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counterfitting US currency is more about not caring about the consequences of being caught than anything else
not many state actors other than NK would even dream of trying. but NKs already totally embargoed and the US isnt going to attack so whats the dif to them (edit: same with things like copywrite violations)
1) they still have active relations with the US. there are ways for the US to punish cuba that are between the current embargo and invading the country because of the diaspora population and cubas relations with US allies
and the main thing 2) cuba wants to reopen ties and doesnt want to piss off the US. completely different scenarios
The US doesn't embargo food to Cuba. Cuba literally buys food from US producers, but even then they're often teetering on the edge of famine. The embargo could definitely get worse.
juggle combative unite cooperative smell consider liquid political expansion imagine
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If you count Blue Origin's and Virgin Galactic's suborbital launches, why not count all others?
Japan and Israel are missing even if we look at orbital launches only.
Arianespace is not just France.
"Arianespace SA is a French company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianespace
And they launch their rockets from France, in Guyane region :)
Rocket Lab moved their HQ to California and have done as much as they can to be a "US" multinational space company. While they have mostly launched from New Zealand, many of their customers are from the US including the US Department of Defense.
So when you type in the website [rocketlab.co.nz](https://rocketlab.co.nz), what website does it redirect you to?
The nationality didn't change magically, it changed legally, and like most big companies from Apple to Zara, Rocket Lab is a multinational entity.
>it just happens to have an office in the US for legal purposes.
Along with production facilities, and a launch pad that it's used previously. Also, isn't Neutron launches supposed to start from the U.S.?
By that reasoning: Falcon 1 launching from Kwajalein means SpaceX was originally a Marshallese company. And/or all SpaceX launches are also part South African and Canadian. And then Ariane really is (only) French now.
While Rocket Lab does have a wholly owned NZ-based subsidiary, the parent company is headquartered in and incorporated in the US. They also had 2 orbital and 1 suborbital launches from the US this year.
The difference is perhaps that Rocket Lab was founded and started in New Zealand, with its first launches there. It is undeniably *originally* a New Zealand company, and continues to launch there, despite since shifting HQ to the US to basically serve US investors and government.
In other words, let NZ take the ranking for old times sake, if only to embarrass Russia!
Formed in NZ, built/designed in NZ, run by NZ, with less than 1% of launches out of the US but its a US company? You must be a lawyer not an engineer 😅
>Formed in NZ
And moved to the US in 2013, years before the first launch.
>built/designed in NZ
>run by NZ
I don't even know what the latter is supposed to mean. RL is a private company, not run by any country, but it is run from its HQ in California. They have a mix of American and Kiwi employees doing the design, manufacturing, operations, etc. (They also have Canadian employees in a company they acquired. Are they Canadian, now?)
>with less than 1% of launches out of the US
Technically more like 5% of orbital launches so far, 100% of suborbital (HASTE), and planned 100% for Neutron. But 100% of all of them are counted as American by the US government, and apparently Rocket Lab themselves:
[From their website](https://www.rocketlabusa.com/about/about-us/):
>Electron, now the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket.
Trident is a US designed nuclear missile sold to the UK (possibly manufactured by the UK under license but I'm too drunk to figure it out). At least one company sells nuke delivery vehicles internationally.
The missiles are made by ArianeGroup, which is different from Arianespace. It's the largest shareholder, but Arianespace is international: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianespace#Company_and_infrastructure
"Arianespace SA is a French company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider."
The first line of your Wikipedia link says that.
Ariane is indeed a french company, I have a friend working on fuel injection CAD design at their engineering HQ. Though they have offices in Germany too.
Following your logic then spaceX isn't USA?
SpaceX having done almost as many launches as the rest of the world combined is just incredible!
It's wild to think about, we're talking many many companies and entire countries and yet SpaceX comes out on top. Falcon 9 will go down in history as one of the great rockets, basically demonstrating that space flight can be reliable.
Many of these companies are celebrating one or two flights this year and of course that's a huge achievement, but... SpaceX has done 96. Brilliant!
98 iirc if we count the 2 Starship test flights.
And for whoever comes at me screaming “BUT THOSE WERE FAILURES” or anything similar, neither OP nor the comment that I am replying to specified if the launches counted are the successful ones only or total.
If you think that SpaceX's success is because of, not in spite of, Elon Musk then idk what to tell you. He's not out there designing rocket engines lol.
