SpaceX successfully launches commercial communications satellite
SpaceX tonight successfully launched a commercial communications satellite. They did not recover the first stage because the seas were too rough to send out the drone ship.
The leaders in the 2018 launch standings:
7 China
5 SpaceX
3 Japan
3 ULA
2 Russia
Though I have removed Rocket Lab as an American company, crediting it instead to New Zealand, the U.S. still has 8 successful launches total, one more than China.
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SpaceX tonight successfully launched a commercial communications satellite. They did not recover the first stage because the seas were too rough to send out the drone ship.
The leaders in the 2018 launch standings:
7 China
5 SpaceX
3 Japan
3 ULA
2 Russia
Though I have removed Rocket Lab as an American company, crediting it instead to New Zealand, the U.S. still has 8 successful launches total, one more than China.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
Posing the interesting question… If the landing site has bad weather do you still launch, in an era of reusable vehicles?
For future contracts, you’d expect them to include landing site weather based launch delays.
Interesting that they launched this one with the pricey titanium grid fins. Mr. Musk’s Gulfstream G650 was circling at 35,000 ft in the vicinity of the landing site, so hopefully they got the data they wanted.
https://twitter.com/naabvb_v2/status/970893900566224897
The plane might have been sent out there to test the self-destruct mechanism. No need to announce it to the public.