SpaceX launches communications satellite for the Spanish government
SpaceX tonight successfully placed a Spanish communications satellite into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The satellite will provide communications for Spain’s military and government. The first stage completed its 22nd flight, but because of the needs of the payload, there was not enough fuel left for it to land on a drone ship. This was its last flight, the stage falling into the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their 16th and 28th flights respectively.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
137 SpaceX
64 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 137 to 105.
SpaceX has now matched the annual launch record it set last year, and done it with more than two months left to go in 2025. Whether it can reach its goal of about 180 launches this year seems doubtful, but it will definitely come close. It is averaging about 14 launches per month, which means it could complete about 28 to 30 before the end of December.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
SpaceX tonight successfully placed a Spanish communications satellite into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The satellite will provide communications for Spain’s military and government. The first stage completed its 22nd flight, but because of the needs of the payload, there was not enough fuel left for it to land on a drone ship. This was its last flight, the stage falling into the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their 16th and 28th flights respectively.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
137 SpaceX
64 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 137 to 105.
SpaceX has now matched the annual launch record it set last year, and done it with more than two months left to go in 2025. Whether it can reach its goal of about 180 launches this year seems doubtful, but it will definitely come close. It is averaging about 14 launches per month, which means it could complete about 28 to 30 before the end of December.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Here, all expected the Spanish communications.
Elon had an interesting and relevant tweet today: “As is pointed out below, the SpaceX Falcon rocket will do more launches and carry more payload to orbit this year than the Space Shuttle did in its entire history”
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1981736022271471913
Staggering, if you think about it.
Blair Ivey,
Heh.
Richard M,
It is staggering, isn’t it? There are more such comparisons that are just as staggering. The Falcon 9 booster fleet, for example, includes more than six times as many vehicles as the Shuttle fleet ever had at one time, while the cost to SpaceX of building the entire active Falcon 9 fleet is a fraction of what NASA spent to build each of the Shuttle orbiters.
I wonder if people will eventually hire the SpaceX Super Heavy Booster to launch larger/heavier payloads?
It is already proven itself reliable for single launches. SpaceX has reused dozens of the Super Heavy Booster engines.
I have no doubt that SuperHeavy will be useful.
It is always the second stages that wind up biting you.
Truax was right.
Falcon is–above all else–a comsat launcher.
Yes, it carries capsules to LEO…and the occasional probe.
I would prefer Falcon to have been built like the Saturn I, in that the first stage is more squat, and having legs between tanks might just allow that whole LV to land–and perhaps even take off–in the field.
Long before Elon, Bono and the ABMA were looking at troop rockets. I just don’t believe Starship can withstand the abuse a tank cluster can in that neither legs nor engines are attached to the tankage by itself.
There are no chopsticks on the battlefield.
Ronaldus Magnus,
I think a reusable 3-part hammerhead 2nd stage could be built to allow launch of very large space station modules of 50 – 60 feet in diameter. The lowest of the three parts, when stacked, would be a funnel-shaped propulsion and tankage unit with grid fins on its upper periphery. Next would be the space station module. Topping things off would be a unitary aeroshell. This would be made of stainless and have TPS tiles over its entire surface.
Once in orbit, the funnel and aeroshell ship parts would separate from the station module and then maneuver and hook back up to one another. This assemblage would retro-fire then flip to re-enter nose-first. Low and slow in the atmosphere, it would execute a flip maneuver and be caught by a chopstick tower while in an engines-down, nose-up hover.
There are, doubtless, other interesting special-purpose 2nd stages that could be designed for Super Heavy.
Jeff Wright,
A “whole [F9] LV” would never be able to land because it consists of two stages which have to separate to do their jobs and cannot rejoin each other to land as a unit.
Falcon 9 was always intended to be, primarily, a comsat launcher that also did odd jobs like ISS crew rotations and resupply as side gigs. In its early days, the comsats were expected to be GEO birds, but it has proven even better-adapted to hauling loads of LEO comsats uphill – mainly Starlinks, but many other sorts in notably lesser numbers as well.
Both Flights 10 and 11 demonstrated that Starship is capable of taking fairly considerable abuse and still function.
Bono and ABMA certainly spitballed some large troop carrier rocket concepts back in the day, but lack of battlefield catch towers would not prevent leg-equipped Starships from occupying that same logistical niche. Where all such concepts tend to come up shortest, however, is in how to provide even the partial propellant load required to allow one of these large beasts to execute a deadhead launch back to its point of origin. There don’t tend to be fleets of cryo tanker trucks running around on battlefields either.