SpaceX resumes launches with a bang!
Within hours of the FAA clearing SpaceX to resume launches, the company did so most emphatically, launching twice in little more than an hour apart from opposite coasts.
First the company placed 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
Then, one hour and five minutes later, the company launched 21 Starlink satellites, the Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg in California. That first stage completed its ninth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
This fast return to flight underlines the unnecessary delay of at least one day in launches caused by the FAA’s red tape. SpaceX had scheduled at least one of these launches the previous night — and was clearly ready to launch — but had to cancel it because the FAA stood in the way.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
86 SpaceX
36 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 101 to 54, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies 86 to 69.
2024 is now the second year in a row the U.S. rocket industry has completed more than 100 launches, something it could not do for the first three-quarters of a century after Sputnik, when our precious government used NASA to run our entire space program. Now that freedom and capitalism has managed to wrest some control away from NASA, Americans are finally doing what they would have done in the 1960s, had Congress and President Kennedy not stepped in, first requiring all space exploration be run under a “space program” controlled by NASA, and then passing the Communications Satellite Act in 1962 which forbid Americans from running private profit-oriented launches without government participation.
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
Within hours of the FAA clearing SpaceX to resume launches, the company did so most emphatically, launching twice in little more than an hour apart from opposite coasts.
First the company placed 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
Then, one hour and five minutes later, the company launched 21 Starlink satellites, the Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg in California. That first stage completed its ninth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
This fast return to flight underlines the unnecessary delay of at least one day in launches caused by the FAA’s red tape. SpaceX had scheduled at least one of these launches the previous night — and was clearly ready to launch — but had to cancel it because the FAA stood in the way.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
86 SpaceX
36 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 101 to 54, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies 86 to 69.
2024 is now the second year in a row the U.S. rocket industry has completed more than 100 launches, something it could not do for the first three-quarters of a century after Sputnik, when our precious government used NASA to run our entire space program. Now that freedom and capitalism has managed to wrest some control away from NASA, Americans are finally doing what they would have done in the 1960s, had Congress and President Kennedy not stepped in, first requiring all space exploration be run under a “space program” controlled by NASA, and then passing the Communications Satellite Act in 1962 which forbid Americans from running private profit-oriented launches without government participation.
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
Mr. Zimmerman:
Did SpaceX ever issue a formal finding of what went wrong with the booster’s landing? Looking at the only video I could find it appeared that one of the landing legs either failed to latch in position, or simply collapsed under load.
It would be interesting to see how the team looking at that assessed the failure mode and addressed a correction.
Blackwing1: No final report has been released at this moment. In addition the FAA in allowing launches to resume noted that it was doing so while the investigation proceeds.
I would not be surprised if SpaceX never issues a public report. It isn’t required to, and this is proprietary information. I also expect them to tell us some basic details at some point.
Jan……10
Feb…….9
Mar…..13 (1 was IFT-3 of Starship/Super Heavy)
Apr…..12
May….13
June…12 (1 was IFT-4 of Starship/Super Heavy, 1 was Falcon Heavy)
July……5 (FAA stand down of two weeks)
Aug.…12
134 (12 flights monthly for remaining 4 months)
138 (13 flights monthly for remaining 4 months)
142 (14 flights monthly for remaining 4 months)
The lifting of the pause coming so quickly after the pause itself was so brief as to preclude ANY real investigation.
If there were any real danger—the FAA would have kept the grounding in place.
Not only has SpaceX made history with quick-turnarounds, but this may be a record short grounding.
Has any other aviation even had such a short pause?
You had me worried for a moment. (As Sigfried might say) Zis iz zee space industry, we don’t say “bang” here!
How about “Resumes launches with a roar”.
“Americans are finally doing what they would have done in the 1960s, had Congress and President Kennedy not stepped in”
That’s an interesting thought. How much did Kennedy/Gov’t policy interfere? Without that interference what would private space have looked like in the 60’s, 70’s 80’s? I don’t see a case for business to have invested in space at the time other than perhaps some broadcast/telephone relay satellites. With the technology of the time rockets etc were very expensive and there wasn’t a market for the services. Most of SpaceX’s launches have been for their internet service – no internet in 1965 (or ’75, and not much in ’85).