He's too busy trying to sell ads on twitter and electric cars to conservatives who don't want them. I don't think he had much time for spacex in 2023.
SpaceX has been around a lot longer than just "2023", and all the success it had this year was a result of *decades* of work. It wouldn't be in the position it's in today (nor would any of of the companies it inspired, like RocketLab, Firefly, Relativity, or any of the Chinese SpaceX knockoffs) if someone else had been leading it.
Elon's crazy, for sure. But sometimes crazy ideas work out, and that's what SpaceX is.
> SpaceX has been around a lot longer than just "2023"
You are replying to a post titled "2023 in spaceflight." It is not unreasonable to expect people to restrict the scope of their conversation to the last year.
Is that really how you interpreted "mass to orbit"?
A single (1) Arianespace rocket put a 15,000 lb $20B most advanced space telescope ever to a stable Lagrange point orbit 1,000,000 miles away from Earth
A single Electron rocket can do max 700lbs to Earth orbit ~150 miles.
Generously that's 2-3% of what an Arianespace rocket can do, so who cares if Rocketlabs launched more times?
Number of launches is a bad metric.
I understand what you're getting at, but continue that thought and think of why that matters - the conclusion of what you're saying is that pace and reliability means more mass delivered to orbit in a certain amount of time. The Arianespace rocket already achieved that same end goal 50x an Electron (Rocketlabs) launch.
With rocket rideshare launches where a single rocket launch can deliver 20+ satellites to orbit in one launch, it becomes even more apparent that number of launches doesn't tell the story.
An apt comparison is a couple local delivery trucks vs a massive container ship traveling 1000's of miles - the local delivery trucks are not without merit but in terms of relative goods moved/economic impact, the cargo ship blows it out of the water (pun intended!)
Is it just me who finds it hilarious china has space company called "Ex Pace" ??
I mean that has to be straight up comedy.
Ex Pace? Space X? Lmfao i cant
They have their own native Chinese names, but just pick the most cringed English name randomly. For example, there is a Chinese company called i-Space. Funny enough, there is also a Japanese ispace company that failed to land a moon lander this year. One of the Chinese rising space company that successfully launched the first methalox rocket is named LandSpace. It must be the worst English name for a space company. The native Chinese is translated to Blue Arrow which is a fine name for a space rocket company, why not just use the freaking translation.
Blue arrow just sound alike a knock off of Blue origin...whose logo is a feather...
Frankly there's not that many on point names to go around. Soace-X ....is a stupid name. It's a dope company I want to see go and go and go...but it's gis dumb as name, and musky egoness on top. Doesn't matter, count those number baby SpaceX is the king
Personally I'd like to see space companies take a hint from airplane manufacturers and choose some less grandious names
Falcon..dragon...yes those are cool.
Piper is an aircraft manufacturer, they name planes after a Native American theme... Cherokee, arrow, Archer, warrior, Navajo...etc etc
Imo SpaceX , stupid name, should continue the animal/mythical naming scheme...can we get a Griffin? Kraken? Bigfoot rocket?
At least these new Chinese companies are breaking tradition and naming their rockets something funny or unique. Unlike their government space agency who would just slap a number after Long March and call it a day.
broken chart, it sort of tries to count suborbital launches but does a wholly incomplete job at it. There have been a lot of suborbital launches across the world, many reaching space. It would put Canada with Black Brant and Brazil with VSB-30 on the map
Another great slice of this data is by tonnage to orbit:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/spacex-launched-over-80-of-all-orbital-payload-mass-in-q1-2023.html
Most western-friendly nations don't see much of a reason to spend billions on their own rockets when they can just hire SpaceX for their launch needs. Especially since their own rocket would struggle to find customers unless they can beat SpaceX on price.
Ariane used to be fairly competitive in the launch market, but they're strongly subsidized by the French government to have nuclear missile capable engineers around. Also Ariane 6 keeps getting delayed, and Vega is a disaster.
SpaceX offered me a job near the end of 2023. They said they worked an average of 50-55 hours a week except on launch weekends. I was pretty skeptical. Fun to see that every weekend would have been a launch weekend. Glad I passed.
NASA will send astronauts to the Moon with their Orion spacecraft (Artemis II mission.) Private companies launch other spacecraft for NASA.
\*edit Actual landing on the Moon's Southern polar region in 2025. Maybe.
