Two launches today, from Rocket Lab and SpaceX
Early today both Rocket Lab and SpaceX successfully placed commercial payloads into orbit.
First, Rocket Lab successfully completed its 11th launch (out of a 27-launch contract) for the Japanese radar satellite company Synspective, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand.
Next, SpaceX placed 27 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage (B1063) completed its 35th flight (29 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this launch that booster moved into a tie for third place in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:
39 Discovery space shuttle (retired)
37 Falcon 9 booster B1067
35 Falcon 9 booster B1071
35 Falcon 9 booster B1063
33 Atlantis space shuttle (retired)
32 Falcon 9 booster B1069 (retired)
30 Falcon 9 booster B1077
30 Falcon 9 booster B1078
The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
105 SpaceX
55 China
13 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
11 Russia
For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 105 to 96.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
