The Russians announced that they plan nine more Proton rocket launches in 2013, for a total of twelve.
The competition heats up: The Russians announced today that they plan nine more Proton rocket launches in 2013, for a total of twelve.
I note this to give some context to what SpaceX will do with Falcon 9 this year. SpaceX has just updated its launch manifest schedule, and if the American company does what it says, it should have at least six more Falcon 9 flights this year, for a total of seven.
Should these predicted launches all take place, it will clearly demonstrate that SpaceX has grabbed a significant share of the launch market, but that the Russians are also holding their own.
Note also that the updated launch manifest still includes the first test flight of Falcon Heavy in 2013. Very interesting.
Update: The Russians are also preparing to launch their new Angara rocket family, which will replace their older rockets and allow them to launch from their new spaceport.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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
The competition heats up: The Russians announced today that they plan nine more Proton rocket launches in 2013, for a total of twelve.
I note this to give some context to what SpaceX will do with Falcon 9 this year. SpaceX has just updated its launch manifest schedule, and if the American company does what it says, it should have at least six more Falcon 9 flights this year, for a total of seven.
Should these predicted launches all take place, it will clearly demonstrate that SpaceX has grabbed a significant share of the launch market, but that the Russians are also holding their own.
Note also that the updated launch manifest still includes the first test flight of Falcon Heavy in 2013. Very interesting.
Update: The Russians are also preparing to launch their new Angara rocket family, which will replace their older rockets and allow them to launch from their new spaceport.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
Interesting indeed. The from-all-sources orbital/BEO launch schedule at spaceflightnow.com shows only three Protons scheduled between now and July 19, but nothing for the rest of this year. I’ll be looking for more entries/info to appear there – or not – about the remaining six putative Proton launches.
As for SpaceX, I’d be delighted if they got seven F9’s and the FH off the ground this year. But I’m dubious. The spaceflightnow.com schedule has proven fairly accurate and shows the same five F9 missions upcoming for 2013 that have been there for awhile: the high-inclination CASSIOPE mission out of Vandenberg in July, then two geosync comsats, a multi-satellite launch of the LEO Orbcomm comsats and the third ISS resupply mission slated for Veteran’s Day, all out of Canaveral. The new SpaceX manifest shows the fourth ISS resupply mission as scheduled this year too. That’s new. But I seem to recall that the FH test launch has been showing a 2013 date on the SpaceX manifest for a long time now. It’s not on spaceflightnow.com’s list, though, and neither is the CRS-4 mission.
I’d be, frankly, more inclined to think the FH might get off this year than that CRS-4 will. FH is going up out of Vandenberg and that’s a lot less busy a place than Canaveral. Plus, there are no ISS coordination issues involved.
With the first Orbital Antares/Cygnus mission to ISS having been delayed until September, which spaceflightnow.com’s schedule has been updated to show, even getting CRS-3 up later this year looks iffy now because of docking port congestion on the ISS. The Dragons only stay about a month before returning, but I believe the Cygnus is supposed to hang around longer than that. Maybe if CRS-3 was moved up to next month, CRS-4 could be done in CRS-3’s current slot late in the year. Hard to see how the ISS juggles all that resupply traffic otherwise.
Once again, though, I’d be absolutely delighted to be wrong about this.