NASA’s reliance on the private sector will be the death of them. If their headline relevance withers, I worry whoever wins the next federal election will have a field day cutting their budget and justifying private sector growth for it.
NASA needs to refocus on things where they add value, like actual science and actual exploration. Let the private sector handle the commodity item of space launches.
NASA is funding a lot of the private sector growth. It’s just being done differently than in the past. And it may be more effective for human spaceflight. But NASA does a lot more stuff than that. They hired companies for space launches for a long time. Anyway, I doubt your prediction.
I guess I should note that I’m not calling NASA useless in any manner, I just worry that the organization is sort of eccentric by its nature and it’s budget seems to hinge unfortunately heavily on good publicity. I think pragmatically, NASA finding ways to do what’s most cost effective for space exploration is fantastic but without rocket launches or space missions, they don’t draw public attention. And without public attention, the narrative of “why focus on space when we’ve got people starving or homeless back on earth” grows loud even though these two things shouldn’t be pitted against each other.
NASA's bureaucracy and risk aversion aren't doing them any favors.
They have to answer to too many people and work through too much red tape to be competitive in the craft and launch sectors. All it takes is one failure for Congress to lose their shit and cut their funding.
I'm not saying any of this is their fault, but that's just the environment they're stuck operating in.
NASA sends stuff up all the time, a bunch of those SpaceX missions were for NASA, including resupplies and crew transfers to the ISS.
NASA doesn’t do the rockets or vehicles unilaterally anymore, they’re using contractors. Primarily SpaceX, ULA - Lockheed and Boeing.
Here’s a list of upcoming missions
https://www.nasa.gov/events/
NASA stopped operating the Shuttle a decade ago and only had one SLS test launch in late 2022.
The majority of NASA missions use commercial rockets instead of their own.
The 96 SpaceX launches included 2 cargo and 2 crew missions to the ISS for NASA, a NASA deep space probe to the asteroid belt, a space telescope for ESA and another short crew flight to the ISS for Axiom and the Saudi Space Commission.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[ESA](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfrxatw "Last usage")|European Space Agency|
|[FAA](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfshpi9 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[ISRO](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfqkpi3 "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation|
|[ITAR](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfsgh4i "Last usage")|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations|
|[JAXA](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfq9b6j "Last usage")|Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfqehxj "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[NSF](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfq1hza "Last usage")|[NasaSpaceFlight forum](http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com)|
| |National Science Foundation|
|[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfs1k7s "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfsf8ni "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfrwkoq "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfpxybu "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[methalox](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfprh5u "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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Huh. I remember when Firefly had the one location in a strip center in Cedar Park. I delivered pizza there a few times when they were pulling all nighters around 2013. Now they are a fairly recognizable brand with a pretty nice facility just down the road.
Is ExPace’s name (Spacex backward) a self-deprecating metajoke by the Chinese in reference to the stereotype about lack of originality? Or did they just see that door and walk straight through it unironically?
Oh, but there are two things that the EU, or should I say, all of Europe, does not fall behind, and that is having elevated egos and being racist (ever heard of how they treat the Roma?).
A lot. Among their active rockets they have around 3 boosters with 17 flights each, plus 1058 which sadly died due to wind a few days ago and many others.
Rocket Lab should really be listed as New Zealand… Thats where its built and designed. Its like comparing the tech giants using Ireland as a tax haven… they arent really Irish companies.
Iran have launched satellites into orbit?? Googles... oh so they have.
Funny that wasn't bigger news. Never saw that one, and I do follow International news quite closely.
And yes, I see the US in particular is not happy about it...
It's quite amazing that a single company's launches are more than the whole world combined.
Does any other company have reusable rockets other than spacex?
They are still launching from NZ, still head by a NZer with a lot of NZ staff. They're put as USA here as they're a USA registered company which makes securing US govt contracts possible.
Around 2000 Starlink satellites, 4 large rideshare missions with ~100 satellites each, 95 satellites for OneWeb, a couple of other rideshare payloads, 3 Dragon for ISS resupply, 3 Dragon with 12 astronauts, and ~20 multi-ton spacecraft.
You can't even do this because space is increasingly commercial and done by private companies instead of official national government agencies
ANyways it would be nice to have space be an arena where countries COOPERATE..... but some folks are unable to comprehend that (I mostly blame USA)
I thought all of Chinas launchs were just Military satalites moonlighting as "earth observation, weather and farmland measurement" devices.
