SpaceX launches 24 Starlink satellites
SpaceX today successfully launched another 24 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
18 SpaceX
9 China
2 Iran
2 India
2 Rocket Lab
2 Japan
2 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 21 to 17 in successful launches, while SpaceX by itself now leads the the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 18 to 17.
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 today successfully launched another 24 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
18 SpaceX
9 China
2 Iran
2 India
2 Rocket Lab
2 Japan
2 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 21 to 17 in successful launches, while SpaceX by itself now leads the the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 18 to 17.
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
We are very fortunate to have Elon—but outside of other billionaires, Musk is the exception—and the many disappointments of Gary Hudson the rule.
And notice, with the Starlink V2 Mini’s they started with 21 per launch, inched up to 22, then 23 and now 24. Part of that is inserting to lower orbits, where the Starlinks can drive themselves out of but would reenter within a week.
But mass to orbit is now 17.5Metric tonnes. Which was 16.8 I think think before.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1762019803630563800
I note SpaceX saving weight and complexity by eliminating the discardable stiffening ring on the second-stage MVac engine bell, and wonder what other invisible changes have been made to adds up to the mass of satellite #24?
It will be interesting to see whether the upcoming Commercial Crew #8 launch has an MVac ring. By NASA’s rules constraining modifications to human-rated vehicles, I would assume it should retain the ring.
Roscosmos has successfully launched 2 missions Soyuz 2.1 in 2024, both in Feb. Wonder why you omitted these from your count.
Valued Customer: This was a mistake of cut and paste. Russia with 2 launches was included in previous updates. It just got dropped by accident. I have put it back in. Thanks for pointing it out.