Tag: commercial

Hazygreyart – All SpaceX Launches From KSC in 4 Minutes 20 Seconds

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The video covers all launches through the beginning of this summer, when SpaceX paused for two months. Watch how the pace steadily picks up. If you watch closely you can also see boosters landing in the background.

I lot of people like to talk. Elon Musk likes to do. I’ll take his approach any day.

The song is Audionautix by Opus One.

Hat tip Martin Kaselis.

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United Kingdom’s new comprehensive space strategy: develop a robust private sector

10:45 am

Map of UK space strategy

Capitalism in space: The United Kingdom yesterday released a new comprehensive space strategy that seems generally focused on encouraging the growth of a private aerospace industry.

You can read the actual strategy here [pdf].

Though most of the text is high-sounding but mostly meaningless political talk, the overall strategy is excellent. It is focused not on creating a “space program” that the British government will design and build — what had been the traditional but generally unsuccessful approach since the 1960s — but to instead find ways to encourage the private sector to achieve what it wants to do. The map to the right, taken from the strategy document, illustrates this. The focus is entirely in supporting the growth of a commercial private industry by either creating industrial centers for space manufacturing or spaceports for launching satellites.

In this context, the vagueness of the strategy’s goals makes sense. The UK government has properly concluded that it is not its place to set those goals, but to let the commercial sector do it based on where they think they can make the most profit.

All in all, this strategy bodes well for the UK’s future in space.

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Blue Origin sets October 12th for next suborbital tourist flight

10:12 am

Capitalism in space: Blue Origin announced yesterday that it has scheduled October 12, 2021 for its next New Shepard suborbital tourist flight, carrying four passengers, two of which have been revealed.

The company has revealed two of the four crewmembers will be Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of Earth observation company Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, vice chair for life sciences and healthcare at French software company Dassault Systèmes. The remaining two crewmembers will be announced in the coming days, Blue Origin said in a statement.

The NS-18 mission, the 18th flight overall for the New Shepard rocket, will lift off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:30 a.m. EDT (8:30 a.m. CDT or 1330 GMT) on Oct. 12. In addition to the four passengers, the flight will carry thousands of postcards from Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, which aims to inspire future generations to pursue careers in sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

There have been rumors that William Shatner will be one of the other passengers, but this has not yet been confirmed.

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Satellite company Terran Orbital to build big satellite factory in Florida

10:06 am

Capitalism in space: The satellite company Terran Orbital announced yesterday it will build a large factory to manufacture more than a 1,000 small satellites per year.

At the Launch and Landing Facility, formerly known as the NASA Space Shuttle Landing Facility, Terran Orbital, the parent company of Tyvak and PredaSAR, plans to claim 10 hangars for what Space Florida calls “the world’s largest satellite manufacturing facility.”

“Not only will we be able to expand our production capabilities to meet the growing demand for our products, but we will also bring valuable space vehicle manufacturing opportunities and capabilities to the State of Florida, investing over $300 million in new construction and equipment,” Marc Bell, Terran Orbital co-founder and CEO said in a statement. “By the end of 2025, we’re going to create approximately 2,100 new jobs with an average wage of $84,000.”

It appears that Lockheed Martin is both a customer for these satellites as well as one of Terran Orbital investors.

Regardless, with that many smallsats in the pipeline for construction provides one explanation why investors have been flocking to finance new rocket companies.

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ULA successfully launches Landsat 9

11:30 am

Capitalism in space: Using its Atlas-5 rocket ULA today successfully launched Landsat 9, built by Northrop Grumman.

At the time of writing, the rocket and payload are in orbit and in a 60-minute coast phrase prior to payload deployment.

This was only the third launch this year by ULA, tying them with Rocket Lab but still too few launches to make the leader board. The leaders in the 2021 launch race remains the same:

33 China
23 SpaceX
15 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. now leads China 35 to 33 in the national rankings. In 2020 the U.S. completed 40 launches total, the most since 1968. At the moment there are sixteen more U.S. launches scheduled for launch in 2021. If all occur as planned, that would make 51 launches, making ’21 the fifth best launch year for the U.S. ever, exceeded only by four years in the mid-1960s.

