SpaceX launches commercial satellite with first used Block 5 first stage
Capitalism in space: Last night SpaceX successfully placed a commercial communications satellite into orbit using a previously flown Block 5 first stage.
The turnaround for this first stage was only a little over two months. It successfully landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic, and they plan to fly it a third time later this year. You can watch the launch here.
The leaders in the 2018 launch race:
22 China
15 SpaceX
8 Russia
5 ULA
4 Japan
4 Europe
China still leads the U.S. 22 to 21 in the national rankings.
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: Last night SpaceX successfully placed a commercial communications satellite into orbit using a previously flown Block 5 first stage.
The turnaround for this first stage was only a little over two months. It successfully landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic, and they plan to fly it a third time later this year. You can watch the launch here.
The leaders in the 2018 launch race:
22 China
15 SpaceX
8 Russia
5 ULA
4 Japan
4 Europe
China still leads the U.S. 22 to 21 in the national rankings.
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
It would be interesting to track the count of launches vs boosters used as this will begin to widen significantly once SpaceX starts re-flying boosters many more times.
The post-Shuttle record for actual reuses of reusable space hardware is held by the now-retired #2 version of Blue Origin’s New Shepard. It flew five times. Could be that this now-once-reused Block 5 stage will surpass that record sometime next year. By that time, though, Blue may have upped its own record using the #3 version of New Shepard.
The least-flown Shuttle was the ill-fated Challenger. It flew 10 times, the last time to its destruction. It made it to space 9 times. The most-flown Shuttle was Discovery. It flew 39 times. A Falcon 9 Block 5 stage has a reasonable shot at surpassing the Challenger’s reuse mark. After three or four refurbs, a Block 5 stage could even exceed Discovery’s record sometime in the early 2020’s. BFR and BFS vehicles, though, seem likely to take over the reuse record book after that.
Whether or not this specific F9 wins any records is tough to say but when they actually finish the Block Five and stop fiddling with it, we should see a high number of reuses. Will be interesting to see how big their fleet is.