SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites
After a ten day pause in launches, which included one launch abort at T-0, SpaceX yesterday successfully launched 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The pause is noteworthy because it is possibly SpaceX’s longest pause in launches this year (I haven’t gone back and checked). Consider this fact: A ten day pause between launches would have once been considered a fast launch pace. Now it seems like something is wrong.
The rocket’s first stage completed its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
63 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled for later today)
27 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 73 to 41, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 63 to 51.
After a ten day pause in launches, which included one launch abort at T-0, SpaceX yesterday successfully launched 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The pause is noteworthy because it is possibly SpaceX’s longest pause in launches this year (I haven’t gone back and checked). Consider this fact: A ten day pause between launches would have once been considered a fast launch pace. Now it seems like something is wrong.
The rocket’s first stage completed its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
63 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled for later today)
27 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 73 to 41, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 63 to 51.