SpaceX successfully launches another 51 Starlink satellites
Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 51 Starlink satellites into orbit.
At publication, the deployment of the satellites is still about 25 minutes away. [Update: deployment successful.] SpaceX now has about 1,500 working Starlink satellites in orbit.
The Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed on its drone ship, the tenth flight of this stage, tying the record for the most reuses. Both fairings were also reused. This was also the first Starlink launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base. SpaceX intends to do monthly Starlink launches from Vandenberg for the rest of the year.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:
31 China
22 SpaceX
14 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
The U.S. now leads China 33 to 31 in the national rankings.
SpaceX will also launch in two days the first ever entirely private orbital mission to space, whereby it has been hired to carry four private astronauts for three days on the highest orbit since the 2009 last shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
That flight will inaugurate a schedule of almost monthly private manned commercial missions to orbit, extending into next year and possibly forever. The present schedule:
- September 15, 2021: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule flies four private citizens on a three day orbital flight
- October 2021: The Russians will fly two passengers to ISS for 10 days to shoot a movie
- December 2021: The Russians will fly billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant to ISS for 12 days
- cDecember 2021: Space Adventures, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four in orbit for five days
- January 2022: Axiom, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four tourists to ISS
- 2022-2024: Three more Axiom tourist flights on Dragon to ISS
- 2024: Axiom begins launching its own modules to ISS, starting construction of its own private space station
- c2024: SpaceX’s Starship takes Yusaku Maezawa and several others on a journey around the Moon.
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 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
Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 51 Starlink satellites into orbit.
At publication, the deployment of the satellites is still about 25 minutes away. [Update: deployment successful.] SpaceX now has about 1,500 working Starlink satellites in orbit.
The Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed on its drone ship, the tenth flight of this stage, tying the record for the most reuses. Both fairings were also reused. This was also the first Starlink launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base. SpaceX intends to do monthly Starlink launches from Vandenberg for the rest of the year.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:
31 China
22 SpaceX
14 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman
The U.S. now leads China 33 to 31 in the national rankings.
SpaceX will also launch in two days the first ever entirely private orbital mission to space, whereby it has been hired to carry four private astronauts for three days on the highest orbit since the 2009 last shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
That flight will inaugurate a schedule of almost monthly private manned commercial missions to orbit, extending into next year and possibly forever. The present schedule:
- September 15, 2021: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule flies four private citizens on a three day orbital flight
- October 2021: The Russians will fly two passengers to ISS for 10 days to shoot a movie
- December 2021: The Russians will fly billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant to ISS for 12 days
- cDecember 2021: Space Adventures, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four in orbit for five days
- January 2022: Axiom, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four tourists to ISS
- 2022-2024: Three more Axiom tourist flights on Dragon to ISS
- 2024: Axiom begins launching its own modules to ISS, starting construction of its own private space station
- c2024: SpaceX’s Starship takes Yusaku Maezawa and several others on a journey around the Moon.
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 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
This is a particularly notable launch for Starlink I think because the launches from Vandenberg are being placed in polar orbits (note the satellite track on the map during the pauses in live coverage show Falcon 9 flew dead south from southern CA). As they build up the population of satellites in this orbit it will expand Starlink service to high latitude regions, including I expect Alaska, all of the Arctic and Antarctic research stations, Scandinavia, Siberia, etc.
So in a year or two it will be possible to have a 500Mb internet connection ANYWHERE on planet Earth, and that is a truly spectacular achievement. Congratulations SpaceX!
So there‘s no place to “get away from it all” anymore? A small part of me thinks this is wrong.
David M. Cook – There =is= a place to get away from it all. Called the “power” button, simply switch it to “off”. Works wonders for me, periodically.
And OneWeb just deployed 34 of their satellites. There are now over 300 OneWeb satellites now.
I see there are other up and coming companies, but which one will be in third place?