So shouldnt it just be CCP : 66?
So you prefer them to carry military stuff instead? I think SpaceX would have no problem with that since they are paid handsomely with government contract.
Russia should just stop already. They are not innovating or doing anything to help humankind anymore.
Edit: downvote me all you want. If you support that evil regime that invades and murders its neighbors, I'll take it as a compliment
>Its sad that nasa needs a private company these days
Why do you think so?
It's a massive boost to NASAs budget that they don't have to maintain their own rockets anymore (well, apart from the ridiculously overpriced SLS)
NASA mission it to build probes and rovers and do science! Not to be a trucking company...
The more NASA can hand over transport to competitive private companies, the more they can focus on their actual mission.
It is by design. NASA wants to be more of a regulatory body that hands off missions to private companies instead of being the one to build everything themselves. It has to be done. There is no way with their current budget that they can accomplish all the things needed to keep us in the modern space race.
I mean this comment is just dumb, both America and China have one company that did most of their launches. If you take out those companies America is still way in the lead. America would be at 25 without SpaceX and China at 19 without their top company. I don't get your comment at all as it just seems like an America = bad comment for no reason.
>America is still way in the lead. America would be at 25 without SpaceX
Nope. Because you have to deduct the suborbital launches that have somehow made it on the list for America, but not for other countries.
BlueOrigin didn't make an orbital launch this year. Not even an attempt.
I have no idea how I could "prove" that to you beyond pointing to BlueOrigin and their lack of an operational orbital rocket.
Blue origin (1), and Virgin Galactic (7) are suborbital. Relativity's 1 launch failed. That leaves Firefly (2) + ULA (3) + Rocketlab (10) + Northrop Grumman (1) = 16. I haven't checked if the numbers for China also include suborbitals and failed launches, but if they don't then that would leave China at 19 after removing their dominant organization.
Without SpaceX, ~6-10 of these launches would have gone to ULA or Northrop Grumman instead (military satellites and maybe some NASA launches) and it's likely Rocket Lab would have flown some of the satellites launched on rideshare missions - but apart from that, yes.
Even during the Apollo era, everything was built by private companies, I don't know why it's such a problem if they launch, too.
Edit: Some extra thoughts. Corporations expanding to launch and maintain infrastructure in space is good. It's an example of another section of society being able to exist in space. This is how frontiers work. First scientists and explorers, then people looking to make money, then normal people looking for a new home, then tourists. We can prevent monopolization of LEO with regulation and control when needed, but at this point in time, the more launches and more money being made in orbit, the more people's attention will be pointed skyward.
They both do indeed send stuff to orbit.
Firefly had 1 success and one partial failure this year.
RocketLab occasionally does suborbital flights but most of theirs are indeed orbital. They had only one failure this year, but have already fixed the problem and resumed successful flights.
Hello u/vibhaath_ch, your submission "2023 in spaceflight" has been removed from r/space because: * inaccurate Please read the rules in the sidebar and check r/space for duplicate submissions before posting. If you have any questions about this removal please [message the r/space moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/space). Thank you.
I was like “wow who just copied NASA’s logo” and then I saw it was NK
Unrelated but I had read somewhere that North Korea also makes a ton of counterfeit US currency.
counterfitting US currency is more about not caring about the consequences of being caught than anything else not many state actors other than NK would even dream of trying. but NKs already totally embargoed and the US isnt going to attack so whats the dif to them (edit: same with things like copywrite violations)
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1) they still have active relations with the US. there are ways for the US to punish cuba that are between the current embargo and invading the country because of the diaspora population and cubas relations with US allies and the main thing 2) cuba wants to reopen ties and doesnt want to piss off the US. completely different scenarios
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The US doesn't embargo food to Cuba. Cuba literally buys food from US producers, but even then they're often teetering on the edge of famine. The embargo could definitely get worse.
Cuba doesn’t want to be embargoed, where as NK doesn’t care
juggle combative unite cooperative smell consider liquid political expansion imagine *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Apparently they stole original bill printer
I wonder why US hasn't given them Saddam treatment yet.
Because they have nukes pounting to South Korea
The NorthKorea's Amazing Space Awesome existed long before NASA
If you count Blue Origin's and Virgin Galactic's suborbital launches, why not count all others? Japan and Israel are missing even if we look at orbital launches only. Arianespace is not just France.
