SpaceX successfully launches another 49 Starlink satellites
Capitalism in space: SpaceX successfully completed its third launch in four days today, launching 49 Starlink satellites into orbit on its Falcon 9 rocket.
At the time of writing, the satellites themselves have not yet deployed. The first stage, flying its sixth mission, landed successfully. The two fairing halves were flying their sixth and fourth flights.
The 2022 launch race:
6 SpaceX
2 China
1 Virgin Orbit
1 ULA
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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.
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Capitalism in space: SpaceX successfully completed its third launch in four days today, launching 49 Starlink satellites into orbit on its Falcon 9 rocket.
At the time of writing, the satellites themselves have not yet deployed. The first stage, flying its sixth mission, landed successfully. The two fairing halves were flying their sixth and fourth flights.
The 2022 launch race:
6 SpaceX
2 China
1 Virgin Orbit
1 ULA
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 the past two weeks has the 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.
This also marks 112 consecutive successful flights, most of which were flown on re-used boosters. That’s the highest number of consecutive successes of any rocket, past or present.
A somewhat more useless factoid: Falcon 9 has flown as many successful flights as the Space Shuttle, in one-third the time.
BTW, Bob, Eric Berger has a beautiful entry candidate for your “Capitalism in Space” update files today. Falcon 9 has not only flown more times than the Shuttle in a third of the time (all while iterating to develop first stage landing and reuse!), but it now has more consecutive successful launches than any other launch vehicle in history (112). And at such a low cost!
Amazing what entrepreneurship can accomplish, isn’t it?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-has-set-a-record-for-most-consecutive-successes/
P.S. I see Diane has the same reading bookmarks as I do!
Sadly it will will not match R-7 that has launched 2000 times or so. You’d think the coking free SSME’s could have been turned around faster.
Starship will probably be the one to beat the R-7 record. If they really want a million people on Mars by the end of the century, they will need at least ten thousand starship launches, probably a lot more.
From the Ars Technica article:
Also not included in this launch tally is the partial failure of a Falcon 9 rocket on another, though earlier, ISS supply mission, in which the supply mission was completed, but due to an engine failure, the secondary payload was not released into orbit, as it may have endangered the ISS.
It is hard to find a comparable tally, but three payloads were lost atop three different Falcon 9 rockets.
The conclusion of the article is telling:
It was a mere seven years ago that people were doubting the economics and safety of reusing these boosters.
One Hundred and Five….
Successful Landing recoveries……
The Fifties! Has now arrived…
In 2022 !!!
What happened here?
“Fireballs over Puerto Rico likely from doomed Starlink batch”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUlAz_Oxv4Q
The sun defended the astronomers against Musk’s insolence!
“How the sun JUST destroyed 40 SpaceX Starlink satellites”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUqOZLIiKpQ
questioner–
interesting stuff.
a quick backgrounder….
“How Do Starlink Satellites Navigate To Their Final Operational Orbits?”
Scott Manley (august 2021)
https://youtu.be/VIQr1UyhwWk
12:34
Questioner–
“SpaceX Loses 40 Satellites To Solar Storm”
Scott Manley (Feb 9, 2022)
https://youtu.be/9kIcEFyEPgA
11:02