ULA launches Delta-4 Heavy rocket on next-to-last flight
Early this morning ULA successfully place a National Reconnaissance Office classified surveillance satellite into orbit, using its Delta-4 Heavy rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
This was ULA’s its first launch in 2023. At the start of the year, the company’s manifest listed ten launches. Whether is can complete that manifest in the remaining six months is questionable, considering it has rarely managed a launch pace exceeding one launch per month in its entire history.
This launch was also the next-to-last for the Delta-4 Heavy. ULA is retiring that rocket and replacing it with the still-not-flown Vulcan rocket. The plan had been for there to be an overlap in use as one was retired and the other was initiated. That has not happened.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race remain the same:
42 SpaceX
24 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 48 to 24 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 48 to 40, with SpaceX by itself still leading the rest of the world, excluding other American companies, 42 to 40.
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
Early this morning ULA successfully place a National Reconnaissance Office classified surveillance satellite into orbit, using its Delta-4 Heavy rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
This was ULA’s its first launch in 2023. At the start of the year, the company’s manifest listed ten launches. Whether is can complete that manifest in the remaining six months is questionable, considering it has rarely managed a launch pace exceeding one launch per month in its entire history.
This launch was also the next-to-last for the Delta-4 Heavy. ULA is retiring that rocket and replacing it with the still-not-flown Vulcan rocket. The plan had been for there to be an overlap in use as one was retired and the other was initiated. That has not happened.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race remain the same:
42 SpaceX
24 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 48 to 24 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 48 to 40, with SpaceX by itself still leading the rest of the world, excluding other American companies, 42 to 40.
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
The Delta launch goes on the board as not American company?
John Hare: I had added it to the totals for American launches. Compare the numbers with the SpaceX launch just prior.
I got the total for American launches. What is confusing me is the SpaceX vs the rest of the world not including American companies changing from 42-40 up to 42-41 after the Delta launch.
john hare: Darn you are right. I wasn’t thinking. Now fixed.
Math has never been my forte. :)