SpaceX Launches 50 Starlink Satellites From Vandenberg
VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (SpaceX PR) — On Friday, February 25 at 9:12 a.m. PST, SpaceX launched 50 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
This was the fourth flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously supported Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, DART and one Starlink mission.
82 responses to “SpaceX Launches 50 Starlink Satellites From Vandenberg”
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more internal launches then paying customers yikes
Launching satellites that pay, though. Starlink is being taken up quickly here in NZ, far superior to the alternatives.
Yes, and reconnected Tonga to the world through a gift of Starlink antennas, but the billionaire bashers won’t publish stories like than, it ruins their narrative that billionaires are evil.
a small role. Tonga got back on because its inmarsat/intelsat system got reconnected
https://www.afr.com/compani…
Musk’s Starlink connects Tonga villages still cut off after
tsunami
Kirsty Needham
Feb 24, 2022 – 3.15pm
our ADSB station is back in operation but well we are using Iridium and Orbcomm. they are the go to folks for ADSB I am glad musk is sending stuff there. good show
we also have the Aloha net station back up on the ATS network.
I know it is very difficult for Old Spacers used to a world of government funding and subcontracting to understand, but this is the real future of space flight beyond NASA – complete vertically integrated business models focused directly at consumer markets.
In this case SpaceX is building the communication satellites, building the rockets that launch them, then it is operating them to provide global Internet access direct to the consumer of the service. It is the space equivalent of Colonel McCormick, Tribune Corporation owning its own forests, cutting down those trees, transporting them on its ships to pulp mills to make paper which it’s ships took to the Tribune presses which is used to print newspapers filled with news its reporters gathered to sell direct to its readers.
I think it might be more difficult for statists to understand. More layers is more opportunities for control. QC be damned as far as most of them are concerned as long as they can claim job creation=votes. And of course the pigs at the trough want that trough kept full regardless of damages to the country.
ah the control thing sigh
If Boeing put more of its effort into QC it wouldn’t have killed those folks on its B737-Max or have the problems it’s having with the B777, B787, KC-46 and Starliner.
I dont speak for TBC but all that statement shows is that you dont have a clue about the max events. you should speak less about things you know nothing about or you look a fool and yeah you are on that
I know you believe that the b737max accidents was just errors by pilots of emerging nations, but quality control also includes the design of a product. If it’s too complex for an average commercial pilot too fly it needed to be designed better. But then you probably think quality is only about production.
I do not speak for TBC in any regard on social media. these are my own opinions
the only quality control issues were at the local airlines. the AoA sensor on the Ethiopian airline feel off on the runway. the mechanics failed to install safety wire on the screws. the Lion Air AoA was miscalibrated the night before when it was installed by mechanic error. the instructions clearly say to have the switch of the calibration device in one position. they had it in another
TBC does not train local airline pilots except on rare occassions. Each airline but get its training program approved by the local authority and verify that crews are trained to that standard. TBC has no oversight of that in that era. Today at its own expense it provides on a volunteer basis to airlines global express pilots which the company pays to do just that. Five days before he died the Captain and FO ono the Ehiopia flight certified that they had read and done the training excersize related to the Lion air crash. the last 42 seconds of the flight the mach clacker is on. this is alone a red item which indicates the airplane is overspeeding. they ignored it
your statements are non sensical nor backed p by any fact. thanks for playing
Sure, blame the pilots who are dead and the mechanics. And yet it is the Boeing Company and not the airlines that is paying compensation to the victims families and also to shareholders to settle a fraud lawsuit over the crashes. And the b737max had to have the “issues” that caused the crash “fixed” by Boeing before recertification.
again I do not speak for tthe TBC on social media. but people and groups are responsible for their own mistakes…and you cannot in the least challenge what I am saying. as for the payout. its the cost of doing business. the company has already made that back in several magnitudes with new orders from those customers.
the recert issues were brought on by trump. he is the one who did the grounding not the FAA
Really? Or did he just announce it?
https://www.cbsnews.com/new…
FAA grounds all Boeing 737 Max planes, effective immediately
By Kathryn Watson
March 13, 2019 / 6:49 PM/ CBS News
“”The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today,” the agency said. “This evidence, together with newly refined satellite data available to FAA this morning, led to this decision”
what this has to do with space policy I have no clue. just some infatuation I guess you and others have with TBC sad
One of the advantages of vertical integration is better quality control since you are not dealing with numerous subcontractors and taking their word for it. SpaceX maximizes quality by minimizing subcontracting, the opposite of Boeing, which is why the Falcon 9 has the record for the most consecutive successful launches, with this flight extending the record further.
