SpaceX launches cargo Dragon to ISS using new 1st stage
Capitalism in space: In what will likely be its last launch in 2021, SpaceX early this morning successfully launched a reused Dragon cargo capsule to ISS.
This was the company’s 31st launch in 2021, extending its record for the most launches in a single year by a private company. The launch’s big news however was that the company used a new first stage booster, only the second time in 2021 that it needed to do so (the first was in May). The first stage successfully landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic, completing SpaceX’s 100th successful recovery.
The first such vertical landing had occurred in December 2015, and now six years later and after a hundred vertical landings, SpaceX remains the only orbital rocket entity in the world with such a capability. A very small handful of companies have performed tests with smaller scale prototypes, but that so much time has passed and no one has pushed forward to meet SpaceX’s challenge with even some full scale preliminary test flights does not reflect well on the innovative culture of the world’s rocket industry.
As for SpaceX’s yearly record, 31 launches actually exceeds the number of launches the entire U.S. rocket industry generally managed each year from 1970 through 2017. During much of that time the launch industry was run by NASA in a Soviet-style top-down system that stifled competition and innovation. Beginning in 2008, when SpaceX won its first contract with NASA, that system was abandoned by NASA, switching instead to capitalism and competition, whereby NASA was merely a customer buying its launches from the open market. The positive results from that change have been breath-taking, proving once again that freedom, competition, and private enterprise will win every single time over government programs and communist/socialist ideology.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:
48 China
31 SpaceX
22 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab
The U.S. and China are now tied 48 to 48 in the national rankings. This was the 127th launch in 2021, tying it with 1976 for the second most successful year in rocketry in the history of space exploration. With five more announced launches on the schedule, there is a chance that this year could tie the record year, 132 in 1975.
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: In what will likely be its last launch in 2021, SpaceX early this morning successfully launched a reused Dragon cargo capsule to ISS.
This was the company’s 31st launch in 2021, extending its record for the most launches in a single year by a private company. The launch’s big news however was that the company used a new first stage booster, only the second time in 2021 that it needed to do so (the first was in May). The first stage successfully landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic, completing SpaceX’s 100th successful recovery.
The first such vertical landing had occurred in December 2015, and now six years later and after a hundred vertical landings, SpaceX remains the only orbital rocket entity in the world with such a capability. A very small handful of companies have performed tests with smaller scale prototypes, but that so much time has passed and no one has pushed forward to meet SpaceX’s challenge with even some full scale preliminary test flights does not reflect well on the innovative culture of the world’s rocket industry.
As for SpaceX’s yearly record, 31 launches actually exceeds the number of launches the entire U.S. rocket industry generally managed each year from 1970 through 2017. During much of that time the launch industry was run by NASA in a Soviet-style top-down system that stifled competition and innovation. Beginning in 2008, when SpaceX won its first contract with NASA, that system was abandoned by NASA, switching instead to capitalism and competition, whereby NASA was merely a customer buying its launches from the open market. The positive results from that change have been breath-taking, proving once again that freedom, competition, and private enterprise will win every single time over government programs and communist/socialist ideology.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:
48 China
31 SpaceX
22 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab
The U.S. and China are now tied 48 to 48 in the national rankings. This was the 127th launch in 2021, tying it with 1976 for the second most successful year in rocketry in the history of space exploration. With five more announced launches on the schedule, there is a chance that this year could tie the record year, 132 in 1975.
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
There is a Reddit post suggesting 128 launches. I think their stats are off somehow, curious if you can see their mistake…
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/rlix4b/with_the_launch_of_crs24_there_have_now_been_128/
Apparently the VO launch has been postponed until after the merger. I was hoping that one would fly for stats, even being aware they don’t mean that much. As in a VO launch does far less than an FH launch. But with the stats being successful flights, I would rather the US win.
geoffc: I don’t know what their error is, but I update my spreadsheet with every launch. I am very confident I have this year’s numbers right.
It is possible they have interpreted one launch as a success that I deemed to be a failure, but if so, I don’t know which launch that is.
And they do not show their work, which you have been sort of doing all year, without the specific sheet shared (None of our business, not asking for it).
geoffc: Come the end of the year, when I do my annual global report, I will post an illustration showing part of my spreadsheet, as I have done in past years. (Search BtB for “global” “launch” “report” and you will find those earlier reports.)
Unless I miss my guess this is also the first time all 3 three of the Spacex’s done ship’s have been in operation at the same time. Which shows Spacex showing what its capacity for launches really is. My memory is it takes about ~week to bring a booster back from sea and then another week to send the ship back out. If Spacex really wanted to push and assuming they have launches for both coasts. It seems like they could be launching 6 times a month. Likely something they aren’t likely to do for a while but this is kind of launch cadence I’ve been wanting to see my whole life.
An unremarked SpaceX record of five successful launches in a single month was also set by the CRS-24 launch. With 39 non-Starlink launches thus far scheduled for the Falcons next year, merely equaling 2021’s 17 Starlink launches would yield a total of 56. Adding in at least a few Starship orbital test missions from Starbase might put SpaceX’s 2022 mission total at or above five dozen. That would mean an average cadence equal to SpaceX’s best-ever month just logged. Sayomara has a very high likelihood of seeing at least one six-launch month for SpaceX next year.
Good intel Dick. I think its been a goal to see if private space can get to a point of launching every week on average. Based on what you say that sounds very possible next year. The thing I don’t know and haven’t seen is what is spacex turn around time on boosters rehab. If launch cadence picks up enough that seems like it will be Spacex biggest bottleneck.
Unfortunately, the hundredth landing of a first stage of the Falcon 9 missile was unsuccessful. The rocket stage, apparently especially the engines and landing legs, were badly damaged. It seems to have been very lucky that we can still see the rocket stage in one piece.
“SpaceX Falcon 9 booster & octograbber damaged during recovery”
https://spaceexplored.com/2021/12/29/spacex-falcon-9-booster-damaged-during-attempted-recovery/