For ULA, the low number of launches so far this year continues a slow downward trend since 2014, when the company completed fourteen launches. ULA still has four launches listed for ’21, but one, the unmanned Starliner demo launch, is likely to get delayed till ’22. The dates of two other launches remain “too-be-determined”, which also makes them questionable.

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News flash! Union lobbyists wants to influence Biden against non-union SpaceX

9:41 am

In the past two days probably a dozen of my readers have sent me a link to this story at the Washington Examiner,
The Anti-SpaceX lobbying campaign casts new light on Elon Musk’s Biden beef.

The story reveals some private emails between a union lobbyist and a vice president at ULA, outlining their mutual effort to discredit Elon Musk and SpaceX because of its long term success in preventing its workforce from unionizing.

Everyone who has sent me this story somehow thinks it reveals a major breaking story.

I think this story is a tempest in a teapot. It reveals nothing newsworthy. All it shows is that a union lobbyist is trying to influence the Biden administration against SpaceX, a decidedly non-union company. Why should these actions surprise anyone? Unions always go after non-union companies, and they often do it by exerting their political clout.

Nor should be we surprised that one of SpaceX’s biggest competitors is partnering with the union in this effort. There is nothing newsworthy about this. Competitors compete, and that competition can sometimes be quite cut throat.

Furthermore, nothing in these emails appears illegal. The lobbyist’s claims against SpaceX are spurious and shallow, but so what? Unions have the right to lobby politicians, and they have the freedom to make whatever arguments they want, even if those arguments are silly or false.

Finally, to think it is a news story that Biden might be receptive to union lobbyists is kind of silly. Biden is a modern Democrat. In almost all matters he is going to genuflect to the unions. I don’t need to read the private emails of a union lobbyist to find this out.

However, the evidence in the past ten months shows that this lobbying effort has so far been incredibly ineffective. While I certainly do not trust the Democrats running the Biden administration, and fully expect them to take actions eventually to squelch private enterprise, this White House’s actions regarding space has so far generally continued the capitalist policies begun during the Trump administration. Note too that these are the same policies first begun at the end of the Bush Jr. administration, and encouraged strongly throughout the Obama administration. It certainly appears that — in space at least — the Democrats are as much for capitalism as the Republicans.

And these emails have apparently done nothing to change that. Thus, there is no news here.

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Northrop Grumman says six customers have bought missions using its upgraded orbital repair robot

9:04 am

Capitalism in space:A Northrop Grumman official has revealed that it already has six customers willing to buy missions using its upgraded orbital repair robot to fix orbiting satellites that are presently defunct due to lack of fuel.

Unlike the company’s first robotic repair satellites, dubbed Mission Extension Vehicles (MEV), the Mission Robotic Vehicle (MRV) for these new contracts will not dock directly to the satellite, but use a robot arm to attach an extension pod to each.

The primary commercial mission of the MRV is to install small propulsion devices known as mission extension pods. One of these units is inserted in the back of a client satellite propulsion system, adding six years of life to most geostationary satellites, he said.

The six customers have signed term sheets for seven mission extension pods, Anderson said. Once contracts are firmed up the company will be able to disclose their names.

The first MRV launch in 2024 will carry three pods. “With these six customers, the MRV manifest is currently filled through mid-2026,” he said. The MRV is expected to have a 10-year service life.

This MRV system is far more cost effective than the MEV, since the latter can only repair one satellite, while the former can fix several with a single launch.

Both Northrop Grumman and Astroscale (see my previous post) are demonstrating the emergence of a new cottage satellite industry, the repair of old satellites and the removal of space junk, all for profit.

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Rocket Lab wins contract to launch space junk removal satellite

8:49 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab announced this week that it has won a launch contract from the Japanese-based company Astroscale to launch its first attempt to rendezvous with a piece of space junk — an abandoned upper stage from a Japanese launch — in order to grab and de-orbit it.

