SpaceX launches another 49 Starlink satellites
Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 49 Starlink satellites into orbit.
The first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, completing its 10th flight. SpaceX now has three four first stages that have completed at least ten flights. (The correction comes from a comment by one of my readers below.)
The 2022 launch race:
3 SpaceX
1 Virgin Orbit
1 China
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 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
Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 49 Starlink satellites into orbit.
The first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, completing its 10th flight. SpaceX now has three four first stages that have completed at least ten flights. (The correction comes from a comment by one of my readers below.)
The 2022 launch race:
3 SpaceX
1 Virgin Orbit
1 China
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 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
Watching their launches in real time NEVER gets old……..
Was there person in Dec 1972 for the last crewed Apollo moon launch.
Core 1051 – 11 flights
Core 1049 – 10 flights
Core 1058 – 10 flights
Core 1060 – 10 flights
So yes, 3 at 10, but also one at 11. So 4 at 10 or more flights.
1061 trails at 5 flights, and 1062 at 4 flights.
Nice infographic of all the flightworthy cores…
https://i.redd.it/2fkiiwfzknc81.png
Packs a lot of data into a small space.
As Eric Berger noted, this was SpaceX’s eighth rocket launch in 50 days. That’s better than a launch a week.
Pretty amazing cadence.
Geoffc: Nice graphic. Indicates that SpaceX now has a fleet of 18 reliable boosters, with a number unused but ready to go if needed, and all capable of launching hundreds of times. Essentially, the company no longer needs to spend much getting a Falcon 9 ready for launch, making those launches incredibly cheap when compared to past launch costs.
Alas, they still need to make a lot of second stages, but they are smaller and simpler than first stages. But a much smaller cost than a full booster that is discarded.
Consider… They launched 32 times last year, so while they introduced only 1 or 2 new first stages, they built 32 second stages!
And this year is looking like more! So the factory is not idle at all, which is also good for keeping costs manageable. (Building one core every 2 years (cough SLS cough) is a recipe for cost overruns).
“Elon Musk’s Starlink Is Causing More Streaks to Appear in Space Images”
“Photo-bombing Starlink satellites are increasingly complicating ground-based observations”
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-s-starlink-is-causing-more-streaks-to-appear-1848385218