Got a chance to talk to a 737max pilot a few weeks ago. Flies for a US airline. Said both of those crashes would probably have been saved by first world pilots. He said that in those situations he would have shut down everything he could that was fighting him for control. Focus should have been flying the airplane instead of fighting the system. Not exact quotes, memory of conversation with reliable source.
His conclusion was both pilot training and defective product that together bites in certain situations. He said his company didn’t even know about the system before then.
I am not surprised as pilots seem to believe if they were at the controls things would have been different. The bottom line is that Boeing dropped the ball on both designing it and its guidelines for training, as shown by the fact that his company didn’t even know of its existence.
this is why we have anti trust laws. your scheme has been tried before and we eventually moved to break it up. Boeing use to operate what is now United Air Lines but the aviation act of 34 broke that up..and it was a good thing then and will be now. vertical integration as you put it stifles competition and eventually innovation.
For what its worth its unclear Musk has worked. Musk has fueled this with a lot of his own money and a lot of investor money in a time of almost unlimited investor cash. right now so far this year Musk is launching more of his own payloads then he is those of outside companies…its unclear that either his next product Starship or todays Stalink will be an economic success. Its unclear the Raptor is an economic product
you folks offer all sorts of explanations why Musk is not expanding the industry …but the most likely one is that he doesnt have the costs platform to do it
If Starship fails and its possible (though I think unlikely) Musk will be in serious trouble… I wouldnt at this time in history start popping the champagne
Historically, most large anti-trust efforts, whether they resulted in company break-ups or not, have been instigated by cabals of unsuccessful competitors. That was true of the break-up of Standard Oil and of the attempted break-ups of IBM and Microsoft. Boeing and its original captive airline being cloven in twain is something that market forces probably would have forced at some point even if the government hadn’t pre-empted matters.
You continue your baseless claims that SpaceX is a financial mirage. The investors SpaceX has attracted have all seen the books and none of them seems to agree with you. All of SpaceX’s launches are commercial. The ones done to support Starlink are simply for a SpaceX enterprise whose customers do not directly commission the launches.
We don’t have to offer any explanations as to why Musk has not expanded the industry because it is trivially obvious that he has. If outside customers have been slower than SpaceX itself to capitalize on cheaper and more available spacelift that is hardly Musk’s or SpaceX’s fault.
I suspect you will still be asserting that the successes of Raptor, Starship and Starlink are “unclear” long after they have become crystal clear to everyone else. I assume that because you still refuse to acknowledge the patently obvious success of the Falcons.
All of SpaceX’s launches are commercial. The ones done to support Starlink are simply for a SpaceX enterprise whose customers do not directly commission the launches.”
these are no more commercial then me selling cows to different companies I own, for tax purposes
When its clear Raptor Starship and Starlink are success I will acknowledge that. as I have done in print with F9, in terms of being the first successful private rocket development. they were great op eds
Shuffling your cows around generates no revenue. Starlink does. The analogy fails.
The analogy would seem to be closer to selling your cows to a family owned slaughterhouse.
The reason Boeing had to sell United Airlines was because it wouldn’t sell the B247 to other airlines until United had converted its fleet. That mistake cost Boeing its leadership in the airline business for a quarter century until the B707 restored it.
SpaceX by contrast is very happy to sell launches to anyone who will buy them and schedules its Starlink flights in between those flights.
