SpaceX yesterday successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket finally lifting off from Vandenberg in California on the fifth launch attempt, the previous four all scrubbed due to weather.
The first stage completed its sixteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The 2024 launch race:
7 SpaceX
6 China
1 India
1 ULA
1 Iran
1 Japan
An evening pause: This video I think is excellent for taking us into the weekend. It shows nine different Starlink launches simulataneously, illustrating in a creative way how incredibly routine and reliable SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has become.
Hat tip Steve Golson.
They’re coming for you next: SpaceX today successfully launched three European astronauts (plus the company capsule commander) to ISS on an Axiom private mission, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral at 4:49 pm (Eastern).
The capsule, Freedom, is flying humans into space for its third time. The first stage successfully completed its fourth flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral.
The mission itself is private, but the customer is the European Space Agency, which has paid the company Axiom to bring its astronauts to ISS for a fourteen day mission. Axiom in turn hired SpaceX to provide the rocket and capsule. This flight is confirmation that Europe has accepted the concept of capitalism in space, whereby it no longer depends on governments to accomplish what it wants, but instead is a customer buying those products from the private sector.
The astronauts are expected to dock with ISS early tomorrow morning.
The 2024 launch race:
6 SpaceX
5 China
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan
SpaceX has now filed for permits to build both a shopping center and restaurant at Boca Chica, with construction beginning in March and completed by the end of the year.
The location proposed is on the beach only a short distance to the west of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy facilities. It will be located looking north not at the Gulf of Mexico but at South Bay, one of the large inlets that surround the spit of land where those facilities are located. It is also located on roads that might not close during launches, which means it might be an excellent location to attract tourists during launches, about six miles from the launch site itself.
In order to “expand its operational footprint” at Boca Chica, SpaceX is asking to buy 43 acres of nearby Boca Chica State Park, and will offer as part of the purchase 477 acres adjacent to the Laguna Atascoca National Wildlife Refuge several miles to the north.
The link above includes maps showing the relative location of the properties. According to the meeting agenda for the Texas Parks and Wildlife department (TPWD), scheduled to take up this exchange next week, the commission already favors the deal.
“This acquisition will provide increased public recreational opportunities including hiking, camping, water recreation, and wildlife viewing, and allow for greater conservation of sensitive habitats for wintering and migratory birds,” the TPWD agenda stated. The agenda concludes by stating that the Commission finds that the proposed exchange is in the best interest of TPWD.
The public has been invited to comment on the deal at the meeting. Do not be surprised if we have a riot at that meeting of leftist activists protesting this deal.
Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.
The next manned mission to ISS, a private mission by the company Axiom carrying three European astronauts and commanded by an Axiom astronaut, is presently scheduled to launch tomorrow, January 18, 2024, at 4:49 pm (Eastern).
This is a private mission by Axiom, launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and flying the astronauts in its Freedom Dragon manned capsule. This will be Freedom’s third flight to ISS. The launch was originally scheduled for today, but SpaceX scrubbed the mission today in order to give it “additional time allows teams to complete pre-launch checkouts and data analysis on the vehicle.” It appears during normal prelaunch checkouts engineers found the joints between the upper stage and the capsule were not tightened the proper amount. The company decided to replace the joints, which caused this one day delay.
The crew will spend up to fourteen days at ISS.
I have embedded a live stream of the launch below.
» Read more
According to a recent filing with the FCC, SpaceX has found its Starlink constellation had to do fewer collision avoidance maneuvers in the past six months, despite having more satellites in orbit.
In that period, Starlink satellites had to perform 24,410 collision avoidance maneuvers, equivalent to six maneuvers per spacecraft. In the previous reporting period that accounted for the six months leading up to May 31, 2023, the constellation’s satellites had to move 25,299 times. The data suggests that even though the Starlink constellation has grown by about 1,000 spacecraft in the last six months, its satellites made fewer avoidance maneuvers in that period than in the prior half year.
At the moment it is not clear why the number dropped, especially as it had been doubling every six months previously as more satellites were launched. This might signal improved more precise orbital operations, or it could simply be a normal fluctuation. It will require additional reports to get a better sense.
These numbers however should rise as more larger satellites constellations (from Amazon and China) start launching as expected.
SpaceX today completed its second launch today from opposite coasts, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off this evening from Cape Canaveral, carrying 23 Starlink satellites.
The first stage completed its twelfth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The 2024 launch race:
5 SpaceX
4 China
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan
SpaceX early today successfully launched 22 additional Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The 2024 launch race:
4 China
4 SpaceX
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan
I have embedded below an employee update of the status of all of SpaceX’s projects, given by Elon Musk and released publicly on January 12, 2023. The video has been edited only to remove the many enthusiastic applauses by Musk’s audience of co-workers in order to shorten it.
Though Musk provided a lot of general information about the company’s long term goals with Starlink, Starship, Mars, the Moon, and other topics, these are the most important take-aways relating to its ongoing efforts now:
On Starship/Superheavy, he revealed these facts:
Musk emphasized that they must be able to fly these tests frequently to get Starship/Superheavy functioning, not just for SpaceX but for NASA’s Artemis program. As he said, “Time is the one true currency.” With each launch they refine the system to make it more reliable and operational. Without those launches they can’t.
He did not mention why launches might not happen frequently, probably because the last thing he needs to do is antagonize the regulators who are slowing him down. I (and other journalists) however are not under that restriction. The biggest obstacle to SpaceX’s success is the red-tape being wound around it by the Biden administration and its love of strict regulation, possibly instigated by its political hostility to Elon Musk as a person.
This government action to stymie freedom must end, and the sooner the better.
