SpaceX launches Europe’s Hera asteroid mission
SpaceX today successfully launched the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera asteroid mission to the binary asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its 23rd rocket, but was not recovered in order to maximum the fuel used to send Hera on its proper route. The fairings completed their 13th and 19th flights respectively.
Hera will do a follow-up rendezvous with the binary asteroids to get a close-up look at the consequences of the Dart impact back in 2022 of Dimorphos.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
96 SpaceX
44 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 113 to 67, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 96 to 84.
For SpaceX, this launch ties the record the company set last year for the number of launches of a private company in a single year, and it did so in just more than three-quarters of the year. The company’s goal of 144 launches in 2024 remains possible, assuming the federal government stopped blocking its operations. For example, the FAA granted the company permission for this one launch, but maintained its grounding of further launches because an upper stage did not land safely in the ocean in the exact right spot.
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SpaceX today successfully launched the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera asteroid mission to the binary asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its 23rd rocket, but was not recovered in order to maximum the fuel used to send Hera on its proper route. The fairings completed their 13th and 19th flights respectively.
Hera will do a follow-up rendezvous with the binary asteroids to get a close-up look at the consequences of the Dart impact back in 2022 of Dimorphos.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
96 SpaceX
44 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 113 to 67, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 96 to 84.
For SpaceX, this launch ties the record the company set last year for the number of launches of a private company in a single year, and it did so in just more than three-quarters of the year. The company’s goal of 144 launches in 2024 remains possible, assuming the federal government stopped blocking its operations. For example, the FAA granted the company permission for this one launch, but maintained its grounding of further launches because an upper stage did not land safely in the ocean in the exact right spot.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
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.
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