SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 23 flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
47 SpaceX
21 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 47 to 36.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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 tonight successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 23 flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
47 SpaceX
21 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 47 to 36.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
Going down to Orlando for a week, and hope to be able to get over to Canaveral to see a launch. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to do that? The last time I was there was in the ’70s, and I’m sure things have changed a bit. Thanks for any guidance!
Check which pad they are launching from. My only viewing was from the wrong location. (The causeway?) and it was an RTLS from SLC-40 to LZ-1 which was cool, but it was all “way down there” while LC-39A was in perfect sight with a booster upright from flight the next day.
we’ll have to start comparing tonnage to orbit soon, given that a single Starship should be bringing up 5-10x what a Falcon does
TallDave,
SpaceX’s percentage of all mass launched to Earth orbit or beyond annually has been above 80% for a few years now. The advent of Starship will simply move this above 90% in short order. F9s that launch Starlinks – and probably Starshields as well – are typically loaded at, or very near, their throw weight limits. The same seems sure to apply also to Starships doing Starlink deployments – as most early non-test Starship launches will be doing. It seems a safe bet that total annual tonnage to Earth orbit or beyond will rise more than an order of magnitude before the end of the current decade.