It's the last day of the 35th week of the year and SpaceX today tied last year's record of 61 launches this morning. Today's launch was from Vandenberg Space Force Base of the Space Development Agency’s Second Tranche 0 Mission at 7:25 AM PDT (video here - with launch close to 14:30 into the video). The launch appeared to be treated as a classified payload with no views of the satellite.
Screen capture from today's record-tying Falcon 9 launch video.
Tomorrow starts the 36th week of the year and SpaceX is currently scheduled to break the 61 launch tie tomorrow evening with #62. Starlink Group 6-12 from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) on the Kennedy Space Center portion of Cape Canaveral. Liftoff is set for 7:25 PM EDT.
That leaves 16 weeks in calendar 2023, and Elon Musk had publicly set the goal of 100 launches this year. A launch cadence of 2-3/8 per week for the next 16 weeks gets them to that lofty goal, or just under one launch every 3 days. Is that realistically possible? Today's launch was their 9th of August, which reduces to one every 3.44 days; essentially one every 3-1/2 days. The pace from January 1 through today has been one every four days so the last month has been an improvement. Can they make it to 100?
Since one every 3-1/2 days is quite a bit more than "just under one
launch every 3 days", it doesn't seem like they can make 100. There are
aspects that could sway that decision, things such as their work to turn
Launch Complex 40 on Cape Canaveral SFS and SLC-6 at Vandenberg SFB into functional equivalents of LC-39A. That would allow either pad to launch manned Crew Dragon or unmanned Cargo Dragons, and Falcon Heavy missions as well as the more routine Falcon 9 launches.
May not reach 100 this year, but still remarkable numbers. No one else is anywhere close.
ReplyDeleteExactly. About two weeks ago, I relayed an article saying the SpaceX puts more tons in orbit than the rest of the world put together and averages around 10x the mass to orbit that China puts in orbit.
DeleteThe entire rest of the US launch industry puts 2% of the mass in orbit that SpaceX does. I find that shocking.
SiG, SpaceX and Musk are one o the few things that give me hope about humanity doing something more about space travel than just writing and making movies about it.
ReplyDeleteWait - you mean, NASA doesn't??
DeleteI'm shocked! Shocked, I say!!
Be interesting to see if their launch cadence picks up in the last three months. Really want them to get that magic 100 number.
ReplyDeleteStill, they have outdone everyone. Has anyone launched 61 launches in one year with the same launcher (even if you count rockets like Atlas where each one really is different from the others due to configuration)? Or with combined launches of different rockets?
And we're potentially looking at a Starship launch early this month.
Anyone asking why there is such a launch cadance to begin with? Specifically, without simple guessing, what is behind the reason for such a timeline. And why somebody is attempting to blanket the earth with a network of satellites which if I am not mistaken, not word one of the true technical capabilities of these satelites, and the eventual network they comprise, are?
ReplyDeleteAnd in this country of absolute totalitarian regulatory tyranny over every facet in the sphere of our lives and activities just how does a "private aerospace company seem to operate so uninhibited, pretty much free to persue its corporate agenda, whatever that really is, because nobody is truely saying anything about its internal directives and goals, by said governmental regulatory dictatorship? Since when has such a corporate entity had such latitude nevermind almost unfettered acceess to the wealth of we the people in the forms of NASA resources, which we as the tax payers bought and paid for to begin with.
Not for nothing, and I mean that in the most serious terms, a lot, a real lot, of things are starting to not add up with all this. Not that I have any thing at all against humanity getting into sustainable space operations, wuite the contrary, I am a believer in humanity living in outeespace, it is critical in ways nothing else humanity ever undertook is, but something really stinks in Denmark. Big Time Stinks. Things do not add up to a benevolant picture. Particularly that blanket of unknown sats covering every square mile of planet earth, ie, humanity, and the constant growing nefarious purpose to which Directed Energy Weapon Technology is used on people. DE Tech and DEW's have only one purpose. They are weapons.
Never mind something else real fishy. I bought a corporate HughesNet System the year HughesNet started up, one you buy the equipment and you get a special corporate rate plan, its been if I remember my dates correctly now going on 16 years, in all that time having lived in two of the most rural areas possible east of the Mississippi River, never had any problem with internet serivice, always on always acceptable data rate, the only exception is brief periods of black out from heavy rain or snow, which pass quickly, the service has always been excellent, and after all these years, (we did switch to a regular service plan, no longer needing a corporate one about 7 years ago), it still blows my mind a 3 watt signal can travel thru the internet, finding what is asked, up and back 35,000 miles, in the time it takes to push down and lift my finger. A true marvel of science and technology. The point here is Elon's claim he is bringing internet service to the billions of folks in flyover nation is a total 100 percent load of BS. And Highes just launched the largest internet sat of all times at cllse to 10,000lbs, if anything my service is improved. Not a lot, just seeming consistantly quicker particularly spooling up V-clips, almost instant now where previously it might take ten to thirty seconds.
Something dark and dirty is going on here. Remember, what Rinny Raygun always said, trust but verify. The verify aspect is surely in real short supply, while the tech glitz and literal big shiny objects direct the audiences attention away from the slight of hand.
A lot of things do not add up. And plausible deniability combined with pretending to not know many things scamper around in the shadows between what it is that is known.
I can not think any other way after giving it all my total benefit of the doubt. It is jjst got the odor that so many other things the corp/crony cabal has about it. And the whole genocide of humanity leaving half a million or so slaves left to tend to the elites whims, well a net of DEW's blanketing the planet sure looks like a pretty effective way to finally get that big re-set off to a wonderful start.
While it is healthy to be skeptical, some of your points are a little Out There.
DeleteIf I were you, I would focus more on why the IRS needs millions of rounds of ammunition. I would focus on the FedGov now being run by hucksters, grifters, pedofiles, and much more downright evil people. Let's focus on cleaning up the top of the Gubmint chain first and then we can come after the NSA, etc.
Technology can ALWAYS be misused. By people. Let's fix the people problem first.
Focus, dude, focus.
Anonymous's comment is interesting and almost put me off of mine.
ReplyDeleteAs I read this post about SpaceX launches, a more nefarious reason behind the Starship/Boca Chica delay issues occurred to me. As SiG has pointed out, SpaceX is putting far more tonnage into space than any other launch provider. When/If Starship becomes operational as a cargo lifter, SpaceX's capacity to put a magnitude more payload into orbit. Joe Biden's handlers cannot have this happen. They need to stop SpaceX so that China can ascend to their proper position and claim all of Outer Space as theirs.