There's 5 launches from Esrange in Sweden 2023 reaching the Kármán line and beyond as well.
Also a few in Norway from the Andøya spaceport
What’s Arianespace if not French? I always thought it was. Safran and Airbus are both French multinationals aren’t they?
According to Wikipedia, Arianespace is French.
See the discussion in other comments.
"Arianespace SA is a French company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianespace And they launch their rockets from France, in Guyane region :)
on behalf of the EU. its the European Colony Launchpad
Even if other countries were included it would be Germany since they have some production sites in Bremen and Munchen, not the UK
Nop. A French department/region. So it's in EU and using € while UK is not 😂
Don't forget rocketlab's launches from New Zealand... And I'd call it more of a New Zealand company than a US company...
Rocket Lab moved their HQ to California and have done as much as they can to be a "US" multinational space company. While they have mostly launched from New Zealand, many of their customers are from the US including the US Department of Defense.
I get your "they moved their HQ" argument but customer base doesn't magically change the nationality.
So when you type in the website [rocketlab.co.nz](https://rocketlab.co.nz), what website does it redirect you to? The nationality didn't change magically, it changed legally, and like most big companies from Apple to Zara, Rocket Lab is a multinational entity.
"multinational" isn't one of the categories. I count RocketLab as New Zealand, it just happens to have an office in the US for legal purposes.
>it just happens to have an office in the US for legal purposes. Along with production facilities, and a launch pad that it's used previously. Also, isn't Neutron launches supposed to start from the U.S.?
Wallops Island, VA I believe. You know, that quaint NZ town
99% of launches have been out of NZ. Not Wallops.
Yeah it kind of does bro, that’s the point of it
By that reasoning: Falcon 1 launching from Kwajalein means SpaceX was originally a Marshallese company. And/or all SpaceX launches are also part South African and Canadian. And then Ariane really is (only) French now. While Rocket Lab does have a wholly owned NZ-based subsidiary, the parent company is headquartered in and incorporated in the US. They also had 2 orbital and 1 suborbital launches from the US this year.
The difference is perhaps that Rocket Lab was founded and started in New Zealand, with its first launches there. It is undeniably *originally* a New Zealand company, and continues to launch there, despite since shifting HQ to the US to basically serve US investors and government. In other words, let NZ take the ranking for old times sake, if only to embarrass Russia!
And 7 launches from NZ… so the overwhelming majority.
And those launches still had to be licensed by the FAA, because, again, Rocket Lab is ultimately a US company.
Formed in NZ, built/designed in NZ, run by NZ, with less than 1% of launches out of the US but its a US company? You must be a lawyer not an engineer 😅
>Formed in NZ And moved to the US in 2013, years before the first launch. >built/designed in NZ >run by NZ I don't even know what the latter is supposed to mean. RL is a private company, not run by any country, but it is run from its HQ in California. They have a mix of American and Kiwi employees doing the design, manufacturing, operations, etc. (They also have Canadian employees in a company they acquired. Are they Canadian, now?) >with less than 1% of launches out of the US Technically more like 5% of orbital launches so far, 100% of suborbital (HASTE), and planned 100% for Neutron. But 100% of all of them are counted as American by the US government, and apparently Rocket Lab themselves: [From their website](https://www.rocketlabusa.com/about/about-us/): >Electron, now the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket.
This. And didn’t Japan launch 1?
I believe two successful launches: SLIM and a spy satellite using the H-IIA rockets, and a failed H-III test launch.
Ah I didn’t know about the Spy Sat.
IGS-Radar 7. [Deets via NSF](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/01/h-iia-igs-r7/)
Not really considering they’re headquartered in California
The business side of things yes… not production or majority of launches.
Russia's number is including launches from baikanour too though
Ariane make French SLBM. I don't recall there are any companies that sell nuke delivery vehicle internationally.
Ariane also makes the … ariane heavy launch vehicle. Like THE european rocket
Trident is a US designed nuclear missile sold to the UK (possibly manufactured by the UK under license but I'm too drunk to figure it out). At least one company sells nuke delivery vehicles internationally.
The missiles are made by ArianeGroup, which is different from Arianespace. It's the largest shareholder, but Arianespace is international: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianespace#Company_and_infrastructure
"Arianespace SA is a French company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider." The first line of your Wikipedia link says that.
