SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites
The beat goes on! SpaceX today launched another 23 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 19th flight, tying the present record for the most reuses of a Falcon 9 booster. It landed safely on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 space race:
26 SpaceX
10 China
3 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 30 to 19, while SpaceX leads the entire world, including American companies, 26 to 23.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
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The beat goes on! SpaceX today launched another 23 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 19th flight, tying the present record for the most reuses of a Falcon 9 booster. It landed safely on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 space race:
26 SpaceX
10 China
3 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 30 to 19, while SpaceX leads the entire world, including American companies, 26 to 23.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Minor edit in first sentence: “another 23 Starlink satellites”
SpaceX is amazing. Their tempo is setting a new standard. When they overcome the stability problems with Starship on orbit (which appears to be one problem they had on IFT-3), if Starship is launched as an expendable, SpaceX can put over 100 tons into LEO.
It would be safer for LEO for Starship at least to be expendable for the time being.
Falcon is at the very bottom of the bathtub curve:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
Teething problems in the past…yet signs of wearing out that is the hallmark of end-of-life issues.
It took lots of explosions to dial Falcon in.
Even less for SuperHeavy to stage successfully.
But they’re no threat to orbit.
At some point,—as part of the fail-forward mantra—there will be a Starship RUD in LEO…and it is in my estimation less likely to happen at the end of the bathtub curve once SpaceX has given us the infrastructure to clean up space debris.
No—I think it is more likely to happen at the beginning of the curve…where the most damage—and backlash—can be expected.
Now, I think a lot of Gene Meyers of Space Island Group.
His plan was to use shuttle External Tanks (now SLS cores) as wet workshops.
The refrain of all the energy vampires was “Oh noes! Too much foam popcorning!”
—even those ET/SLS cores are largely inert.
But now we saw Starship tumbling out of control and shedding debris, propellant and God knows what else—huffing and puffing like a big boy locomotive….and not a peep out of New Space.
Had this been a Chinese craft—you’d all be freaking out.
And, three more Falcon 9 launches this week!
These guys are just a juggernaut now.
Jeff Wright wrote: “Had this been a Chinese craft—you’d all be freaking out.”
I don’t know why we would freak out. The Chinese intentionally drop their rockets onto populated areas. SpaceX explicitly targeted empty ocean for both Test Flight Three vehicles.
We may have freaked out when the flight termination system took far too long to terminate the first Starship flight, but that was a failure of a safety system. Failure may be an option during development testing, but it is not an option for a flight termination system. Intentional deorbit of hardware into empty oceans is a long accepted method of disposal.