Capitalism in space: SpaceX this morning successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to send another 53 Starlink satellites into orbit.
The first stage completed its fifth mission, landing on the drone ship.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
21 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
2 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 29 to 15 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 29 to 24.
Capitalism in space: The startup space tug company Launcher announced yesterday that it has signed deals with ten customers, filling its manifest, for the first test flight of its Orbiter tug.
The tug and its payloads will be launched in October on a Falcon 9. Six of those customers, all cubesats, will be deployed into their preferred orbit by the tug, while four others are payloads that will simply ride on the tug.
The company is now selling planned future missions scheduled in ’23 on other Falcon 9 launches. It is also developing its own smallsat rocket, Launcher Light, with a planned first launch in ’24.
Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched another 53 Starlink satellites, the company’s second launch in less than 24 hours.
The most newsworthy component of this launch is that for first time since February 2, 2022, and only the fourth time since the beginning of 2020, the Falcon 9 rocket used a new first stage, which successfully landed on its drone ship in the Atlantic. It appears that SpaceX is adding about two new boosters per year to its first stage fleet, based on the evidence from these launches.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
20 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
2 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 28 to 15 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 28 to 24.
Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched another 53 Starlink satellites, using a Falcon 9 first stage for the fifth time.
The first stage landed successfully on a drone ship.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
19 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
2 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 27 to 15 in the national rankings, as well as the entire world combined 27 to 24, leads that should widen in the next week with two more SpaceX launches as well as Boeing’s Starliner unmanned demo mission launch on ULA’s Atlas-5.
Capitalism in space: After a year delay due to government security concerns, Momentus has finally gotten all the launch permits required for a launch later this month on a Falcon 9 of its space tug, Vigoride, on its first orbital test flight.
In late April Momentus had gotten FCC approval. Now it has gotten clearance from the FAA. The FAA had blocked last year’s launch because of security concerns related to the foreign connections of several of the company’s founders/investors. Those individuals have now left the company, clearing the way for license approval.
The delay however caused Momentus to lose several customers while allowing another space tug competitor, Launcher, to catch up.
Capitalism in space: Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched 53 Starlink satellites, using and landing the Falcon 9’s first stage for the twelfth time.
The fairings halves were flying for their third and sixth times. This was also SpaceX’s sixth launch in less than a month.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
18 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
2 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 26 to 14 in the national rankings, as well as all the entire world combined 26 to 23.
Capitalism in space: SpaceX’s Endurance spacecraft successfully splashed down tonight off the coast of Florida, bringing home four astronauts after a six month mission on ISS.
This event capped a remarkable month for SpaceX. It launched two manned missions to ISS (one of which was entirely private) while returning two (including that private mission after seventeen days). In between the company also launched three Falcon 9 rockets putting satellites into orbit. All told, in the four weeks since the April 8th launch of the Axiom private manned mission to ISS, SpaceX completed five launches, all of which successfully landed the first stages for later reuse.
More important, everything on every one of those launches and splashdowns went like clockwork, with no problems, delays, or glitches. The only thing that delayed anything was the weather, something no one can do anything about.
Rocket engineering is hard, maybe the hardest technical challenge facing humans. The high quality of SpaceX’s work however is beginning to make it seem routine.
Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched another 53 Starlink satellites using its Falcon 9 rocket, the first stage successfully flying and landing for the sixth time.
That first stage had flown only three weeks ago, thus completing the fastest turnaround yet.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
17 SpaceX
12 China
5 Russia
2 ULA
2 Rocket Lab
The U.S. now leads China 24 to 12 in the national rankings.
Capitalism in space: Axiom announced today that it has signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirate (UAE) to fly a UAE astronaut to ISS in ’23 for a six month mission.
Axiom was able to put its own passenger on this flight because of a complex deal with NASA that had Axiom act as the go-between for Mark Vande Hei’s launch on a Soyuz in April ’21. Axiom brought the flight for NASA (which didn’t have the funds), and got in exchange a free seat for a passenger on a later American launch. Axiom has now sold that seat to the UAE.
The UAE in turn solidifies its space effort, with a six month manned mission to ISS.
The deal also demonstrates the priceless value of leaving ownership to American companies. Axiom made this deal to sell globally its long term space station plans, and it will use a SpaceX Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket to launch it. Both companies thus make money on their products, instead of the cash going to NASA. Such profits will only encourage further sales, not only to these companies but to other competing American rocket and space station companies.
UPDATE: The Rocket Lab launch has been pushed back to May 1st because of poor weather today. The live stream below is still valid but it won’t go active until about 20 minutes before launch.
Capitalism in space: Two American rocket launches are scheduled for today, first a launch of another 53 Starlink satellites on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral followed by the launch of 34 smallsats on Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from New Zealand.
I have embedded the live stream of both below. The Rocket Lab launch will be especially exciting, because the company is going to attempt for the first time the recovery of the first stage for reuse by snatching it in the air with a helicopter as it slowly descends on parachutes.
The SpaceX launch is scheduled for 5:27 pm (Eastern), with the live stream going active about 20 minutes before launch. If successful it will be the shortest turnaround for a Falcon 9 first stage, only 21 days and shaving almost a week off the previous record.
About one hour later the Rocket Lab launch will occur, the live stream also going active about 20 minutes beforehand.
Capitalism in space: As planned SpaceX’s Freedom capsule successfully docked with ISS last night, delivering four NASA astronauts to ISS for a five-month mission.
This launch was the sixth manned flight to ISS by SpaceX, and the seventh overall, with two of those seven launches entirely commercial and paid for by private customers. It appears that, based on already announced plans, that ratio between government and private customers should continue during the next few years, though beyond that expect the private launches to eventually outpace the government ones. When that begins to happen SpaceX might decide to expand its fleet from the four capsules (Endeavour, Resilience, Endurance, and Freedom) it presently operates.
Capitalism in space: SpaceX early this morning successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch its new capsule, Freedom, carrying four astronauts into orbit and heading to a docking with ISS this evening.
The first stage successfully landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic, completing its fourth flight.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
16 SpaceX
11 China
5 Russia
2 ULA
2 Rocket Lab
The U.S. now leads China 23 to 11 in the national rankings. In fact, at this moment the U.S. leads all other nations combined, 23 to 19.
