Plus: Inside those "crazy numbers" and a forgotten lunar gift
| | A SpaceNews daily newsletter | 01/02/2025 |
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Last year set another record for the most orbital launches worldwide, thanks largely to SpaceX. There were 259 orbital launch attempts worldwide in 2024, a 17% increase from the previous record in 2023. That increase was primarily due to SpaceX, which conducted 134 Falcon launches in 2024, up from 96 in 2023. Even that increase fell short of SpaceX's internal goal for 2024, originally 148 launches and later revised to 136. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said last month the company has a goal of 175-180 launches in 2025. [SpaceNews]
That increase translated into a record year for launches from Florida as well. The Eastern Range, including Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center, hosted 93 launches in 2024, up from 74 in 2023. SpaceX performed 88 of those launches with ULA the other five. Space Force Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, commander of the Eastern Range, said the spaceport has accommodated those "crazy numbers" through automation and infrastructure improvements. [SpaceNews]
The penultimate flight of 2024 was an Indian launch of a docking technology mission. A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) lifted off Monday at 11:30 a.m. Eastern and deployed the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) into low Earth orbit. SpaDeX features two 220-kilogram satellites that will drift apart and then approach to dock with one another, testing docking technologies needed for a future lunar sample return mission and India's proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Station space station. The PSLV's upper stage also carried 24 hosted payloads, 14 from the Indian space agency ISRO and 10 from other organizations. [SpaceNews]
The final orbital launch of the year was a Starlink mission. A Falcon 9 lifted off Tuesday at 12:39 a.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral and deployed 21 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. Of the 134 Falcon launches by SpaceX in 2024, 89 were dedicated to Starlink. [Spaceflight Now]
The FCC is allocating additional spectrum for launches. The FCC released a report and order Tuesday formally assigning spectrum between 2360 and 2395 megahertz for use in communications to and from commercial launch and reentry vehicles on a secondary basis. The assignment complies with language in the Launch Communications Act signed into law in September and directing the FCC to allocate spectrum in three bands for use in commercial launches and reentries; the FCC had already allocated spectrum in the other two bands identified in the bill. Launch companies will have to avoid any interference in operations in the new band with aircraft and missile testing, which has priority use. [SpaceNews]
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The Chinese company building satellites for a megaconstellation has raised $137 million. Shanghai Gesi Aerospace Technology, also known as Genesat, announced a funding round of more than one billion yuan (approximately $137 million) Monday. The company did not state what the funding would be used for. Genesat's primary mission is to develop and manufacture satellites for the Qianfan (Thousand Sails) broadband megaconstellation. Currently 56 Qianfan satellites are in orbit, with a goal of having 600 in orbit by the end of this year toward an ultimate constellation of 14,000 satellites. [SpaceNews]
Officials in Kenya claim a piece of space debris fell in the country. The object, a ring about 2.5 meters in diameter and weighing 500 kilograms, fell Monday afternoon in a village in the country, but caused no damage or injuries. The Kenyan Space Agency said it believes the object is a "separation ring" from a launch vehicle, and would work to identify the object's owner. However, there are no known reentries of space objects whose time and location would match with the object found. [Kenyans.co.ke]
A moon rock donated by the United States to Ireland was hidden in a basement for years and later destroyed in a fire. Documents released recently by the Irish government revealed that, when the U.S. gave Ireland an Apollo 11 lunar rock in 1970, the rock was placed in a basement of a government building for more than three years, forgotten until the U.S. provided a second Apollo lunar sample. One document noted "it was thought that some embarrassment would be caused if the first piece was not already on display" and the first lunar rock was given to an observatory, but was lost in a fire there in 1977. The second lunar sample is now on public display at an Irish museum. [Irish Independent]
The Ingenuity Mars helicopter took to the skies again Wednesday — as part of a parade float. The "Rover Rendezvous" float in the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, featured a flower-covered replica of Ingenuity, marking the first appearance of a drone in a float in that famous parade. The float also featured a rover modeled on the Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance. It was created by the city of La Cañada Flintridge, California, within whose city limits the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is located. [collectSPACE]
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| | Versatile but Expensive
"Humans are more versatile and we get stuff done faster than a robot, but we're really hard and expensive to keep alive in space."
– Kelly Weinersmith, a biologist at Rice University and co-author of the book A City on Mars, on the tradeoffs of sending humans versus robots to explore the solar system. [BBC]
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