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SpaceX launches 54 Starlink satellites

9:37 am

SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 54 Starlink satellites.

The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on its drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

48 SpaceX
45 China
15 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 68 to 45, and is tied with the entire world combined 68 each. Note that SpaceX’s 48 launches so far this year matches the entire total for the U.S. last year.

Genesis cover

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

5 comments

5 comments

  • geoffc
    October 20, 2022 at 11:11 am

    Per Elon, this is also the record of the most flights in one year by a booster type. (Soyuz-U did 47 in 1979).

    https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1583133885696987136

    And we still have 10 or so launches to go in all likelyhood.

  • The Last Optimist
    October 20, 2022 at 11:27 am

    Is it possible to compare the payload weight lofted to space along with the launch count? I was thinking that SpaceX launch cadence may significantly decrease with Starship while their volume of mission loads increases. Raw launch count may not be the best comparison.

  • Robert Zimmerman
    October 20, 2022 at 11:35 am

    The Last Optimist: I’ve responded to this suggestion numerous times in the past. It would be a lot of work to add mass to this list. Though the information is certainly informative, it really doesn’t have anything to do with my goal in keeping this launch list.

    Mass-to-orbit indicates the potential for future in-space development. My goal however is to track the growth of the launch industry, worldwide. While launching a larger mass-to-orbit indicates a greater capability by any company or nation, the number of companies and launches provides a better metric on who is making this happen, as well as the growing competition to do it.

    In the end, the competition will guarantee a larger mass-to-orbit anyway.

  • geoffc
    October 20, 2022 at 2:18 pm

    @TheLastOptimist I was using spacexstats.xyz to track mass to orbit for SpaceX at least. But there data source seems to have not been updating for the last 5 launches (and missed on about 5 launches before that.) They have it at 43 launches and not updated since then.

    Most specifically try this link:
    https://www.spacexstats.xyz/#payloads-upmass-per-year

    At least you can compare SpaceX to SpaceX year over year.

  • Edward
    October 21, 2022 at 8:55 pm

    The Last Optimist,
    You asked: “Is it possible to compare the payload weight lofted to space along with the launch count?”

    I had wondered this myself. I was one of those who gave this suggestion in the past, but I have since realized that what I really wanted to know was how much we use space, how much use we get out of space. A way to make this measurement is to use the space economy as a proxy.

    Because satellites sometimes reenter the atmosphere, the mass of the payloads that have been put into space is not the mass currently in space. In addition, there are upper stages that have been placed in orbit and some continue to orbit the Earth. Should the mass of these upper stages be included? For your question, the answer is: no. You specified payload mass.

    However, some people may wonder how much mass in now in space that could conceivably be dismantled and used in the future for other space projects. For that, I would include the expended upper stages.

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