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.
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
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.
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
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.