SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites
SpaceX this morning successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
127 SpaceX
58 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 127 to 98.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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 this morning successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
127 SpaceX
58 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 127 to 98.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
The first stage did look unusually clean. And one could see it plainly prior to launch which is not always the case at Vandy.
I see the Starlink load on this mission was 28 birds. The Starlink V2 mini optimized sats – as they are called now – seem to have gotten an additional weight-reducing optimization. The typical recent Starlink load-out on Vandy launches has been 24 birds. 28 is a 16.7% increase in number. I wonder if we will be seeing load-outs of 32 or 33 birds on FL Starlink launches soon instead of the recently typical 28. I hope so.
”The typical recent Starlink load-out on Vandy launches has been 24 birds. 28 is a 16.7% increase in number.”
That’s because the typical recent Starlink flight out of Vandy went to a 97.6 deg inclination, which is slightly retrograde. This flight went to a pro-grade 53 deg inclination, the same as recent Starlink flights from the Cape. Same inclination — same number of satellites. It has nothing to do with changes in satellite weight.