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.
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 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.
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
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.