{"id":21721,"date":"2024-04-16T22:28:48","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T14:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/this-week-in-launch-a-lonely-spacex-week\/"},"modified":"2024-04-16T22:28:48","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T14:28:48","slug":"this-week-in-launch-a-lonely-spacex-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/this-week-in-launch-a-lonely-spacex-week\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Launch: A lonely SpaceX week"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"img-border featured-image\">\n<p>\t<img width=\"100%\" src=\"https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2023\/07\/DSC_9023-3.jpg?quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1500\" class=\"skip-lazy wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2023\/07\/DSC_9023-3.jpg?w=320&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2023\/07\/DSC_9023-3.jpg?w=640&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2023\/07\/DSC_9023-3.jpg?w=1024&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2023\/07\/DSC_9023-3.jpg?w=1500&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 1500w\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" data-attachment-id=\"36985\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/2023\/07\/01\/spacex-falcon-9-launches-euclid-mission-to-unlock-secrets-of-the-dark-universe\/dsc_9023-3\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2023\/07\/DSC_9023-3.jpg?quality=82&amp;strip=all\" data-orig-size=\"1500,1000\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-title=\"Euclid launch spacex falcon 9\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\n\n<p>Image: Jared Locke \/ Space Explored<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2023\/07\/DSC_9023-3.jpg?quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024&#8243;><figcaption>\n\t\t\t\tImage: Jared Locke \/ Space Explored\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This week we\u2019re only seeing three launches, all of which are from SpaceX and two of those are for Starlink missions out of Florida. About what we expect from a company doing the majority of Earth\u2019s launch capability.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-40427\"><\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-this-week-s-launches\">This week\u2019s launches:<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>April 17 (Wednesday)\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Worldview Legion 1 &amp; 2 | 11:30 A.M. PT\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-51 | 5:24 P.M. ET\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>April 18 (Thursday)\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-52 | 6:40 P.M. ET\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Join our Discord Server: Join the community with forums and chatrooms about space!<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-spacex-launches-three-more-missions-this-week\">SpaceX launches three more missions this week<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Continuing their three week streak of launching three or more Falcon 9s a week, SpaceX once again has three rockets scheduled to launch this week. For what I\u2019ve seen, they are the only company currently attempting any launches in the next seven days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A rare quiet week from China it is I guess.<\/p>\n<p>\t<span class=\"outbrain-ad-label\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<script type=\"text\/plain\">\n\t\t\twindow.adSlotsConfig = window.adSlotsConfig || [];<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tadSlotsConfig.push( {\n\t\t\t\tslotID: '\/1049447\/Outbrain',\n\t\t\t\tslotName: 'div-gpt-ad-outbrain-ad-40427',\n\t\t\t\tsizes: [300, 250],\n\t\t\t\tslotPosition: 'mid_article'\n\t\t\t} );\n\t\t<\/script><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first mission will be a commercial flight for DigitalGlobe with two of its next generation Worldview Legion spacecrafts. Because of the light weight of these two spacecraft, the booster will be return to LZ-4 after launching.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following this mission we\u2019ll be back to the status quo of Starlink flights from Florida. The most annoying part of all of this is that SpaceX is seemingly skipping over Starlink Group 6-50. Every manifest I\u2019ve looked at shows them launching 6-51 and -52 this weekend continuing on with -53. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s not uncommon for Starlink missions to fly out of order, but this is the first I\u2019ve noticed them skipping a number entirely. What does this mean? Nothing, maybe, probably nothing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyways, these three missions will bring SpaceX up to 42 total launches for 2024 and will continue to push that launch rate in the right direction to meet its 148 launch goal.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-musk-gives-update-on-future-of-starship-program\">Musk gives update on future of Starship program<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While I was traveling a few weeks ago, Elon Musk gave an update on SpaceX\u2019s goal to make life multi-planetary with its Starship rocket down at Starbase. While there wasn\u2019t a whole lot new, there were some things worth mentioning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In case you were wondering, the state of SpaceX\u2019s martian colony goal is strong with Musk restating how important it is that humanity has a backup. He\u2019s hoping in the next 20 years SpaceX will be able to launch regular missions to the Red Planet, hoping eventually make it self sustaining and independent from Earth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To do this, SpaceX will need to get Starship operational and upgrade it. A \u201cStarship 2\u201d version is already well talked about and construction of those ships is underway. Starship 2 will see slight extensions in its propellent tanks and various other improvements SpaceX has learned launching its first generation Starship rockets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Starship 3 is where things will get crazy, drastically expanding the length of its tanks to be more than 500 feet tall. However, Musk states that more increases could come to Starship 3 depending on how Starship 2 does.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So if you\u2019re looking at Starship and thinking \u201chow can this get any bigger?\u201d Well, it can, and it probably will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}