SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellitesSpaceX tonight successfully placed another 23 Starlink satellites into orbit (including 13 with cell-to-satellite capabilities), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its first flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This was the third new booster SpaceX has launched since February. In previous years the company would about this number per year. This new crop so early this year suggests it is finding some of its older boosters might need retirement and its fleet therefore needs replenishment.
More likely the company is anticipating the planned major increases in its launch rate in both Florida and Vandenberg, and is increasing that fleet to meet the demand.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
60 SpaceX
29 China
6 Rocket Lab
5 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 60 to 47.
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 placed another 23 Starlink satellites into orbit (including 13 with cell-to-satellite capabilities), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its first flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This was the third new booster SpaceX has launched since February. In previous years the company would about this number per year. This new crop so early this year suggests it is finding some of its older boosters might need retirement and its fleet therefore needs replenishment.
More likely the company is anticipating the planned major increases in its launch rate in both Florida and Vandenberg, and is increasing that fleet to meet the demand.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
60 SpaceX
29 China
6 Rocket Lab
5 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 60 to 47.
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
Any word on a new ASDS? They seem more limited by those than launch pads these days.
Not that I’ve heard. Perhaps a fourth ASDS will appear on the west coast when SpaceX nears completion of its retrofit of pad SLC-6 at Vandenberg. But something I read recently, indicated that SpaceX plans to use SLC-6 mainly for military Falcon Heavy missions for which the side boosters would RTLS back to two new landing pads that will be added at SLC-6 as part of its makeover. Supposedly, SLC-6 may host only a couple dozen or so launches a year. That could indicate that SpaceX plans to use that launch pad and its associated landing pads for all F9 RTLS missions that are to launch from Vandy after SLC-6 enters SpaceX service, such as Transporter flights and other relatively lightweight payloads. In that case, OCISLY may continue to soldier on alone on the west coast as it seems able to handle the sharp increase in Starlink missions out of Vandy that now occur as little as three or four days apart as SpaceX has figured out how to turn pad SLC-4E around that fast between launches. As Elon says, “the best part is no part.”
There is probably also some remaining latitude to speed the existing ASDS fleet up by a knot or so through upgrading their on-board thrusters which would cut the durations of both outbound and inbound sorties. With only modest improvements to all other aspects of launch ops, I think SpaceX can get Falcon missions up above 200 per year perhaps even as soon as 2026. And very possibly without fielding a new ASDS.