SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites
While everyone is focused on the Starship/Superheavy launch scheduled for tomorrow at 7 am (Central) at Boca Chica, SpaceX tonight launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage successfully completed it eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
84 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China 96 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 96 to 81. SpaceX by itself is now leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 84 to 81.
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While everyone is focused on the Starship/Superheavy launch scheduled for tomorrow at 7 am (Central) at Boca Chica, SpaceX tonight launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage successfully completed it eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
84 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China 96 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 96 to 81. SpaceX by itself is now leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 84 to 81.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Watched Starship. 156k viewers on X live. Booster ok. Hot staging ok. Second.stage ok. FTS ok on both.
I would call Starship test-2 a success.
So would I, pretty much. It will be interesting to see the “inside baseball” coverage soon as to the gory details of what went both right and wrong. Another test with upgraded hardware incorporating lessons learned from today’s test might still occur late this year or very early next.
I’m just a social-science major, but it looked pretty good to me.
Watched the Everyday Astronaut coverage live.
Now, I’m trying to find coverage with better film, anyone have any suggestions? (I realize it takes some time to put together.)
The LabPadre Space feed had some excellent clear/close-up, long-range tracking, but they as well were jumping all over the place.
(I don’t do “X,” so I really miss having the Spacex channel on Youtube.)
All: See my post on the launch. I am almost certain that both self-destructs were intentional, to prove to the regulators that the system now works as planned.
SpaceX can do this because it has more prototypes waiting, and by doing so it will make it harder for the bureaucrats to slow things down.
Wayne, I watched it (Starship/SH) on the SpaceX website