Recently, Musk's private space company SpaceX launch rocket frequency is a bit overwhelming, a few days ago Xiaobian just wrote their 5th successful launch in 2022, did not expect that at 18:13 local time on February 3, they successfully carried out the 6th launch of 2022 from the LC-39A launch pad of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, successfully sending 49 "Starlink" satellites into space. The task is still the "Falcon" 9 that can be recycled and reused.
It's a bit overwhelming
In this way, just over a month after 2022, Musk's private space company SpaceX has successfully carried out 6 orbital stage launches, 6 reusable Falcon 9 rockets, and sent 254 satellites into the intended orbit. And the use of the first level booster 5 old 1 new, fairing 4 old 2 new, all successfully recovered. In addition, the 6th launch in 2022 is the 111th consecutive successful launch of SpaceX, and the Falcon 9 is close to the Russian "Alliance" rocket for 134 consecutive successful launches.
Sixth launch of the Falcon 9 in 2022
Although Musk and his private space company SpaceX have been thunderous in the industry, many netizens do not know much about them, and some people's impressions are still stuck in the 4 consecutive explosions of the "starship" from 2020 to 2021. In fact, the Falcon 9 and the Starship are two completely different space launch systems. The Falcon 9 is a traditional medium rocket, while the Starship is an Arrow-In-One vehicle that is planned to fly to the moon and rockets. The labels "Starships" are "Mars", "Stainless Steel", "Retro", they are currently facing the major task of the first orbital-class launch, and the ignition time is pushed back and forth, which is very immature.
The starship fell halfway to the ground a moment before
The starship exploded in half an instant
Half-cut wreckage on the bombed starship
The starship sub-complete body
But the "Falcon" 9 series is a very mature carrier rocket, American astronauts take the "Dragon" spacecraft on and off the space station, tourists go to space tourism, cargo "Dragon" spacecraft to the International Space Station to transport supplies, the US military launch satellites, "Starlink" networking, foreign customer satellite commercial launches, and even the launch of asteroid interceptors, all depending on the "Falcon" 9 and "Falcon Heavy". Oh, and by the way, the three Dragon spacecraft are also products of SpaceX.
Falcon 9 launch instantly
Falcon 9 Booster Recover Instantly
At present, the record of the "Falcon" series is 140 launches, 8 failures, 111 consecutive successes, 106 successful first-stage booster recoveries, in addition, it has a total of 56 rockets, only 6 are brand new, the others are all second-hand and N-hand rockets, the most reused is B1051, and there have been 11 successful launches and 11 recoveries so far. At the same time, 3 Falcon 9 rockets were launched and recovered 10 times.
The 11th successful recovery of B1051
Having said all this, xiaobian means that even if the "starship" and "starlink" are unreliable, even if Musk himself is considered by many people to be a "big flicker" and "marketing genius", but SpaceX's "Falcon" series rockets and "Dragon" spacecraft are really made products, and even have a strong leading edge in the field of commercial aerospace, which is worth learning.
Starship launch imaginary diagram
Falcon 9 launched
In fact, in the "2021 China Aerospace" white paper, the direction of the optimization and adjustment of mainland commercial aerospace is also learning from SpaceX's successful experience. For example, the white paper mentioned, "1, clear commercial space launch market positioning." From the perspective of the development of the space launch industry, the state should clarify the different positioning of the national team and commercial spaceflight, and must cut a cake for commercial space launch at the development stage. 2. Change the concept of "only success". Commercial aerospace needs to develop a model of innovation, iterative development model, and needs to have a high tolerance for failure in the process. 3. Classify payload risk tolerance to provide a possibility for start-ups to obtain launch service contracts. 4. Introduce a phased support mechanism to support the development of commercial space enterprises in a hierarchical manner through conceptual design contracts and launch contracts. 5. Accelerate the policy support and construction of commercial space launch sites and launch stations, and improve enterprise autonomy. ”