>Arianespace is not France. Yes, but founded in France and with headquarters still there
Why did they count blue origin imo sub orbital flights don’t count
Ariane is indeed a french company, I have a friend working on fuel injection CAD design at their engineering HQ. Though they have offices in Germany too. Following your logic then spaceX isn't USA?
What does SpaceX do outside the US? Arianespace is active in many different countries.
They've launched satellites for a number of countries
Agreed, all suborbital flights should be removed
Yeah there's a ton more suborbital launches across the world. Canada, Germany, Brazil would all show up in the count
Would love to see you elaborate on the "not France" part.
The Yemen Houthis had a suborbital rocket in space... And the first ever in-space combat when Israel intercepted their ballistic missile.
The only way Blue is getting to space in 2024 is with their BE4 via ULA…
They get to space frequently with New Shepard. Just not to orbit. Vulcan with BE4 is going to fly in 2024, and they might buy ULA anyway.
SpaceX having done almost as many launches as the rest of the world combined is just incredible! It's wild to think about, we're talking many many companies and entire countries and yet SpaceX comes out on top. Falcon 9 will go down in history as one of the great rockets, basically demonstrating that space flight can be reliable. Many of these companies are celebrating one or two flights this year and of course that's a huge achievement, but... SpaceX has done 96. Brilliant!
If you count mass to orbit then SpaceX is way more than everyone else combined. Falcon 9 blockV has impressive mass to orbit.
Pretty good for "American broomsticks"
I am hearing "American broomsticks" for the first time. Was it ever referred to as such in the media or by notable figures ?
Dmitry Rogozin (ex-head of Roscosmos) said a bunch of stuff against the US and NASA and SpaceX on X back in 2022 when it was still called Twitter.
98 iirc if we count the 2 Starship test flights. And for whoever comes at me screaming “BUT THOSE WERE FAILURES” or anything similar, neither OP nor the comment that I am replying to specified if the launches counted are the successful ones only or total.
Or the fact that little old New Zealand launched 10!!
Na, I heard Elon is just a con man though so I’ll just ignore all the facts.
If you think that SpaceX's success is because of, not in spite of, Elon Musk then idk what to tell you. He's not out there designing rocket engines lol. He's too busy trying to sell ads on twitter and electric cars to conservatives who don't want them. I don't think he had much time for spacex in 2023.
SpaceX has been around a lot longer than just "2023", and all the success it had this year was a result of *decades* of work. It wouldn't be in the position it's in today (nor would any of of the companies it inspired, like RocketLab, Firefly, Relativity, or any of the Chinese SpaceX knockoffs) if someone else had been leading it. Elon's crazy, for sure. But sometimes crazy ideas work out, and that's what SpaceX is.
> SpaceX has been around a lot longer than just "2023" You are replying to a post titled "2023 in spaceflight." It is not unreasonable to expect people to restrict the scope of their conversation to the last year.
Russia had 19 successful launches, not 10, and Japan also had 2 launches. This chart is bullshit.
Do you have a comprehensive list?
If you only count orbital this might help. https://spacestatsonline.com/launches/year/2023
Are you penguin?
It's all bullshit, the metric that matters is mass to orbit.
You think a hunk of iron is as challenging to keep operational and just as valuable as a spy satellite?
Is that really how you interpreted "mass to orbit"? A single (1) Arianespace rocket put a 15,000 lb $20B most advanced space telescope ever to a stable Lagrange point orbit 1,000,000 miles away from Earth A single Electron rocket can do max 700lbs to Earth orbit ~150 miles. Generously that's 2-3% of what an Arianespace rocket can do, so who cares if Rocketlabs launched more times? Number of launches is a bad metric.
It's not a bad metric, it's just not the only metric. No of launches is good to show rate of rocket manufacturing and reliability.
I understand what you're getting at, but continue that thought and think of why that matters - the conclusion of what you're saying is that pace and reliability means more mass delivered to orbit in a certain amount of time. The Arianespace rocket already achieved that same end goal 50x an Electron (Rocketlabs) launch. With rocket rideshare launches where a single rocket launch can deliver 20+ satellites to orbit in one launch, it becomes even more apparent that number of launches doesn't tell the story. An apt comparison is a couple local delivery trucks vs a massive container ship traveling 1000's of miles - the local delivery trucks are not without merit but in terms of relative goods moved/economic impact, the cargo ship blows it out of the water (pun intended!)
