SpaceX launches 25 payloads, including South Korea’s first five homebuilt surveillance satellites
SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 25 payloads into orbit, including first five homebuilt surveillance satellites by South Korea, lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage successfully completed its seventeenth flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The fairings completed their fifth and sixth flights respectively. As of posting not all the payloads had been deployed.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
88 SpaceX
53 China
16 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches, 100 to 53, and the entire world combined 100 to 85. SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world (excluding other American companies) 88 to 85.
SpaceX still has one more launch scheduled for today, from Cape Canaveral at 11 pm (Eastern). The link goes to the live stream.
This launch was significant for the United States. For the first time the U.S. has reached 100 launches in a single year, something that only the Soviet Union previously achieved, with 100 launches in 1982. With SpaceX’s launch tonight the U.S. will thus set a new record for the most launches in a single year by any nation.
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.
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SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 25 payloads into orbit, including first five homebuilt surveillance satellites by South Korea, lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage successfully completed its seventeenth flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The fairings completed their fifth and sixth flights respectively. As of posting not all the payloads had been deployed.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
88 SpaceX
53 China
16 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches, 100 to 53, and the entire world combined 100 to 85. SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world (excluding other American companies) 88 to 85.
SpaceX still has one more launch scheduled for today, from Cape Canaveral at 11 pm (Eastern). The link goes to the live stream.
This launch was significant for the United States. For the first time the U.S. has reached 100 launches in a single year, something that only the Soviet Union previously achieved, with 100 launches in 1982. With SpaceX’s launch tonight the U.S. will thus set a new record for the most launches in a single year by any nation.
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.
And this was the first non-Starlink use of a booster with 17 flights. Usually commercial payloads fly on the lower usage boosters, with Starlinks taking the risk on the higher usage.
There are 3 boosters with at least 17 flights on them already in the fleet. Which is kind of great in itself.