Rocket Lab announced Sept. 21 that it won a contract from Astroscale for the launch of its Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) spacecraft. A Rocket Lab Electron will launch ADRAS-J from its Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand in 2023.

ADRAS-J will rendezvous with and inspect an upper stage left in orbit by a Japanese launch. The Japanese space agency JAXA awarded Tokyo-based Astroscale a contract in 2020 for the mission as part of its two-phase Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration project.

The first phase of this demonstration project involved Astroscale’s current test satellite, which is presently testing capture techniques of space junk using magnets.

It appears Rocket Lab got the contract because it can place this smallsat in the precise orbit it needs, and can do it for far less than any other launch company in operation at present.

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Fired flight director accuses Virgin Galactic of lying about problems on July suborbital flight

9:19 am

A former Virgin Galactic flight director, who was relieved of his duties just before the company’s July suborbital flight that carried Richard Branson and then fired shortly thereafter, has accused Virgin Galactic of misleading the public in its statements about the problems that occurred during that flight.

Virgin Galactic has claimed that the high winds forced the spacecraft away from its planned flight path.

Mark Stucky, who Virgin Galactic fired eight days after Branson’s flight, said his former employer put out an inaccurate statement about why VSS Unity flew unauthorized into Class A airspace for 1 minute 41 seconds during its descent. Class A airspace is primarily used by airlines, cargo operators and higher performance aircraft.

“The most misleading statement today was @virgingalactic’s,” Stucky tweeted. “The facts are the pilots failed to trim to achieve the proper pitch rate, the winds were well within limits, they did nothing of substance to address the trajectory error, & entered Class A airspace without authorization.”

There is no way to know if Stucky’s accusation is correct. We might be seeing a bit of personal anger on his part considering his firing. At the same time, the FAA’s statement about this issue made no mention of winds, which suggests the Virgin Galactic statement might not be true.

Regardless, Virgin Galactic’s track record in matters of safety has not been stellar. The company needs to quickly resolve these issues or they will become a lingering sore that will damage sales for future suborbital flights.

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Firefly selling its rocket engines to Astra

10:32 am

Capitalism in space: It now appears that Firefly’s effort to diversify its rocket business by selling its Reaver rocket engine to other companies has resulted in it selling that engines to its competitor Astra, for possible use either in that company’s smallsat rocket or in an new redesigned rocket not yet revealed.

Under the [$30 million] deal, which closed earlier this year, Firefly will send up to 50 of its Reaver rocket engines to Astra’s rocket factory in Alameda, California, where a development engine was already delivered in late spring for roughly half a million dollars, according to an internal Firefly document viewed by The Verge and a person briefed on the agreement. Astra engineers have been picking apart the engine for detailed inspection, said a person familiar with the terms, who, like others involved in the deal, declined to speak on the record because of a strict non-disclosure agreement.

Apparently, the contract includes clauses that forbid Astra from using the engine in circumstances that directly compete with Firefly’s Alpha rocket.

The article also suggests that the contract will allow Astra to manufacture the engine itself, thus keeping its operations in-house and not dependent on outside contractors.

The deal suggests two things. First, it shows the growing strength of Firefly. It is not only going to make money launching satellites, it will also do so selling engines to other companies. Second, the deal suggests Astra has issues with its own rocket engine, and needs something better quickly to survive.

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Starliner unmanned demo flight likely delayed until ’22

9:20 am

Capitalism in space: The second Starliner unmanned demo flight, repeatedly delayed throughout ’21 due to scheduling and technical problems, is now likely to be delayed until next year.

Apparently, Boeing engineers have been unable to figure out why 13 of 64 valves on Starliner failed to function properly just hours before the last planned launch, causing the launch to be scrubbed.

The quality control systems at Boeing during this entire program have not shined. The capsule is now years behind schedule, and has been dogged by design and construction flaws — from software to parachutes to valves — that in the 21st century should not be problems any longer in building a manned spacecraft.

