
SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record - rbanffy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-launches-19th-rocket-in-a-year-a-company-record-1543862707
======
cheeko1234
They broke four records today:

1\. First company booster to fly three times

2\. First to launch from all SpaceX pads

3\. Now most number of SpaceX launches in a year.

4\. Highest number of spacecraft flown on a US rocket

64th Falcon 9 mission. 70th including Falcon 1 and Heavy.

~~~
SteveGregory
Additionally, this was the first time that the fairings were recovered and are
expected to be reused for a future launch:

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1069679948103847939](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1069679948103847939)

The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch, or at least 10%
of the physical rocket cost, so this could lead to significant savings for
future launches.

~~~
cptskippy
> The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch

WHAAAAA?! What are they made of? I thought the fairings were just the covers
for the payload. What makes them so expensive?

~~~
kirrent
They're large or larger than a double decker bus. They're released well after
first stage separation so they need to be as light as possible. Stupidly
light. Despite being very large and very light, they need to be very resistant
to vibration through hypersonic speeds and go through a huge range of
temperatures. They need to separate reliably and equalize pressure during
ascent. They look like a mere shell, but they're actually advanced composite
structures with a fair amount of tech involved.

~~~
robin_reala
They also have a built in parachute deployment mechanism which can safely get
them down to sea level.

~~~
gpm
I don't think it's fair to count that as part of the 6M cost that you are
"saving", if you just did the typical thing and threw them away you wouldn't
need parachutes.

------
gardaani
This is the second rocket launch today! The earlier one was Soyuz Launch to
ISS:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18587943](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18587943)

I didn't know that there are so many rocket launches going on all the time.
Here's a list of them: [https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-
schedule/](https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/)

There a launch almost every second day.

The most interesting ones are Dec 7 Chinese launch to the far side of the moon
and Jan 30 launch of India's moon rover.

~~~
Ajedi32
If all goes according to plan, SpaceX will also be launching again tomorrow
for their next CRS mission (resupplying the ISS).

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hackernudes
Here is a link to the launch video (cued at T-15s):
[https://youtu.be/Wq8kS6UoOrQ?t=1179](https://youtu.be/Wq8kS6UoOrQ?t=1179)

~~~
jlawson
I love how the lower part of the rocket is battered and burned by repeated re-
entry. It's starting to look like something from a gritty sci-fi movie.

~~~
agildehaus
She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid.

------
benj111
So the 'steamroller' is now up to speed.

Does anyone have any ideas if Spacex will actually grow the launch market,
rather than just dominate. What new things become possible with lower cost
access to space.

Spacex are developing communications satellites for internet, what else?

Edit: Thanks for all the replies so far, I was thinking more down to earth (di
dum ch) things rather than theoretically possible. Eg I know that certain
drugs are made in space because the crystal structure requires zero g (or
something), so is that something with pent up demand, or some exciting
materials that are awaiting lower cost manufacture.

~~~
joshmarlow
In addition to asteroid mining and other industrial activities, once pricing
comes down, I think entertainment could be a large market.

Space tourism is one possibility, but tourists have to deal with getting sick
going up.

I think entertainment produced in space but sold on Earth could be big -
particularly space sports! You could design sports that are just not possible
to play on a planet.

~~~
jankeymeulen
People keep say astroid mining but I've yet to see a convincing business
case...

~~~
bluGill
What are we proposing to mine? The business case for platinum is easy to make
if there is a quantity of relatively pure ore. The business case for iron is
hard to make. Unfortunately iron is common on earth and on asteroids (I'm
confident in making that statement without looking it up so I guess I could be
wrong). Platinum is rare on earth and in great demand, and seems to be just as
rare in space.

I can come up with other cases, but there is a lot of other technology that
needs to be worked on before we are ready to build generation ships heading to
other star systems.

~~~
larrydag
Apparently the precious metal content on asteroids is through the roof.
Titanium, Nickel, Platinum, etc. One study concluded that there was more than
a trillion dollars worth of metal on one asteroid alone.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2015/07/19/trillion-
do...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2015/07/19/trillion-dollar-baby-
asteroid-has-wannabe-space-miners-salivating/#65a0ec30214f)

~~~
bryanlarsen
And there's 0.005 ppm / kg * 5.97219 * 10^24 KG * 29540 $/kg = ~ 1 sextillion
dollars worth of platinum in the earth's crust.

------
jillesvangurp
I watched the livestream over dinner on youtube. Really good footage this
time. Clear weather and they shot the first stage landing with a zoom lens
from land. Including pretty much all of the landing burn.

