SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites
SpaceX today successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its 4th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
159 SpaceX (a new record)
75 China
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 159 to 127.
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 today successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its 4th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
159 SpaceX (a new record)
75 China
15 Rocket Lab
15 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 159 to 127.
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


So in the last couple of launches we had 27, 28, or 29 Starlinks… Do we know why the three different numbers? Sure, in Vandy they stage the barge further downrange, since they can dock nearby and truck the booster back, which is not an option in Florida, so maybe Vandy can get 29.
But sometimes Florida can do 29, or 28, or 27? I guess specifics of the orbital parameters and where they stage the barge affect these numbers?
”Do we know why the three different numbers?”
The flights with 27 Starlinks are group 15 launches to an inclination of 70 deg. The flights with 28 Starlinks are group 11 launches to an inclination of 53 deg. The flights with 29 Starlinks are group 6 launches to an inclination of 43 deg. The lower inclinations are more parallel to the equator and can use more of Earth’s eastward rotation for their orbital velocity. Since the rocket doesn’t have to add quite as much speed to the payload to achieve orbital velocity it can loft a slightly greater payload mass.