ho hum. Jan 14 and already 5 launches from FL this yr.
Falcon 9 successfully launches 2 probes to land on the moon with one reusable rocket. This was the FIFTH time this particular Falcon 9 launched and returned. This is the 398th successful landing in Elon's fleet.
Lunar landers . Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost >>> https://x.com/Firefly_Space https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/heres-what-nasa-is-sending-to-the-moon-on-firefly-aerospaces-blue-ghost-lunar-lander Japanese "Resilience" moon lander https://www.space.com/space-exploration/missions/private-japanese-moon-lander-arrives-in-florida-ahead-of-january-spacex-launch-photos .
When we put a permanent base on the moon all this stuff Space X is creating now will be a big part of the project. They are lowering costs, lowering risks, and constantly improving the methods of space travel.
Launch in Florida, land in the Bahamas Elon Musk's SpaceX Makes History by Launching Rocket from Florida, Landing Booster in Bahamas Forget Vandenberg
I thought Vandenberg was used primarily for polar orbital launches; Florida launches more difficult because of flying near East Coast population centers.
There are inclination limits out of Florida, 28.5°-59°, the main reason we have Vandenberg as the location for polar and sun synchronous orbits. Florida is barely in the box for ISS launches because ISS is in a much higher inclination orbit (51.6°) than we would have liked in order to make it accessible to the Russians. Came in handy when we did not have a launch capability to ISS. If you have tons of extra delta V, you can launch using those limitations and burn later to shift the orbit to a slightly higher inclination.
Texas is a big state with lots of inclinations with little or no population under the launch azimuths. We looked at the west Texas interior (and NM) as launch sites for the Military Spaceplane in a more survivable location (Spetsnaz, etc.) than the coastal launch sites. From the Texas coast, lots of over water inclinations where all the parts end up in the Gulf if something goes wrong. Some locations on the Texas coast are better for GEO because they are further south than the 28.5° of Kennedy/Canaveral.
March 3rd ..... NO vid yet Night time launch/drone ship landing ..... Booster landing leg FAILURE Image Unavailable, Please Login Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date
SpaceX rocket sets 1st stg reuse record (29!) on 500th Falcon 9 launch https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-starlink-10-25-b1067-ccsfs-asog .
Now 30 successful orbital launches with same booster. 105 Falcon 9 launches this year. 500 successful landings. No official number but best estimate is that Space X is running their Falcon 9 launch program with 17 total boosters and manufacturing 2 new a year. I am a bit surprised that the Chinese haven't landed a reusable booster yet. I suspect that by the time they have a Falcon 9 equivalent functional, Falcon 9 will be scheduled for retirement and Starship will be delivering payload to LEO, at ten times less cost.