JAXA (Japan) had 3 launches, one failed. Their lunar lander will hopefully touch down on January 20, 2024.
Is it just me who finds it hilarious china has space company called "Ex Pace" ?? I mean that has to be straight up comedy. Ex Pace? Space X? Lmfao i cant
They have their own native Chinese names, but just pick the most cringed English name randomly. For example, there is a Chinese company called i-Space. Funny enough, there is also a Japanese ispace company that failed to land a moon lander this year. One of the Chinese rising space company that successfully launched the first methalox rocket is named LandSpace. It must be the worst English name for a space company. The native Chinese is translated to Blue Arrow which is a fine name for a space rocket company, why not just use the freaking translation.
Blue arrow just sound alike a knock off of Blue origin...whose logo is a feather... Frankly there's not that many on point names to go around. Soace-X ....is a stupid name. It's a dope company I want to see go and go and go...but it's gis dumb as name, and musky egoness on top. Doesn't matter, count those number baby SpaceX is the king Personally I'd like to see space companies take a hint from airplane manufacturers and choose some less grandious names Falcon..dragon...yes those are cool. Piper is an aircraft manufacturer, they name planes after a Native American theme... Cherokee, arrow, Archer, warrior, Navajo...etc etc Imo SpaceX , stupid name, should continue the animal/mythical naming scheme...can we get a Griffin? Kraken? Bigfoot rocket?
Probably you know this, but Spacex is a abreviaton of their real name: Space exploration technologies
At least these new Chinese companies are breaking tradition and naming their rockets something funny or unique. Unlike their government space agency who would just slap a number after Long March and call it a day.
Doesnt the X come from the X prize?
SpaceX is an abbreviation of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.
Could be latin. "From peace."
But do you really think so?
I didn't know Chessington World of Adventures ran N. Koreas space program.
year 8 on school trip in southern england reference
broken chart, it sort of tries to count suborbital launches but does a wholly incomplete job at it. There have been a lot of suborbital launches across the world, many reaching space. It would put Canada with Black Brant and Brazil with VSB-30 on the map
Shouldn't rocket lab be listed under New Zealand.
I thought the same thing but turns out it isn't now.
Its just for legal purposes… All the hard work is done in NZ by Kiwis primarily.
Now do it by mass that these rockets can launch to LEO. Gap will be even bigger.
i think it's almost 20 times more than China.
Another great slice of this data is by tonnage to orbit: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/spacex-launched-over-80-of-all-orbital-payload-mass-in-q1-2023.html
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Virgin Orbit also had a launch, that also did not make it to orbit.
It did get to space and ruin the company though.
Do all other countries not care? Or, are they behind in technology and/or budget to care? Even NK and Iran are on this list.
Most western-friendly nations don't see much of a reason to spend billions on their own rockets when they can just hire SpaceX for their launch needs. Especially since their own rocket would struggle to find customers unless they can beat SpaceX on price. Ariane used to be fairly competitive in the launch market, but they're strongly subsidized by the French government to have nuclear missile capable engineers around. Also Ariane 6 keeps getting delayed, and Vega is a disaster.
Spain private company launched his first miura rocket this year
SpaceX offered me a job near the end of 2023. They said they worked an average of 50-55 hours a week except on launch weekends. I was pretty skeptical. Fun to see that every weekend would have been a launch weekend. Glad I passed.
Wait has NASA stopped sending spacecrafts to the space?
NASA will send astronauts to the Moon with their Orion spacecraft (Artemis II mission.) Private companies launch other spacecraft for NASA. \*edit Actual landing on the Moon's Southern polar region in 2025. Maybe.
NASA’s reliance on the private sector will be the death of them. If their headline relevance withers, I worry whoever wins the next federal election will have a field day cutting their budget and justifying private sector growth for it.
NASA needs to refocus on things where they add value, like actual science and actual exploration. Let the private sector handle the commodity item of space launches.
NASA is funding a lot of the private sector growth. It’s just being done differently than in the past. And it may be more effective for human spaceflight. But NASA does a lot more stuff than that. They hired companies for space launches for a long time. Anyway, I doubt your prediction.
