Several weeks ago I said that sometimes SpaceX just kind of amazes me. That was in the context of a backup launch being available 20 seconds after the scheduled launch time. Nobody works that fast, and they didn't have to. Today's news is amazing in a different sort of way.
On Wednesday, 6/4, one of SpaceX's regular Starlink missions, Starlink 11-22 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, marked the 500th orbital launch of a Falcon family rocket. That includes the short-lived Falcon 1, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East occurred at 4:40 p.m. PDT (7:40 p.m. EDT, 2340 UTC) on Wednesday, which also happens to be the 15th anniversary of the first Falcon 9 rocket launch.
The booster landed on the offshore recovery vessel, Of Course I Still Love You or OCISLY, a little over eight minutes after liftoff. This completed the 134th landing on this vessel and the 457th booster landing to date.
The Wednesday mission was also the 26th flight for Falcon 9 first stage booster tail number B1063. It previously launched a trio of missions for the National Reconnaissance Office, NASA’s DART spacecraft and 17 batches of Starlink satellites.
There's only one rocket family to exceed the 500 launches, the Atlas series. Yes that counts since the development of the Atlas ICBM in the 1950s through the still-flying-though-its-days-are-numbered Atlas V. The Atlas family holds the record for the most-flown family of space launchers in the United States, with 684 launches to date.
In reality, however, the Atlas V shares virtually nothing in common with the Atlas ICBM, other than its name. The Atlas V has new engines, more modern computers, and a redesigned booster stage that ended the line of pressure-stabilized "balloon tanks" that flew on Atlas rockets from 1957 until 2005. The Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy share more heritage, all using variants of SpaceX's Merlin engine. If you consider the Atlas rocket as the US record-holder for most space launches, SpaceX's Falcon family is on pace to reach 684 flights before the end of 2026.
ULA appears to have 14 Atlas V launches left, counting from the list of future launches on Next SpaceFlight. So move that "end of 2026" date back 14 Falcon 9 launches - maybe a month.
While not Wednesday's launch, this always struck me as an essential, if not
the essential, Falcon 9 picture. One taking off while
another sits on its launch pad waiting to be next.
Certainly hope that SXM launch puts up a bit more capable transmitter on the east coast side. With the trees, I spend most of my ride to and from work with 'signal lost'.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is it's not the transmitter, it's the angle to the ground the signal is coming in at. Which is fixed by putting the satellite in a different spot in the geosynchronous orbit.
DeleteWe'd probably have to guess at that. The launch was routine last night, though, so it's off to a good start.
Happy Anniversary SpaceX!
ReplyDeleteCould Millerized reception probelms be ameliorated by more or differently aligned antennas?
It's possible. It's been so long since I've messed with Sirius XM that I don't know what you're supposed to use; that is, is it a simple tuned antenna like your car's AM/FM antenna or something with gain and an antenna pattern. A quick search shows small radome-like antennas on cars' roofs. Probably a patch. Most likely tuned, maybe an LNA in it, if it requires power.
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