» Read more
Surprise! During the NASA press update yesterday making official the new delays in its entire Artemis lunar program, a SpaceX official revealed that the company will be ready to launch the third orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket by end of January, but it also does not expect to get a launch approval from the FAA for at least another month.
Speaking during the press conference, SpaceX Vice President of Customer Operations & Integration Jensen said Starship hopes to be ready to test Starship once more by the end of January and to receive the necessary license from federal authorities to do so by the end of February.
During the conference Jensen made it repeatedly clear that it will require numerous further launch tests to get ready ready for its lunar landing mission for NASA — about ten — and that the company hopes to have this task completed by 2025 so that the agency’s new delayed schedule can go forward as now planned.
Yet how will SpaceX do this if the FAA is going to delay each launch because of red-tape by at least one month? SpaceX might be confident the FAA will give the okay for a launch in late February, but no one should be sanguine about this belief. Bureaucrats when required to dot every “i” and cross every “t”, as it appears the Biden administration is demanding, can be infuriatingly slow in doing so, even if they wish to hurry.
This news confirms my prediction from November that the launch will happen in the February to April time frame. It also leaves me entirely confident that my refined December prediction of a launch no earlier than March will be right.
SpaceX wants to do about six test launches per year. I don’t know how it can do so with the FAA holding it back.
SpaceX today successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its sixteenth flight, landing safely on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The 2024 launch race:
3 SpaceX
1 India
1 China
SpaceX yesterday filed a lawsuit in the federal courts to have the employee complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dismissed as a violation of the company’s fifth and seventh amendment rights as well as article II of the Constitution.
You can read SpaceX’s lawsuit here [pdf]. It specifically lists as defendants the board members of the NLRB, as well as the unnamed administrative judge who will run the NLRB’s case, once it begins.
The SpaceX lawsuit is interesting in that it challenges the very legal structure that has established the NLRB, stating that its actions are illegal because that structure forbids the President from having full control over its actions, as required by article II of the Constitution.
Whether this lawsuit succeeds is of course unknown, but its quick filing tells us that SpaceX was prepared for this NLRB action, even before it was filed. It also tells us that the company now recognizes the overall threat to it by the Biden administration, which appears to be trying to weaponize every agency in the federal government to destroy the company, and is prepared to fight long and hard against this abuse of power.
Elon Musk, a target for destruction
by Joe Biden
The Biden administration’s continuing legal harassment of SpaceX and Elon Musk was escalated yesterday when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a new complaint against the company, accusing it of firing eight employees illegally for writing a public letter criticizing the company in 2022.
The letter, circulated in 2022, criticized Musk’s actions and the allegations of sexual harassment against him, claiming they were negatively contributing to the company’s reputation. The letter also said the company was failing to live up to its “No Asshole” policy and its policy against sexual harassment.
The letter, whose authorship was not known at the time it was first reported, called on SpaceX to “publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior,” to “hold all leadership equally accountable” for bad behavior, and to “clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s ‘no-asshole’ and ‘zero tolerance’ policies and enforce them consistently.”
According to the NLRB, one SpaceX employer held interviews to determine the writers of the letter, after which they were fired. The case will go before the NLRB in March.
Is this another case of blacklisting, similar to the numerous stories I’ve reported for the last four years where someone was fired for having political opinions? I don’t think so, though some could argue otherwise. In those many other cases, the opinions expressed were generally political in nature and unrelated to the work environment itself. If a company is demanding you bow to critical race theory and admit you are racist simply because you are white and fires you when you refuse, that is not the same as writing a letter accusing your employer of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment, and then soliciting signatures from the entire workforce before releasing it publicly. The first case is a direct slander against the employee and is an unreasonable demand. The second is a concerted effort to foster a workplace mutiny, something unacceptable to all employers. It seems the company would have the right to remove such malcontents from its place of business.
Gywnne Shotwell, SpaceX’s CEO, made these facts very clear at the time the letter was published.
» Read more
SpaceX today successfully launched a commercial geosynchronous communications satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage successfully completed its tenth flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The fairings completed their ninth and fourteenth flights respectively.
The 2024 launch race:
2 SpaceX
1 India
No one else has launched as yet, though many launches are scheduled through the first ten days of January.
SpaceX tonight completed its first launch in 2024, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California and putting six next generation Starlink satellites into orbit.
The first stage completed its first flight, successfully landing on the drone ship in the Pacific. The fairings successfully completed their eleventh and ninth flights, respectively. This was the first new stage introduced since August 2023, and continues SpaceX’s pattern of adding about two new first stage boosters per year.
The six Starlink satellites are designed to work directly with the cell phones that people already use, thus increasing the customer base available for the product. As the first generation of this design, it is expected that there will be upgrades with later launches.
At this moment India and SpaceX are the only two entities to launch in 2024, each once.
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.
Russia and NASA have agreed to extend their barter deal through 2025, whereby each nation sends astronauts to ISS periodically on the other nation’s rockets and capsules.
This is a barter deal, with no exchange of money. The fundamental idea is to make sure astronauts on board ISS understand how the capsules from each nation operate in case of emergency. Russia had initially resisted signing such a deal after SpaceX began providing NASA its Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 rocket to get astronauts to ISS. It said this was because it did not trust SpaceX’s technology, but I suspect Roscosmos was also hoping to squeeze some cash from NASA as it was no longer being paid to fly U.S. astronauts on its Soyuz rocket and capsule. That attempt was futile. For numerous political reasons there was no way NASA was going to pay Russia anything in this barter deal.
Russia then signed on, and will keep extending this agreement until the day ISS is retired, or it finally launches its own station (something that is becoming increasingly unlikely).
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.