Like SpaceX and its Dragon capsule, Boeing owns Starliner and will be able to offer private citizens and companies flights on it once it is operational. These failures, however, will not be good for that future business. They make this spacecraft a far less appealing product when compared to the high quality of the engineering at SpaceX. Why would anyone risk their life on Starliner when they can buy a ticket on the apparently much more reliable Dragon?

In other words, Boeing has been doing terrible harm to its brand name with these problems. It needs to get them fixed, and fast.

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SpaceX schedules likely first static fire tests for orbital Starship and Superheavy

9:01 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has scheduled a weeklong series of road closures at Boca Chica, beginning next week, suggesting they are about to begin the first static fire tests for the orbital prototypes of both Starship (#20) and Superheavy (#4).

The company has been installing or replacing engines on both prototypes, with the installation apparently now complete on Starship #20.

Starship’s current design features three gimballing sea-level Raptors and three vacuum-optimized variants with much larger nozzles – all in close proximity inside a 9m-wide (30 ft) skirt. As such, the first Starship static fire with any combination of Raptor Center and Raptor Vacuum engines will be a significant milestone for SpaceX. Eventually, that will likely culminate in the first static fire(s) of a Starship (likely S20) with all six Raptors installed – a test that will effectively qualify that prototype for its first orbital launch attempt.

As for Superheavy #4, they have been replacing some of its 29 engines while it sits on the launchpad, for reasons that are not clear.

It appears the company is aiming to get all of its ground-testing completed while the FAA’s approval process for the permit for the orbital flight is ongoing. This will make it possible to launch as soon as approval is obtained.

This strategy carries some risk. As long as the testing proceeds smoothly it will provide positive coverage during the FAA’s public comment period, running until mid-October. Should a test fail dramatically, however, the explosion could generate the wrong response during that comment period. Not surprisingly, SpaceX is willing to accept that risk.

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NASA reviewing a dozen commercial proposals for future government space stations

8:45 am

Capitalism in space: Rather than replace the aging International Space Station (ISS) with an entirely government-designed-and-built new station, NASA is now reviewing about a dozen commercial proposals from private companies.

NASA earlier this year unveiled the Commercial LEO Destinations project, with plans to award up to $400 million in total contracts to as many as four companies to begin development of private space stations. In response to NASA’s request, its director of commercial spaceflight, Phil McAlister, told CNBC that the agency “received roughly about a dozen proposals” from a variety of companies for contracts under the project.

…The ISS is more than 20 years old and costs NASA about $4 billion a year to operate. The space station is approved to operate through the end of 2024, with a likely lifespan extension to the end of 2028. But, moving forward, McAlister says NASA wants “to be just one of many users instead of the primary sponsor and infrastructure supporter” for stations in low Earth orbit.

Based on these initial proposals, NASA officials estimate that the agency’s cost for running this future privately-built station will be about $1 billion per year less than the cost for operating ISS.

The agency will also only pay a part of the development cost for the new station, expecting that since the private company or companies will be making money from it also they should front a significant portion of that development cost.

Essentially NASA is following precisely the recommendations I put forth in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in space. And as I also predicted, the result is more achievement faster for far less cost.

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SpaceX targeting 6 commercial manned flights per year

9:06 am

Capitalism in space: With the successfully completion of its first manned orbital private space, SpaceX officials announced yesterday that they are expecting to fly about six such commercial manned flights per year.

Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director for its human spaceflight program projected as many as a half a dozen flights a year. “There’s nothing really that limits our capability to launch,” he said. “It’s about having rockets and Dragons ready to go and having everything in the manifest align with our other launches.”

…“The reality is the Dragon manifest is getting busier by the moment,” Reed said, noting the planned flight in early 2022 of four passengers for customer Axiom Space that will actually fly to and stay on the ISS for a few days. “It just goes on from there. We have a number of NASA missions that we’ll do, and we also have a growing backlog of commercial astronaut missions that we’re looking forward to perform.” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are most intriguing, suggesting that SpaceX might have an already signed line-up of customers ready to pay the ticket price to fly on a Dragon capsule.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk announced late yesterday that he has decided to donate $50 million of his own money to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in celebration of the completion of the Inspiration4 flight.

