSIBLE! Musk is nothing but a grifting con man! Everyone on the Left says so@! And since they are NEVER wrong….
Since you didn’t clearly state it, 16 launches is the current record. I recall back when their stated goal of 10 launches per booster seemed improbable, and now they’re targeting 20 launches per booster.
Now imagine what 20+ launches from a Superheavy can achieve!
There is one booster at 16 landings.
1 at 15
2 at 10
Several around the 7-9 range.
Reuse is real! Woo Hoo! Onwards!
Stephen Clark (now moved to Ars Technica) notes that B1058 has now flown a total of two astronauts and 801 spacecraft in its career.
[This massive total is mostly built on the back of a bunch of Starlink missions and two Transporter rideshare launches.]
Eric Berger tweets in response: “So I think this single rocket has launched more satellites and astronauts than ULA has in its entire history.”
Of course, not all satellites (or orbits!) are created equal. But even if we throw in all the necessary qualifications, it’s clear that we’ve seen a real achievement with the Falcon 9. And given that SpaceX now cranks out two second stages every week, it is clear that it has reached a point where booster availability is no longer the limiting factor for SpaceX. Instead, it’s pad turnaround time, which we can expect to keep improving (to say nothing of the new lease of a second launch pad at Vandenberg).
P.S. A Twitter account called Reductionist notes another amazing comparison:
“I just realized that in the time in which B1058 has flown 16 times, ULA has flown 17 times (13 Atlas V flights, 4 Delta IV Heavy)
“Just that one booster, basically equaling the flight rate of two major US rocket families. Quite impressive.”
When calculating if the cost of a booster has been offset by it’s use, there is more than the initial launch price to consider.
16 launches, but only 6 had outside revenue. The others were all Starlink.
That said, how much income has Starlink brought. It is hard to break down the revenue of an individual Starlink node, but as a system, it generate income that should also be considered.
Shotwell has said that Starlink has now reached an operating profit. Obviously that does not amortize development costs; but if she is right, then Starlink is at least covering the cost of fabrication, launch, and operation of the satellites.
But even setting that aside, hard to see how the remaining six “outside” missions haven’t covered the cost of building B1058 a few times over, and frankly, even the cost of inspection and refurbishment of the stage, even if that runs to a couple million per launch. (I suspect that B1058 probably has had a Merlin engine swapped out once or twice.) SpaceX has maintained a healthy profit margin (probably at least $30 million a launch, by my guess) over cost of even a new Falcon 9 so far, simply because it has no real price point competition. Yet.
I just read a piece on NASA’s VIPER rover, which is set to explore the Lunar South Pole region in late 2024. But I could find no reference to what booster would provide the launch. So I asked the Bing version of Chat GPT.
Yep, Falcon Heavy!
Richard M noted: “Eric Berger tweets in response: ‘So I think this single rocket has launched more satellites and astronauts than ULA has in its entire history.’”
This is not as impressive as it may at first seem. ULA is only a couple of decades old.
_____________
Richard M wrote: “Shotwell has said that Starlink has now reached an operating profit. Obviously that does not amortize development costs; but if she is right, then Starlink is at least covering the cost of fabrication, launch, and operation of the satellites.”
According to the video’s announcer, Starlink now has more than 1-1/2 million subscribers. This means that Starlink has an annual revenue of around $2 billion.
Hello Edward,
This is not as impressive as it may at first seem. ULA is only a couple of decades old.
Can I underline once again that this is a SINGLE ROCKET STAGE we’re talking about?
Richard M,
I understand the concept, but ULA’s “entire history” is not so long as to be impressive, either. Blue Origin and SpaceX are older.
Apparently, I don’t impress easily.
I am impressed that the Falcons are routinely launching more flights than they were designed for, and they are still going strong. It demonstrates that not only is reusability economical but it is easier to do than even SpaceX expected.
ULA was created by the merger of Lockheed and Boeing. They both put in their 50 years of experience. Their best people and their best equipment.
They should have been able to make more launches than anyone on the planet.
They even make the Mission statement
“ULA is the nation’s most experienced space launch company with more than 150 consecutive launches and a 100% mission success rate. ULA brings the utmost precision, passion and purpose to one of the most technically complex, critical American needs: affordable, reliable access to space.”