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SpaceX launches European/Japanese climate satellite

11:44 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched a joint European/Japanese satellite designed to study the climate, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its seventh flight, landing safely back at Vandenberg. This was also SpaceX’s second launch today, from opposite coasts.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

57 SpaceX
23 China
7 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 65 to 36, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 57 to 44.

Genesis cover

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

4 comments

4 comments

  • Ray Van Dune
    May 29, 2024 at 8:26 am

    I noticed that the second stage used a stubby engine bell, and that the booster was recovered RTLS, from a Sun-synchronous orbit no less. SpaceX hardly broke a sweat on that one.

  • pzatchok
    May 29, 2024 at 3:41 pm

    I was just wondering.

    In a situation like this or even on a normal Starlink launch does Space X have any payload capacity leftover?
    How long does the second stage stay in orbit on average before naturally coming back down?

    I was just wondering if a shortwave or ham operator transceiver could be added to the second stage for free. If they could be made for just a couple hundred bucks and only weigh just a few kilo’s I can see a nice ham operator bonus to this.

    If they could stay up for just a few weeks to a month it would be cheaper than a dedicated satellite.

  • Edward
    May 29, 2024 at 7:42 pm

    pzatchok asked: “I was just wondering.

    “In a situation like this or even on a normal Starlink launch does Space X have any payload capacity leftover?
    “How long does the second stage stay in orbit on average before naturally coming back down?”

    My understanding is that the current version of Starlink being launched, Starlink v2 mini, not only fills the fairing pretty well but comes close to the maximum weight capacity of the Falcon 9. It is a reduced version of the one they had hoped to be launching on Starship by now, and they tried to keep as much Starlink capability in it as possible.

    Falcon 9 has a 39,000 lb. capacity, when recovered on a drone ship. The Starlink v2 mini is 1,630 lb. each. Thus, Falcon 9 can carry up to 23.9 Starlink V2 minis. I would say that there is a leftover capacity of around 1,450 lb., but 1) a piggyback payload will need some amount of mass for its own interface and release mechanism, and 2) there is some amount of mass used for the Starlink interface and release devices, and that alone eats into that 3/4 ton leftover mass.

    In an internet search, I didn’t find much on the upper stage deorbit maneuvers, but SpaceX has been intentionally keeping leftover propellants in order to remove upper stages from orbit. It seems that they tend to reenter them off the west coast of Australia, similar to their current plans for Starship tests. This may not happen on the first day in orbit, however.

    I found this page in response to a question posed into the inter-webs, but the dates on the answers are a bit old:
    https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/7814/what-happens-to-the-falcon-9-second-stage-after-payload-separation

  • Jeff Wright
    June 1, 2024 at 1:18 pm

    The latest attack on climate skeptics
    https://forum.cosmoquest.org/forum/science-and-space/science-and-technology/3733352-addressing-climate-change-deniers

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