“This brings tears to my eyes,” wrote Inspiration4 medical officer Hayley Arceneaux, a St. Jude physicians assistant and survivor of childhood bone cancer, of Musk’s donation. “Thank you Elon Musk for this generous donation toward our $200 million dollar fundraising goal for St. Jude!!!”

Isaacman also thanked Musk and reminded the public that the fundraiser is still underway. Isaacman donated $100 million of his own money to the fundraising goal, then donated the three other seats on Inspiration4 to raise awareness for St. Jude. Arceneaux was selected by St. Jude to fill the “Hope” seat on the crew.

If you wish to make your own donation to St. Jude, you can do so here. You can donate cash directly, or you can bid to win one or more of a variety of items that were carried on the flight.

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Inspiration4 passengers scheduled for return to Earth tonight

9:01 am

The first entirely private manned orbital mission to space is now scheduled to return to Earth tonight, with splashdown set for 7:06 pm (eastern).

The SpaceX live stream of the landing will begin approximately 4:30 pm (eastern).

Yesterday the passengers released some videos, including a conversation with children who are cancer patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. They also provided a video update to the general public.

As I noted yesterday, the primary goal of this flight is to raise money for St. Jude. If you wish to send a donation to St. Jude as part of the Inspiration4 spaceflight, you can do so here. You can donate cash directly, or you can bid to win one or more of a variety of items that are on the flight now.

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FAA now taking public comments on the licensing of SpaceX to launch Starship/Superheavy from Boca Chica

10:59 am

Capitalism in space: The FAA today announced by email that it is now taking public comments on the “Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA)” it requires from SpaceX before it can issue a launch license at Boca Chica, Texas for Starship/Superheavy orbital launches.

From the email:

The FAA invites interested agencies, organizations, Native American tribes, and members of the public to submit comments on all aspects of the Draft PEA. Public comments are due on Monday, October 18, 2021. Comments or questions on the Draft PEA can be addressed to Ms. Stacey Zee, SpaceX PEA, c/o ICF, 9300 Lee Highway, Fairfax, VA 22031. Comments may also be submitted by email to SpaceXBocaChica@icf.com. Before including your address, phone number, e-mail address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, be advised that your entire comment – including your personal identifying information – may be made publicly available at any time. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold from public review your personal identifying information, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.

The FAA will also hold two public hearings on October 6th and 7th, though it provided no information yet on where those hearings will be held.

This announcement means that the Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight cannot occur any earlier than October 18, 2021, and will actually occur at least several weeks or months later, based on the schedule outlined on slide 32 of this FAA presentation [pdf]. Once the 30-day public comment period ends the FAA must then hold “an industry workshop” reviewing the comments and then issue an update of the PEA, or a rejection of it.

Though the chances of the FAA rejecting SpaceX’s permit are practically nil, I fully expect this process to be slow-walked by the FAA under orders of the Biden administration in order to do whatever it can to prevent this orbital flight occurring before SLS’s first launch, now expected in early ’22.

I hope I am wrong, and that the FAA surprises me. We can only wait and see.

Update: If you think I am crazy thinking that the politics of the Biden administration will cause a slowdown in the FAA’s process, just read this story about the FAA suddenly imposing flight restrictions at the southern border to block drone flights by media outlets that show the illegal immigrant crisis there.

“We’ve learned that the FAA just implemented a two week TFR (Temporary Flight Restrictions) over the international bridge in Del Rio, TX, meaning we can no longer fly our FOX drone over it to show images of the thousands of migrants,” Fox News reporter Bill Melugin tweeted. “FAA says ‘special security reason.’”

Fox’s report resulted in a quick lifting of this flight restriction on their drone, but the action by the Biden administration shows that it is quite willing to interfere with normal aviation regulations for its own political reasons.

