SpaceX launches two astronauts to ISS, setting new annual launch record for the U.S.
SpaceX this morning launched two astronauts to ISS in the fourth flight of the Freedom Dragon capsule, the Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its second flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. Freedom will dock with ISS tomorrow.
While most news stories will focus on the rescue aspect of this mission, its crew reduced by two so that the two astronauts launched in June on Boeing’s Starliner capsule can come home on it in February, the real news story is that with this launch the United States set a new record for the number of launches in a single year. With this launch the U.S. has completed 111 successful launches in 2024, exceeding the record set last year’s of 110 launches. And this record was achieved in less than three quarters of the year. At this rate is it very likely the U.S. will double the record of 70 set in 1966 that lasted until 2022.
China meanwhile completed its own launch late yesterday, its Long March 2D rocket placing what China’s state-run press described as “its first reusable and returnable test satellite,” designed to do orbital operations and experiments, return to Earth with those materials, and then later relaunch again. This is very similar to the commercial capsules that the startup Varda is flying and using to produce pharmaceuticals for sale.
The rocket lifted off from China’s Jiquan spaceport in northwest China. No word where its lower stages, using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
95 SpaceX
44 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 111 to 67, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 95 to 83.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to 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.
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SpaceX this morning launched two astronauts to ISS in the fourth flight of the Freedom Dragon capsule, the Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its second flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. Freedom will dock with ISS tomorrow.
While most news stories will focus on the rescue aspect of this mission, its crew reduced by two so that the two astronauts launched in June on Boeing’s Starliner capsule can come home on it in February, the real news story is that with this launch the United States set a new record for the number of launches in a single year. With this launch the U.S. has completed 111 successful launches in 2024, exceeding the record set last year’s of 110 launches. And this record was achieved in less than three quarters of the year. At this rate is it very likely the U.S. will double the record of 70 set in 1966 that lasted until 2022.
China meanwhile completed its own launch late yesterday, its Long March 2D rocket placing what China’s state-run press described as “its first reusable and returnable test satellite,” designed to do orbital operations and experiments, return to Earth with those materials, and then later relaunch again. This is very similar to the commercial capsules that the startup Varda is flying and using to produce pharmaceuticals for sale.
The rocket lifted off from China’s Jiquan spaceport in northwest China. No word where its lower stages, using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
95 SpaceX
44 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 111 to 67, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 95 to 83.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
SpaceX isn’t building any new Dragon capsules because they see it as a dead end. And meanwhile FAA drags its feet.
SpaceX is currently building a new Crew Dragon which is to be used on one of next year’s ISS crew rotation missions – Crew 10, I think. SpaceX will retain the ability to build additional Crew Dragon – and Cargo Dragon, for that matter – vehicles should future demand exceed what the current fleet can service.
Vast, for example, seems likely to be the first to actually put a commercial space station in LEO. Their Haven-1 station will be small, but will need the use of a Crew Dragon for 30 days at a time for each mission it supports. If demand for use of Haven-1 proves robust, Vast is certainly capable of putting up a Haven-2 – or even Havens of higher number – to service it. This would likely induce SpaceX to build one or more Crew Dragons beyond the number currently planned.
But initial success by Vast would also bolster the financial prospects of the other corporate entities now working to produce larger LEO space stations. These would also need crew transport services and cargo transport services as well – more incentive for SpaceX to potentially produce additional Dragons.
When SLS / Orion / Lunar Gateway is finally canned because it becomes obvious that HLS can do LEO-Moon-LEO on its own, there will still be a need to get crew from the surface of the Earth to HLS and back down again. It may be quite a while (or never) before crew will launch in a no-abort HLS, and it will never re-enter, lacking a heat shield and fins.
Will anybody want to build that LEO-taxi capsule, or will they be focused on LEO / Lunar stations that they perceive are more lucrative and cutting edge? Dragon and/or its bigger derivatives may be with us for a long time.
“Dragon and/or its bigger derivatives may be with us for a long time.”
And thus, so could be F9s to hump it back and forth.
Watched Crew 9 coverage on NASA YouTube channel. I think it is getting a little less vapid with more interesting nuggets of info while waiting for the actual launch.
As an old guy who has watched US spaceflight since Allan Shepard in Freedom 7 and thought, as a teenager, that we had arrived at modern spaceflight with the rapid cadence Gemini missions, I thought this nugget from a slide shown during the broadcast was interesting:
Crew Dragon Spacecraft
Endeavor – DM-2, Crew-2, 6, 8, Ax-1,
Resilience – Crew-1, Inspiration 4, Polaris Dawn
Endurance – Crew 3,5,7
Freedom – Crew 9, Ax-2,3
So, 14 crewed missions on 4 spacecraft since May of 2020. This exceeds the number of Gemini missions though not the cadence of the 10 rapid fire Gemini missions in a 20-month time span.
Long way to go to catch up with Shuttle’s 135 missions on 5 spacecraft but I suspect that it will get there more quickly than Shuttle got to their 135.
Agree with Dick Eagleson that appearance of Haven will positively impact demand for missions. Will observe for about the 20th time on this site, that one Starship place in orbit gets you about the same livable volume that ISS currently possesses.
SpaceX is one of the bright lights in an otherwise dismal landscape. Can imagine so many variations of Dragon and Starship for a variety of missions. Get out of the way FAA!! Go SpaceX!!!