SpaceX launches another batch of Starlink satellites
SpaceX today successfully launched 22 or 23 Starlink satellites (the reports vary), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its 23rd flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. At present one other SpaceX booster has flown more, 25 times.
The 2025 launch race:
18 SpaceX
6 China
1 Blue Origin
1 India
1 Japan
1 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
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SpaceX today successfully launched 22 or 23 Starlink satellites (the reports vary), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its 23rd flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. At present one other SpaceX booster has flown more, 25 times.
The 2025 launch race:
18 SpaceX
6 China
1 Blue Origin
1 India
1 Japan
1 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
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3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. 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.
Was this launch to an equatorial or polar orbit? I ask because it is my understanding that launches from Vandenberg are only to the south; yet my brother in Arizona sent me a video of the Falcon 9 overhead. Would this not take the rocket over inhabited land?
Best Regards
Nathan Visser: No, launches from Vandenberg to the southeast over the ocean (which is where this launch headed) are visible in Arizona. Once the rocket is high enough it can be seen from that distance.
I witnessed the cutoff of the F9 second stage over the southern Baja California city of La Paz, Mexico. This would confirm that the trajectory was South-southeast, roughly along the Pacific coast of the Baja peninsula, as usual with Starlink launches from Vandenberg.
Ah, I see. Thank you.