SpaceX successfully launches four NASA astronauts to ISS
SpaceX tonight successfully launched four NASA astronauts to ISS, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral on the company’s eighth operational manned mission for NASA, and the thirteenth overall manned mission launched by SpaceX since May 2020.
The Dragon capsule, Endeavour, is flying its fifth manned flight. The first stage completed its first flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The crew is expected to dock with ISS on March 5, 2024. The crew is scheduled to fly a standard six month mission.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
20 SpaceX
10 China
3 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 23 to 19 in successful launches, while SpaceX now leads the rest of the world, excluding American companies 20 to 19.
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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.
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SpaceX tonight successfully launched four NASA astronauts to ISS, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral on the company’s eighth operational manned mission for NASA, and the thirteenth overall manned mission launched by SpaceX since May 2020.
The Dragon capsule, Endeavour, is flying its fifth manned flight. The first stage completed its first flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The crew is expected to dock with ISS on March 5, 2024. The crew is scheduled to fly a standard six month mission.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
20 SpaceX
10 China
3 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 23 to 19 in successful launches, while SpaceX now leads the rest of the world, excluding American companies 20 to 19.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
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.
SpaceX has now launched 50 people into space. With NASA’s Crew-9, Axiom’s AX-4 and Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn still intended for launch in 2024, SpaceX should have run that total up to 62 by year’s end. During the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, NASA launched 63 people. SpaceX should pass this mark with whatever Crew Dragon mission flies first in 2025 and begin the long stern chase toward exceeding NASA’s total of humans launched during the entire Shuttle era.
That will take awhile and may not be accomplished until the 2030s, though it might happen before then if SpaceX chooses to actively pursue more Polaris 3 and/or Dear Moon-style excursions once those pioneering missions are flown on Starships. How quickly and how aggressively SpaceX chooses to pursue a non-trivial lunar base build-out and initial manned expeditions to Mars is likely to be the key determinant in how long it takes for SpaceX to exceed NASA’s human launch total. I think that milestone is virtually certain to occur well within a decade of the present day.
If Starship pans out, Falcon won’t get to R-7 numbers—but that’s fine by me.
If there had been no shuttle—maybe we could have an OldSpace/NewSpace ASTP but with the last Apollo docking with the first Dragon ;)
A smoother transition.
Question–
Who is the over-excited young lady doing the color commentary?
I’ll drop this in here…
Prof. Brian Keating
“My (brief) conversation with Elon Musk: Cosmology, AI, and Dying on Mars.”
{excerpted from the recent Katherine Brodsky on X interview with Musk]
https://youtu.be/Yq0IqAT3BoI
7:52
(It’s amazing to hear intelligent people talk.)
The first segment is very good and may be of interest to the audience, “Starlink and Cosmic Microwave Background Research….”
I think last night was very interesting in that SpaceX launched Crew 8 to ISS from Cape Canaveral and conducted a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) of Starship /Super Heavy (Booster 10 / Ship 28) in Boca Chica Texas. Have not heard anything about success of WDR.
The answer to the question of who was the excitable young lady doing color commentary for Crew 8 could be one of several:
Megan Cruz is a NASA PR person who has done multiple livestreams. She seems a bit above average compared to most of the NASA PR talking heads.
Jesse Anderson, a SpaceX Mechanical Engineer, did some of the commentary.
There was another SpaceX lady engineer, a red head that I did not catch her name and was a new face on the SpaceX working engineers / talking head scene.
None of them seemed particularly excitable.
I do not think they will end the Falcon 9 manned launches to the ISS any time soon.
The lighter craft will place less stress on the station when it docks. Starship if it makes just one mistake while docked could cause a LOT of trouble to the station. The docking thrusters could actually be to much for the situation.
Plus exactly how many passengers will NASA allow to come aboard at one time? I do not think it will ever be more than 4 at one time.
How many astronauts went on the space shuttle? Will Starship take 10 at a time or 100? The future of space is so exciting
By the way, as I surmised last week, SpaceX did include the MVac stiffening ring on the Crew 8 launch! It would be interesting to know the process by which such a change as deleting it could propagate to human-rated status.
I predict a long career for the F9. It’s inexpensive and it works… whaddaya want?!
Just as importantly, continuing to use it in “production” keeps Starships and their special stage-zero facilities free for HLS uses – and every one of them is going to be pushed to the max to avoid impacting the Artemis schedule, and the inevitable race with the Chinese!
The only argument I can see against F9 is taking resources from developing/producing Raptors to producing an “old” line – Merlins. But maybe the future holds a (say) “F4”, using Raptors?!
Now I want a Saturn IB type cluster of Falcons…legs between the cores. That might limit sloshing. One to three Raptors on an upper stage.
The space shuttle was a bit special in that it actually housed all its own passengers while docked.
I suppose the starliner could do that also but at that point why?
It would have to stay docked to support the extra passengers and since it has all that extra room it will more than likely bring its own experiments for them to do. And if it did it would have no need to dock with the ISS.