It's kind of a slow news day. ULA is still trying to figure out why the nozzle broke off that Solid Rocket Booster on their Cert-2 flight. To summarize that article, "yeah that nozzle broke off and screwed up a lot of stuff, but, boy howdy, that Vulcan sure did correct it out! What a rocket!"
Another good one is that
nuclear rockets could get us to Mars in like half the time, but getting those reactors designed right for space sure is hard! Just
like how they say space is hard? Designing pretty much anything for use in space is
hard, and to be perfectly honest, designing anything that has never been done
in human history is hard. I wonder what they'd think of designing the recovery
system for SuperHeavy we just watched?
Ah, well...
Elon Musk once said a sign of success for him as well as SpaceX is when
launches get boring. You expect them to go smoothly and every step to work the
way it's supposed to. In keeping with that,
SpaceX launched their missions #100 and 101 of 2024 this morning
(Oct. 15). Both were loads of Starlink satellites.
The first was from Cape Canaveral SFS at 2:10 AM EDT. As usual, the booster
successfully landed about 8 minutes later, landing on the drone ship "A
Shortfall of Gravitas" off the Florida coast. This was the 11th flight
for this booster, putting it in that odd position of being unimaginably old to
the rest of the world, but just getting into its prime to SpaceX.
Two hours later, a second Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg SFB's SLC-4E, at 4:21AM EDT (1:21 AM PDT). This was the 19th flight for this booster, which also successfully landed - this time on the drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" off the California coast. This booster is respectably old to SpaceX, incomprehensibly old to the rest of the world.
Time exposure of this morning's second launch, from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Image credit: SpaceX.
So, let's see... Sunday we saw Starship Flight test 5, Monday we saw Falcon
Heavy launch Europa Clipper, and Tuesday morning we saw two launches of a load
of 23 Starlink Satellites - one from each coast. NextSpaceflight says on
Thursday at 3:55 PM EDT we'll see another Falcon 9 carrying a load of Starlink
satellites from SLC-40 here at CCSFS, and Sunday morning at 1:09 (EDT again) a
load of OneWeb satellites (a direct competitor to Starlink) from Vandenberg
SLC-4E. That will be six launches since Sunday 10/13. Kinda reinforces
that idea that the world's space program is SpaceX and second place is too far
back to bother naming
And now, San Francisco Examiner is reporting that...
ReplyDelete(The Center Square) – The California government denied a U.S. Air Force request to allow Elon Musk’s SpaceX to increase its California rocket launches, citing Musk’s politics.
Perfect.
I wonder if he has the guts to cut access to Starlink for Mexifornia?
DeleteThis incredible launch cadence gives Space Force a huge incentive to ramp up launches of satellites that a few years ago they never would have dreamed possible, and that’s before Starship really gets going with huge payloads. I think they’ll soon be having a quiet word with California and the FAA to back off.
ReplyDeleteRight about now there will be lots of commercial satellite fabrication startups gearing up for the payload boom that is kicking off, indeed, we’re probably approaching the point where payload availability lags launch capability. Starship in particular gives a huge investment incentive in these companies.
I also would anticipate the emergence of standardised and scalable satellite architecture and buses to ramp up production and reduce costs. Space technology is going to get big, thanks to Mr Musk and his incredible team.