Maybe not so much a mistake as a misreading of the regulatory intervention. Absent that forced sale, United would have been stuck with the 247 while others moved on to the DC2 and then the DC3. Vertical integration can be a winning strategy, unless you lose your edge or regulators get involved.
This is a complex subject that regulators almost never help. Unless helping the big campaign donors is considered a benefit.
I would just add this. I dont think you understand the key function of vertical integration. At some point you have to sell something to the outside economy that makes all the cost savings you get from it; work
If I dont sell the beef to the Laundry and Longhorn group. all the vertical integration in theh world. I am still broke.
Starlink has been on sale to a rapidly growing customer base for well over a year. It is you who don’t seem to comprehend what the “outside economy” is that Starlink exists to serve.
no I dont see it. I use it in our pipeline patrol business, on the sail boat and at the vacation home in ST where there is no real internet.
I dont see enough business for them. particularly related to the cost of deployment which are high
And you say that with a straight face while being a good customer for it. There are more than enough households in rural North America without high-speed to easily use all of the capacity of it’s 40,000 satellites. Try moving out here to West Texas where you don’t even have mobile phone signals.
maybe but I dont think that there are that many. they are missing a massive market by not catering to RV’s which move…but it took a lot of money to make that happen with both the boat and the airplane. about 200 a month. that wont sell
Actually there are plans to serve both. Remember, that have thousands of additional satellites to launch.
I guess I just have to add that to all the other things you “don’t see” that the rest of us have no trouble seeing. Myopia is sometimes a choice it seems.
you want to believe and are easy prey for people who push things that you hope for. I ….just watch and call it as it is fly safe it is why I make the big bucks
You make the big bucks as a pilot, not as a prognosticator or business analyst. Keep your day job.
actually I make as big buck with my business. the pipeline patrol company has expanded masively we are selling record numbers of cows and even the com business is flourishing. we simply turn away type rating business now 🙂 no sim time
Well, at least no one can accuse you of being all hat and no cattle. 🙂
although during rodeo week I do have a good time with it. bought two new bulls 🙂
see how it works out. maybe St. Elon is right …I hope so fly safe off to bed
There are hundreds of thousands of paying customers in 29 countries.
but the money doesnt work out though
You have inside information on the finances of Starlink, or are you just guessing based on how Old Space works…
there just dont seem to be enough people in rural areas in the US to sustain this…but who knows. we have looked at it in Washington if we move to someplace without fiber. but its not fast enough
Actually there are and this is just the United States while Starlink serves the world. The global Internet market is around $330 billion a year. If SpaceX is able to expand that market by just 10% by serving those in remote areas, airliners, fishing boats, etc. that would be $33 billion in revenue, ten times their estimated launch revenues. And that is revenue that is directly from millions of users, not from a handful of governments/clients buying launches.
https://broadbandnow.com/re…
FCC Reports Broadband Unavailable to 21.3 Million Americans, BroadbandNow Study Indicates 42 Million Do Not Have Access
Written by John Busby, Julia Tanberk
BroadbandNow Team
October 21, 2021
Published:February 3, 2020
November 22, 20216:00 AM ET
The huge “if” in your repeated mantras about how many are without internet is this:
If all those people had access to internet, what percentage would actually sign up at the going rate? I guess we’ll see once Starlink is built out, but I’m thinking the number is way below what you predict. I have crappy internet where I live, but the added cost of Starlink isn’t worth it to me. Nor will it be for many others.
Those getting the service for free don’t count, as they are not helping “pay the freight “.
Time will tell what the numbers will be. But another important number is how many customers each satellite is able to serve. That is the one that determines how profitable it is.
Not fast enough compared to what? It’s faster than my current Spectrum cable connection and massively faster than any of the wireless alternatives actually available in most of rural America.
The money will work out fine. The Starlink user base continues to expand at a rate constrained only by the availability of semiconductors to build the terminals. New businesses rarely show black ink on the ledgers from the get-go.
As long as investors keep pouring in money they can keep going. Look at Amazon, this can go on for a long time.
Slava Ukraine!
