An evening pause: As the New Year will arrive over the weekend, let’s celebrate the New Year now. Happy New Year to all my readers! Thank you all for your support, that in the end made this year the most successful since this website was founded. May the future bring us all joy and happiness, despite the mad ones around us.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
SpaceX today successfully completed static fire tests on both Superheavy and Starship prototypes intended to fly on its next orbital test flight.
The video at the link is four hours long. The Starship engine burn occurs at 1 hour 15 minutes and lasts about five seconds. The Superheavy burn takes place at 2 hours 42 minutes, and lasts about ten seconds. Both burns appeared to operate exactly as planned, though obviously an inspection of the launchpad under Superheavy will have to take place to see if its deluge system operated as intended.
Once again, SpaceX is demonstrating that it will be ready to go for the third orbital test launch of this rocket in mere weeks. Based on these tests today as well as past operations, it seems that all the company needs to do now is stack Starship on top of Superheavy, do another dress rehearsal countdown, and then go.
It won’t however. There is no word from the FAA on when it will issue a launch permit. Based on the previous launch, it will likely not issue the permit when SpaceX says it has completed its investigation of the last launch and is ready to fly again. Instead it will take another month or two writing up its own report (which will essentially reword what SpaceX has told it). Then, once the FAA is finished only then will the Fish and Wildlife Service begin to write up its report (as happened in the fall), causing further delays.
I repeat my prediction from November: No launch until March, at the earliest. The federal government continues to stand in the way of progress, and freedom.
Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.
SpaceX tonight launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral less than three hours after a Falcon Heavy lifted off from its second launchpad at Cape Canaveral, carrying an X-37B mini-shuttle.
The first stage successfully completed its twelfth flight, landing safely on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
96 SpaceX
65 China
19 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 110 to 65, and the entire world combined 110 to 102. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 96 to 102.
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.
An evening pause: Performed live 2011.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
JAXA, Japan’s space agency, announced today that it has now scheduled the next test launch of its new H3 rocket for February 15, 2024.
This rocket, built by Mitsubishi for JAXA, is supposed to replace the H2A rocket, which completed its last launch in September 2023. The H3 was supposed to be flying years ago, but has experienced numerous engineering problems throughout its development. It was initially supposed to launch in 2020, but was first delayed to 2021 because of “engine issues,” which were later described as cracks and holes in the engine’s combustion chamber.
That launch date was never met. When JAXA was gearing up to launch in 2022 news sources revealed another yearlong delay until 2023 because of new engine problems, which appeared to require a complete engine redesign.
Then in February 2023 the rocket’s first launch attempt was aborted at T-0 when the two strap-on solid rocket boosters failed to ignite. A second launch attempt a month later failed when the second stage failed during launch.
Even if the rocket successfully launches in February, it still leaves Japan far behind the rest of the space-faring industry. The H3 is entirely expendable, and is far more expensive to launch than the new reuseable rockets in use or being developed by numerous private American companies or other nations. JAXA says it hopes to launch it six times a year, but I can’t imagine it getting even a third that number of customers.
What Japan’s government really needs to do is to get the launch business away from JAXA completely. Let other companies besides Mitsubishi build their own rockets and have JAXA buy their services, rather than try to design its own rockets. This system is working marvelously in the U.S., so much so that India is now aggressively trying to copy it, while communist China has made its own pseudo attempt, somewhat successfully, to do the same for the past five years.
An evening pause: Written by Guillaume de Machaut in the 14th century. The title means “I should lead a happy life.” For a full translation go here. The players are clearly using instruments designed and built to match the traditional instruments used when this song was played.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
An evening pause: Seems appropriately contemplative following the holiday season.
Hat tip Ferris.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster that launched on December 23, 2023 for a record-setting nineteenth time was damaged beyond repair when, after landing on its drone ship successfully, experienced rough seas that caused it to fall over.
The picture at the link shows the crushed booster on its side on the drone ship. SpaceX noted the spectacular history of this booster in a separate tweet:
This one reusable rocket booster alone launched to orbit 2 astronauts and more than 860 satellites — totaling 260+ metric tons — in ~3.5 years.
In a sense, it actually put more mass into orbit that a Saturn 5 rocket, for significant less money though over a much longer period of time.
For SpaceX the loss of this booster is hardly a set back, because it has several other boosters with only a few less total launches in its fleet. Expect one to exceed twenty launches in the near future.
Hat tip to out stringer Jay as well as several readers.
An evening pause: We started the Christmas holiday season with this carol. We shall now end with it. As always, all the best to our Christian brethren on this day, one of their most sacred holidays.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
A Christmas pause: As I have done now for several years on Christmas day, I bring you the classic 1951 version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, starring Alastair Sim. Still by far the best adaption of the book and a truly wonderful movie.
And as I noted in a previous year:
Dickens did not demand the modern version of charity, where it is imposed by governmental force on everyone. Instead, he was advocating the older wiser concept of western civilization, that charity begins at home, that we as individuals are obliged as humans to exercise good will and generosity to others, by choice.
It is always a matter of choice. And when we take that choice away from people, we destroy the good will that makes true charity possible.
It is also most important that we all heed the words of Christmas Present: ‘This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both, but most of all beware this boy.’”
SpaceX today successfully launched two German military radar surveillance satellites, completing a planned three-satellite constellation, with its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its eighth flight, landing back at Vandenberg.
This launch almost certainly in the past would have launched on a Arianespace rocket, but Arianespace presently has no operational rocket, its Ariane-5 rocket retired and its Ariane-6 rocket not yet operational. Furthermore, its Vega and Vega-C rockets are grounded due to launch failures, and its partnership with Russia ended with Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. Thus, SpaceX gets the business, being less expensive than ULA (which also has no rockets available right now to handle this launch) and there being no other company capable of launching such a payload.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
94 SpaceX
61 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 108 to 61, and the entire world combined 108 to 97. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 94 to 97.