~~~
azernik
The first stage landing footage was a total lucky break for us - this was a
launch profile that _could_ have made it back to land. However, there was
another rocket (ULA, I believe) on the pad at Vandenberg with some delicate
payloads, so they asked SpaceX to land on the barge just far enough offshore
to give themselves some distance from the pads.

------
mirekrusin
NASA seems to be open-sourcing some interesting projects, ie.
[https://github.com/nasa/openmct](https://github.com/nasa/openmct)

I wonder if SpaceX will publish some of their tools to the public in the near
future.

------
robin_reala
They’ve now flown 64 times total, and landed 32 of them.

~~~
rakoo
For the sake of completeness, how many have they reflown?

~~~
jhenkens
This was the first time that SpaceX has launched-and-landed the same rocket on
three separate missions.

[https://mashable.com/article/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-
launch-r...](https://mashable.com/article/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-launch-
repeat/)

~~~
jonah
From three different launchpads. A hat trick!

------
walrus01
For IoT simplex data and things that need functionality similar to Iridium
SBD, but at much lower cost and are not time sensitive, I am very optimistic
about the Hiber satellite network:

[https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/hiber-1.htm](https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/hiber-1.htm)

[https://hiber.global/](https://hiber.global/)

They're claiming "a few dollars per month" for low usage volumes, per
terminal.

Also, Gunter's space page is a great general reference for a lot of new small-
sat/micro-sat/cubesat programs.

------
true_tuna
Serious question. Why do you post WSJ articles? Either someone subscribes in
which case they don’t need to discover content or they don’t in which case
they haven’t discovered anything. WSJ posts are literally just advertisements
for a mediocre closed website.

Seriously why do you bother?

~~~
maneesh
because people like me want to read the article, and we are happy it was
posted.

It's also extremely easy to get around the paywall.

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foxyv
I think after it's first flight, the booster should get a cool nickname that
is mentioned each time it flies afterwards.

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neonate
[https://outline.com/DXV9H2](https://outline.com/DXV9H2)

------
jonathanpeterwu
At its current rate thats a rocket every ~19 days

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nkoren
I would just like to point out that this story dropped 18 places in 5 minutes:

[http://hnrankings.info/18591766/](http://hnrankings.info/18591766/)

This is something I've seen before, but _solely_ with stories pertaining to
Elon Musk. It is very clear that HN rankings are being manipulated for a
specific agenda. This saddens me, as HN is otherwise a place I trust for
informed and balanced commentary.

(Note: I am not necessarily accusing the moderators of HN of anything here; I
almost always agree with their interventions, even when seemingly heavy-
handed. I know that running a community is hard. I suspect that something else
is going on here.)

~~~
grzm
> _" This is something I've seen before, but solely with stories pertaining to
> Elon Musk."_

This is likely selection bias. I've seen plenty of stories on other topics
sink in rank as well that had nothing to do with Elon Musk.

See the FAQ for more details on ranking:

> _" How are stories ranked?"_

> _" The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story
> was submitted. Comments in comment threads are ranked the same way."_

> _" Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software,
> software which downweights overheated discussions, and moderator
> intervention._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

------
mack1001
How much of this success is because of Elon?

~~~
gpm
How do you measure something like that?

Without Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist (and in all likelyhood no comparable
company would exist in its place), so all of it.

Without everyone but Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist, so none of it.

~~~
mjevans
A better spin on this question is probably along the lines of:

Does SpaceX still need Elon? As a figure head, maybe. As a leader? More
complicated, there's probably still some risky path-finding left but the
biggest moon-shots are now out of the way and as long as it doesn't become a
quarterly returns focused company anyone slightly bullish could probably do a
good enough job.

~~~
gpm
Does SpaceX still need Elon - compared to what - for what?

Does SpaceX still need Elon to control ownership of the company as opposed to
selling to "average" investors in order to colonize mars? Almost certainly.

Does SpaceX still need Elon as the CEO as opposed to the "average" other CEO
they could hire, to profitably launch satellites into space? Almost certainly
not.

At least we reach theoretically answerable questions with this sort of
construction, but I don't think we have enough information to answer any but
the most obvious versions such as those above.

SpaceX's biggest moonshots, if they keep succeeding and Elon keeps leading,
are yet to come.