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India signs deal with private rocket startup

9:57 am

Capitalism in space: India’s new Department of Space, dedicated to encouraging the growth of a private commercial and independent Indian space industry, has signed a deal with the private rocket startup, Agnikul Cosmos, to give it access to government space facilities as it develops its own smallsat rocket.

Indian startup Agnikul Cosmos signed a framework memorandum of understanding (MOU) with India’s Department of Space on Friday for access to ISRO facilities and expertise for the development of its two-stage small-satellite Agnibaan launch vehicle.

“The Framework MoU…will enable the company for undertaking multiple tests and access facilities at various ISRO centers for testing and qualification of their single piece 3D printed Semi Cryo engine and other systems. The MoU also enable Agnikul to avail technical expertise of ISRO for testing and qualifying their space launch vehicle systems and subsystems,” ISRO said in a press release.

The company has raised more than $14.1 million in investment capital, and hopes to complete the first launch of its Agnibaan rocket by ’22.

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Inspiration4 has raised $130 million so far for St. Jude out of $200 million goal

9:50 am

Capitalism in space: Inspiration4, the first privately launched manned orbital mission has so far raised about $130 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, still short of the $200 million goal that Jared Isaacman had set when he bought the flight from SpaceX.

A portion of the money came from 72,000 entrants in a sweepstakes that offered the chance to win a seat on the flight. Entrants were encouraged, but not required, to donate to St. Jude, according to the contest rules, which estimated the retail value of the space flight at $2.21 million.

Crew member Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old data engineer and U.S. Air Force veteran from Everett, Wash., entered the lottery by donating. He didn’t win, but a friend did and gave him the slot, according to the Associated Press.

If you wish to send a donation to St. Jude as part of the Inspiration4 spaceflight, you can do so here. You can donate cash directly, or you can bid to win one or more of a variety of items that are on the flight now.

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SpaceX leases several large facilities in Brownsville, Texas

9:36 am

Capitalism in space: In a clear sign that SpaceX plans to expand its Starship/Superheavy operations in Boca Chica, Texas, it has now leased several large facilities in nearby Brownsville.

Earlier this month, the company signed leases with the Brownsville South Padre Island Airport (BRO) for 46,000 square feet of warehouse space and a neighboring private industrial park owned by PacVentures for 60,000 square feet of warehouse space. Francisco Partida, the airport’s special projects manager, said talks with SpaceX about leasing the former Taylorcraft building at 2100 Les Mauldin Road began in mid-July.

The company was looking for 100,000 square feet of warehouse, which the airport couldn’t supply, though SpaceX found the additional square footage it needed in the privately owned industrial park at 1900 Billy Mitchell Blvd., he said.

SpaceX has also committed about a half million dollars to repairing and refurbishing the airport warehouse.

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The real human exploration of the solar system began on September 15, 2021

11:26 pm

Falcon 9 at T+13 seconds

Capitalism in space: First the news: On September 15, 2021 SpaceX successfully placed four civilians into orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.

Thus began the first private manned orbital mission in space, planned to last three days and reach an altitude of 595 kilometers or 370 miles, the highest any person has flown in space in decades.

The first stage, on its third flight, successfully landed for reuse. The Dragon capsule, Resilience, was on its second manned flight. The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

31 China
23 SpaceX
15 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. now leads China 34 to 31 in the national rankings.

Now the significance: There was one moment about five minutes after lift off that revealed the fundamental difference between this real flight into space and the short suborbital hops that Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic did in July.

The three most critical moments of any launch had just been completed. The first stage engines had cut off, the first stage had separated successfully, and the single upper stage engine had ignited. It was now lifting the capsule towards orbit, with the only major technical task left were its engine cut off and the separation of the Dragon capsule.

At that moment John Insprucker, principal integretion engineer for SpaceX and frequent host during its launch live streams, made a quick comment that was clearly meant to illustrate the vast difference in achievement between this flight and those two July suborbital flights. He said,
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