SpaceX launches another 52 Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 52 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. The fairing halves completed their fifth and seventh flights respectively.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
36 SpaceX
20 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads China 41 to 20 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 41 to 36. SpaceX alone is now tied with the rest of the world combined 36 to 36, but trails the entire world including American companies 36 to 41.
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SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 52 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. The fairing halves completed their fifth and seventh flights respectively.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
36 SpaceX
20 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads China 41 to 20 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 41 to 36. SpaceX alone is now tied with the rest of the world combined 36 to 36, but trails the entire world including American companies 36 to 41.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
At the end of five months, SpaceX is averaging 7.2 launches per month. World total average is 15.2 per month. Maintaining this pace would be SpaceX 86 and world 182 for 2023. Would be a fairly active year if the pace stayed there.
Except that SpaceX, going by last year, has been increasing cadence through the year and has a realistic shot at the 100. Interesting times. What’s missing is another competitor such that we are looking at a race between entities instead of one against the world.
This is the 200th successful launch of the falcon 9. Far greater than any other orbital rocket.
“Such a performance is in uncharted territory for any orbital rocket, ever. According to Wikipedia, the Soyuz-U rocket had a streak of 112 consecutive successful launches between July 1990 and May 1996. However this period included the Cosmos 2243 launch in April 1993. This mission should more properly be classified as a failure. According to space scientist Jonathan McDowell, the control system of the rocket failed during the final phase of the Blok-I burn, and the payload was auto-destructed.
Taking this failure into account, the Soyuz-U had a run of 100 successful launches from 1983 to 1986. This happens to be the exact same number of consecutive successes by the Delta II rocket, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas and later flown by Boeing and United Launch Alliance. Overall the Delta II rocket launched 155 times, with two failures. Its final flight, in 2018, was the rocket’s 100th consecutive successful mission.”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/05/spacex-is-going-for-its-200th-consecutive-falcon-9-success-tonight/