SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launches the Space Force’s X-37B
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket tonight successfully launched one of the two X-37B reuseable mini-shuttles in the Space Force’s fleet, lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
This was the seventh X-37B flight. It is not clear which of the two vehicles was flying, and how many flights it has completed previously. The previous X-37B flight stayed in orbit for a record 908 days, landing safely in November 2022.
The two side boosters completed their fifth flight, landing safely back at Cape Canaveral. The center core was treated as expendable, and was not recovered.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
95 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled later tonight)
65 China
19 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 109 to 65, and the entire world combined 109 to 102. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 95 to 102.
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’s Falcon Heavy rocket tonight successfully launched one of the two X-37B reuseable mini-shuttles in the Space Force’s fleet, lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
This was the seventh X-37B flight. It is not clear which of the two vehicles was flying, and how many flights it has completed previously. The previous X-37B flight stayed in orbit for a record 908 days, landing safely in November 2022.
The two side boosters completed their fifth flight, landing safely back at Cape Canaveral. The center core was treated as expendable, and was not recovered.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
95 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled later tonight)
65 China
19 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 109 to 65, and the entire world combined 109 to 102. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 95 to 102.
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
Is it my imagination, or did that Falcon Heavy accelerate upwards off the pad at a very high rate?! High thrust / weight ratio for the win!
This is the seventh X-37B flight.
Dick Eagleson: You are right. I forgot to add tonight’s launch into the total. Now fixed.
Do we know what was really inside that fairing?
:)
Ray Van Dune-
now that you mention it, yeah appears to accelerate more than the Falcon 9. (just comparing the two clips I’ve watched)
Logically, it should, right?
Night launches are always visually exciting. The downside is, difficult to get a good perspective sometimes, of what is actually going on. (a 1st world problem…)
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Jeff:
do we every really know, exactly what is going on?
Capricorn One (1978)
Mars Landing Scene
https://youtu.be/2LhsuPLvtFk
3:26
I hated that movie.
My first guess was that FH was empty and X-37 on the second Falcon—the FH a distraction to get China’s eyes looking in the wrong ground track.