Amazon is making a clear profit. there is no two ways about that. investors will continue to pour in money as long as the irrational exhuberance continues. its not clear SpaceX is making a profit. one reason I suspect that Musk is delaying Starships maiden flight is that some investors have hired experts (and I know this for a fact) to evaluate the rocket and they were less than impressed
If those investors want to sell their stock to other investors with more knowledge of space they should have no trouble doing so. But they won’t as they are waiting for the payoff from Starlink.
which all depends on Starship working. by the end of the decade they will be at 50 tons launched for about 200 million. see how that works
If it can work. It will work by the end of the decade. I’d feel comfortable making that prediction. From what I see now, I think we’re looking at a year of tests, then a year of flight ops to feel comfortable with in flight tanking.
Add in the delay to move to the Cape because of the radical environmentalists. He already has environmental approval to launch there so they won’t be able to stop him.
It appears that all the good folks in Brownsville will be left with thanks to the environmentalists is a Starship Gate Guard at the airport and a return to unemployment.
You know you’ve called every bit of this until you descend into environmental conspiracy theory. They’re going to get their tests, and they’ll set up a port to operate off shore where this beast belongs. You’ve said as much in the past. They knew they had to go offshore. And bypassing environmental review in order to make room for a cherished project is no way to operate.
It is one thing for the FAA to simply say the risk of damage to third parties from an accident is too high and end the matter by saying SpaceX will not be able to launch from Boca Chica. That is just a simple and objective engineering analysis and shouldn’t take more than a few months for a qualified engineering firm to do for the FAA.
But dragging it out by asking for public comments and listening to weak arguments from environmental groups, then spending years to do an EIS before making a decision while keeping up the hopes of the folks building it is another matter entirely.
They’re weak arguments to you because you spiritually back Starship. You said yourself when Space X made the decision that they were changing the launch vehicles from Falcons to BFR that they’d have to do a new EIS. Had they started a EIS when they made that decision they’d have finished it by now. This is a problem entirely of SpaceX’s making. I’m sorry there’s a huge difference between a few airliners worth of RP-1 and a few kilotons of CH4 and LOX. I don’t blame the FAA for saying the environmental review is insufficient.
An EIS looks on the impact on the environment. What I am talking about is a simple risk analysis. They are two different things. If the risk analysis shows that the Starship/Super Heavy is not safe to fly out of Boca Chica there is no need for an EIS.
But the FAA hasn’t said that. And I don’t think it is going to.
How long the testing takes depends upon when it is able to start. A decision by FAA that Starbase needs a new EIS would push that rightward by at least six months, probably more. Once testing starts, whether from Starbase or KSC, I think it will go fairly quickly. Starlink deployments will probably be the first operational missions, mixed in with tanker and refilling testing. All that could take another two years. But if Starbase gets a thumbs-up, I think it won’t.
Even the now-obsolete Boosters 4 and 5 and Starships 20 and 22 cost far less than $200 million a set and could do better than 50 tons. By the end of the decade, there will be a lot of Starships on both the Moon and Mars.
It took them a LONG time and a lot of investment to carry over from concept to profit.
Which is why Elon Musk is not going to take SpaceX public. He wants investors in it for the long haul, not those looking for a quick profit.
And I’m so so so thankful he can do that. I get it.
One has to wonder what “experts” they have allegedly hired? People currently or formerly employed by NASA or one of the sad sack legacy primes? Top. Men.
the Ukraine war is about to escalate
I got exposed to Ukrainian nationalism in high school during the 80’s. I said before on this forum that the Ukrainians would fight like this. Eagleson called it when he proposed a Russian invasion of Ukraine could go like the Soviet invasion of Finland. That’s exactly how it’s going so far. Keep in mind, that in the end they (The Fins) gave into Soviet demands but kept their independence. But they had no outside help. NATO and specifically the US is in this big time. Lot’s of history being made, lots of lessons learned. The combination of Ukraine expert soldiering, national will, and NATO arms can carry the day yet.