And even today’s 101 American launches are only 15 without SpaceX!
It’s not that SpaceX is choking the competition with their cost advantage – that may happen, but now the other players (BO, ULA, Ariannespace etc) are not hobbled by a lack of customers, they are hobbled by a lack of functioning hardware.
So what would American space look like in 2024 if Elon Musk hadn’t decided to start a rocket company?
Mitch S: I have written about the negative effects of the 1962 satellite act elsewhere. Prior to its passage, ATT had already privately financed the building of several Telstar satellites and paid for their launch, in order to demontrate its plans to build a constellation of satellites (in the mid-1960s!) linked to ground stations that would replace the undersea communications cables that were very expensive, difficult to maintain, and very limited in capability. Ma Bell figured it could quickly and for much less money replace those cables with these satellites, and proved it with the first two Telstar launches.
Congress and Kennedy then stepped in and took control, blocking ATT’s effort. The new law mandated that all communications satellities had to built and launched by the quasi-private company Comsat, which was partly run by the feds. Had these government control freaks not interfered, ATT would have been using private money to launch a large satellite constellation in the early 1960s, thus providing lots of business for the rocket companies that were building rockets for NASA.
The law also blocked U.S. television and cable companies from launching their own satellites, which is why the first direct broadcast satellites were launched by Japan, for Japanese customers. It wasn’t until Nixon in the early 1970s that the law was changed, allowing American companies to finally launch their own satellites. However by that time the shuttle was about to go into operation, and NASA and the feds then mandated that all commercial launches had to be launched on it, thus destroying the already weakened American rocket industry of that time.
Had the government left people free to follow their own dreams, we would have seen today’s rennaissance in American rocketry happen in the 1960s.
Blackwing1 asked: “Did SpaceX ever issue a formal finding of what went wrong with the booster’s landing? Looking at the only video I could find it appeared that one of the landing legs either failed to latch in position, or simply collapsed under load.”
I found two videos that speculate on what went wrong.
Scott Manley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJjRpeO5FXs (13 minutes)
NASASpaceFlight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcSd3lnSNXM (20 minutes)
One possibility is that a tank went dry just at landing, causing a hard touchdown. Evidence of this includes the engines striking the deck, causing damage and the fire.
Another possibility is that the legs wear out. A failed leg could also cause the engines to strike the deck. Since swapping out legs is relatively easy, we do not know whether the legs on this booster have only 23 landings or more than that. One thing that had been reported some years back is that the gridfins are swapped out often in order to reduce the number of these very expensive items. Maybe they do something similar with the legs.
Could it have been a radar or navigation problem? The telemetry data Never quite reaches zero km/hr.
Perhaps the seas were too rough for a safe landing, resulting in events similar to an early engine cutoff. It could happen.
We probably won’t see the final report, because it may discuss proprietary items, but we may hear a less detailed and more general explanation of what happened. SpaceX likely has a good idea of the root cause, otherwise they probably would have not resumed launches.
_______________
Robert wrote: “… [government] then mandated that all commercial launches had to be launched on [the Shuttle], thus destroying the already weakened American rocket industry of that time.”
Not quite destroying it, but it came close. By the time of Challenger and the resulting decision to reverse the mandate to launch everything on the Shuttle, the Titan, Atlas, and Delta families of launch vehicles were still working through a backlog and survived by the skin of their teeth (or whatever is the rocket equivalent). The Ariane family of launch vehicles benefitted greatly, because they were available when the U.S. rocket fleet was trying to wind back up, after Challenger. Even Russia and China launched some U.S. commercial payloads. The U.S. launch industry never quite recovered — costing too much and launching too infrequently — until SpaceX started reusing its Falcon 9 boosters.
