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SpaceX launches oceanography satellite

10:26 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched an oceanography satellite using its Falcon 9 rocket from the company’s California launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base..

The first stage, making its first flight, successfully landed back on land near the launch site.

This was also SpaceX’s 21st successful launch in 2020, tying their record from 2018 for the most launches in a single year by a private company, ever. That record should be broken tomorrow, with their next Starlink launch.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

30 China
21 SpaceX
12 Russia
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

The U.S. now leads China 34 to 30 in the national rankings.

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

9 comments

9 comments

  • R.P. Nettelhorst
    November 21, 2020 at 11:21 pm

    Slight correction: it landed at LZ4, not on a drone ship.

  • Robert Zimmerman
    November 21, 2020 at 11:46 pm

    R.P. Nettelhorst: My mistake. I was out and about today, and only reported this when I got home. Should have watched the replay of the live stream. Post is now corrected. Thank you!

  • Ray Van Dune
    November 22, 2020 at 8:57 am

    Anyone know where you can access uncommented tracking camera video of the launch and landing? The people on NSF kept cutting away to talk amongst themselves, and could not seem to track the booster as it landed for more than two seconds.

  • Rodney
    November 22, 2020 at 11:16 am

    I have noticed something weird. Elon Musk and his SpaceX crew, in the last ten years, have:
    –completely upended the space launch paradigm, changed the way everyone is thinking of launch.
    –built and FLOWN a full flow Lox/Methane Engine
    –built and FLOWN Dragon 1 cargo vehicles and now Dragon 2 Crew capsules
    –and the list goes on

    And yet, they have not won the Collier Trophy
    Blue Origin has won a Collier Trophy.
    Why is this?

  • Sayomara
    November 22, 2020 at 2:09 pm

    Bob have you heard is spacex only doing flights out of Vandenberg where the first stage can be recovered. Spacex moved both its droneships to the east coast of Florida. Seems there is a movement away from Vandenberg but I don’t believe Spacex has another location for polar launches.

  • V-Man
    November 22, 2020 at 2:53 pm

    Rodney: people who break rice bowls and gore oxen don’t usually get thanked for it.

    Blue Origin, despite being relatively new, is part of the “old space” industry.

  • Robert Zimmerman
    November 22, 2020 at 3:11 pm

    Sayomara: I had not heard that, but SpaceX HAS another location now for polar launches, Cape Canaveral. They have done one such launch already.

  • Rodney
    November 22, 2020 at 4:18 pm

    I believe the reason that both drone ships are on the East Coast is that there is a Falcon Heavy Launch coming up (#4) next Februrary. The payload requires that the FH recover their side boosters on drone ships–not on land and hence the requirements for two ships–and they will expend the core. I think this is all driven by the requirement of getting a lot of payload to geosynchronous.

    V-Man: With respect to broken rice bowls and gored oxen, will we ever get out of living in this Junior High School Cafeteria/Mean Girls Hell World?

  • wayne
    November 23, 2020 at 7:03 am

    I’ll stick this in here—
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_the_starlink_team_ask_us_anything/

    and….

    Starlink Dish TEARDOWN! – Part 1
    Mike on Space
    November 22, 2020
    https://youtu.be/QudtSo5tpLk
    33:41

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