Slava Ukraine.
they are in a difficult fight. But what is clear so far is that the Russians have learned little in modern times…and are well like they were in WW2 clumsy.
this is like the Sudentaen land and the Action in Checkland. we have always talked about what would have happened had british done what would the German officer corp had done. we will now find out.
things are moving. the Russians will overreact on this. Putin thinks he is in a run. we will likely be shooting at each other soon. that should stop it
Putin already declared war on NATO. If Putin survives this, the Baltics are next. And it will be Russia vs NATO. But he has to recharge his land and air forces, and honestly if the Ukraine Army can do this to them, NATO can do far far worse. The danger is his control over nuclear weapons. I give it good odds there will be a coupe against Putin if this keeps going as bad as it is.
there are several ending scenarios. 1. is there is a coup, 2) the US/NATO do a no fly zone, 3) Ivan overreacts and starts heavy bombing (so far they are recee in force) and the US/NATO does number 2 this could also includes Russian tactical specials. 4 the Russians over act diplomatically and that pushes us to 2 which then leads to 1. 5. Putin goes nuts and starts engaging NATO members. then we will take him apart
If he uses a special. we take out several batteries conventionally. the B’2s get their moment
Several friends of mine from Turkish pilots have gone home to the Ukraine. I am in contact with them sparadically
Good luck to them. And good hunting.
It looks like Poland has finally shamed the Germans into providing actual weapons to the Ukraine military instead of just helmets and good wishes.
https://24hoursworld.com/po…
War in Ukraine: Poland criticizes Germany’s behavior
By david william
February 26, 2022
“Morawiecki also demanded that Germany supply arms to Ukraine. The Polish Prime Minister described the 5,000 protective helmets that Berlin had promised Ukraine as “a kind of joke”. Ukraine needs “real help”, i.e. “weapons”. The Ukrainians are not only fighting for themselves, “they are also fighting for us. For our freedom, our sovereignty. So that we are not next in line,” he stressed.”
Quite. The initial airborne grab for Kyiv seems to have failed and the ground formation pushing on that city seems to have bogged down 30 miles short. Now the Ukrainians have struck an airbase ten miles inside Russia. They may well have other cross-border targets in mind. If the Turks have actually blockaded the Black Sea in response to a Russian attack on one of their ships, then NATO is already involved. If the Russians shoot at the Turks again, Article 5 could be invoked and then things would get very spicy indeed. Spicy enough that Putin could be given a 7.62mm retirement by his fellow countrymen.
The bogged down formation to the North is heavy mech from Vladivostok. The airborne units were landing, and getting wiped out on the West suburbs of Kiev. I say wiped out because I listened to the battle on live web cams and the shooting would be intense, get closer to Maidan Square, then just stop. Happened about 5 times. Late the next day the Ukraine Army said the assaults were from 5 different brigades and were wiped out to the man. No survivors. The Russians admitted to this, but said the brigades surrendered and the prisoners executed. Either way, a stunning failure of the kinds of GRU raids the West was going to take if WWIII turned on in Germany. It’s so strange to watch the Russian army take on a late 80’s Soviet style army group with American intel and communications and lose big. Maybe by the time this is all over the Ukraine will let NATO enter into alliance with it. 🙂
Slava Ukraine.
It already has. The Ukrainians lobbed a missile into a Russian airbase whose planes were flying close support missions for the invasion. Reports are that Ukrainian ground troops were also involved. Meanwhile, Russia has attacked third-party ships in the Black Sea including a Turkish vessel. The Turks are now said to have closed the Black Sea to further Russian entry. Escalate indeed.
I think that Russian air strip attack was from a MRLS the Ukrainians developed that is ultra large. The rockets approach the qualification as intermediate range ballistic missiles. I think that’s part of the miraculous set of armor battles going on around Karkhiv right now.
Slava Ukraine.
Yeah, the initial strike was by a missile, but I saw some cell phone video of the impact and explosion from a good vantage point so I’m inclined to think the story about Ukrainian ground troops being there too are accurate.
Good investments usually do.
I think they’re gonna be alright.
Congratulations on another successful with the All American Rocket- the Falcon 9R!