“Had the government left people free to follow their own dreams, we would have seen today’s rennaissance in American rocketry happen in the 1960s.”
Even in the early 1980s, Robert Truax wanted to start a commercial launch company, but the Shuttle mandate prevented it. Even after Challenger, it still took a decade and a half for self-made multi-millionaires to fund their own commercial rocket companies, because government still held a stranglehold on launches and rocket design. If it hadn’t been for President Bush’s COTS program, we would certainly still be in the Dark Ages of the Space Age.
1. From what I’ve heard, SpaceX has a pretty clear idea of just what went wrong, and have informed the FAA of this. But neither they nor the FAA have made any statement offering any details.
2. I think the FAA deserves some credit for approving SpaceX’s application for a determination so quickly – like, less than 24 hours. I also think the FAA rules on which they based the flight suspension need a major rework to reduce the grounds.
Richard M: It is probably asking too much, but maybe the FAA’s rules should be based on the restrictions outlined clearly in the ninth and tenth amendments of the Bill of Rights. In other words, it isn’t its right to approve or control what any American does, not if it is going to abuse what little power might have been ceded to it in the past.
Mr. Zimmerman:
Thank you for taking the time to reply. As a former mechanical design engineer I’m mostly interested in the design aspect of what failed, rather than the bureaucratic hoops they have to jump through for the fed.gov paperwork.
Edward:
Thanks for the input. Just looking at the video it didn’t appear to me to have been related to a hard touchdown. It looked perfectly normal, although since the camera is secured to the drone ship any pitching or heaving of the deck wouldn’t be readily apparent. I was thinking more in terms of a latching mechanism failure, or simply an over-stressed leg after so many completed missions.
We’ll just have to see what they eventually tell us, as long as it doesn’t reveal any of their technical “secrets”.
One of the notable points of the 1962 restriction on private comsats is that France was having real problems with the idea of not controlling what their population heard on TV. They were already screwing around over NATO, and this was yet another irritant. Fortunately, for the the dirigisme State, they had contacts with the WH, through the Bouvier family (Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy) that made their objections to non-State broadcasting from orbit known.
Meanwhile, the GEO comsat problem with lack of power could be solved by using vastly larger ground antennas, that the French State could license, or pull the license for, at their pleasure. Thus was INTELSAT substituted for the Telstar series and its successors. The Kennedy mafia could thus get around constitutional objections by portraying this as a purely foreign affairs matter, while ignoring those money-grubbing businessmen at AT&T.
It was a successful end-run around the US Constitution, that placed well-connected members of the Demcratic Party’s coalition in charge of foreign news flows, and made sure the industry knew just who was in charge, if they wanted to make money.
Jeff Wright 3:10 pm
Yes, Erich Hartmann landed for emergency repairs to his ME-Bf 109 canopy due to a ‘few’ bullet holes. His crew told him they would have to wait a day for a replacement. He laughed & said “Klebe sie über”. Then up & away.
Chopsticks work under way!
https://x.com/labpadre/status/1830374488095043679?s=46
Robert and Tom Billings, thanks. Those posts explain a lot.
Seems trying to control the information the public gets to see is not new.
The “quick approval” might just be because of the backlash of PUBLIC OPINION that the HOLD was nothing more than a petty tyrant hitting back at MR. MUSK for his ENDORSEMENT of PRESIDENT TRUMP! I put NOTHING past the pettiness of the HARRIS/biden bunglers!
Tom Billings wrote: “One of the notable points of the 1962 restriction on private comsats is that France was having real problems with the idea of not controlling what their population heard on TV.”
Comsats now point their broadcast horns at reflectors, which can be formed to direct their broadcasts to specific areas and avoid others, rather than broadcasting directly from horns. For instance, Cuba does not want arbitrary U.S. broadcasts getting to their people, so reflectors for the U.S. are shaped in a way that the signal drops off in the 90 miles between Florida and Cuba.
A second advantage to focusing the broadcast to specified areas is that the signal will be stronger than if it were spread out covering the whole face of the Earth.