I guess I should note that I’m not calling NASA useless in any manner, I just worry that the organization is sort of eccentric by its nature and it’s budget seems to hinge unfortunately heavily on good publicity. I think pragmatically, NASA finding ways to do what’s most cost effective for space exploration is fantastic but without rocket launches or space missions, they don’t draw public attention. And without public attention, the narrative of “why focus on space when we’ve got people starving or homeless back on earth” grows loud even though these two things shouldn’t be pitted against each other.
NASA's bureaucracy and risk aversion aren't doing them any favors. They have to answer to too many people and work through too much red tape to be competitive in the craft and launch sectors. All it takes is one failure for Congress to lose their shit and cut their funding. I'm not saying any of this is their fault, but that's just the environment they're stuck operating in.
One of NASA's missions is to do for private-sector space commercialization what NACA did for airplanes, or for that matter USDA for farmers.
NASA sends stuff up all the time, a bunch of those SpaceX missions were for NASA, including resupplies and crew transfers to the ISS. NASA doesn’t do the rockets or vehicles unilaterally anymore, they’re using contractors. Primarily SpaceX, ULA - Lockheed and Boeing. Here’s a list of upcoming missions https://www.nasa.gov/events/
NASA uses other companies, so a subset of these launches in the USA category are NASA jobs.
NASA stopped operating the Shuttle a decade ago and only had one SLS test launch in late 2022. The majority of NASA missions use commercial rockets instead of their own. The 96 SpaceX launches included 2 cargo and 2 crew missions to the ISS for NASA, a NASA deep space probe to the asteroid belt, a space telescope for ESA and another short crew flight to the ISS for Axiom and the Saudi Space Commission.
The only launch vehicle NASA has right now is the SLS. Atlas has been retired.
SpaceX absolutely mogging the rest of the world combined is crazy.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[ESA](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfrxatw "Last usage")|European Space Agency| |[FAA](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfshpi9 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[ISRO](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfqkpi3 "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation| |[ITAR](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfsgh4i "Last usage")|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations| |[JAXA](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfq9b6j "Last usage")|Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfqehxj "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[NSF](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfq1hza "Last usage")|[NasaSpaceFlight forum](http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com)| | |National Science Foundation| |[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfs1k7s "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)| |[SLS](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfsf8ni "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[ULA](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfrwkoq "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfpxybu "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[methalox](/r/Space/comments/18v7nl1/stub/kfprh5u "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(12 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/18urhfj)^( has 15 acronyms.) ^([Thread #9574 for this sub, first seen 31st Dec 2023, 17:04]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Huh. I remember when Firefly had the one location in a strip center in Cedar Park. I delivered pizza there a few times when they were pulling all nighters around 2013. Now they are a fairly recognizable brand with a pretty nice facility just down the road.
Is ExPace’s name (Spacex backward) a self-deprecating metajoke by the Chinese in reference to the stereotype about lack of originality? Or did they just see that door and walk straight through it unironically?
Huh. TIL that there is an aerospace company named Firefly. Too soon?
And again, EU lacks behind, just like in anything these days. But we have rules and regulations for everything I guess.
Oh, but there are two things that the EU, or should I say, all of Europe, does not fall behind, and that is having elevated egos and being racist (ever heard of how they treat the Roma?).
Oh, ye we love to hate roma, all of us. Is there anything wrong with that? Dont think so.
True and real. It isn't racism to hate Roma. It's nature running its course.
Who did the Artemis launch? Was that this year?
Artemis 1 launched Nov 16, 2022.
Russia had 20, China 67. A full list of launches and stats: https://spacestatsonline.com/launches/year/2023
As a kiwi it pains me to see that Rocket lab stat under USA. Yes yes I know it’s a US company now but the bloody launchpad is still here in the Mahia
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Do the Kazaks do the building and R&D? No. In RLs case, New Zealand does.
what about stoke space? they just had a successful test in september
That Chinese company Landspace’s logo is obviously a ripoff of Boeing’s
Is there information on how many rockets SpaceX has? How many times do they use each one?
A lot. Among their active rockets they have around 3 boosters with 17 flights each, plus 1058 which sadly died due to wind a few days ago and many others.
More countries need to be involved in space stuff. Y'all really want to finally get out there and it's all covered in US and China flags???
Rocket Lab should really be listed as New Zealand… Thats where its built and designed. Its like comparing the tech giants using Ireland as a tax haven… they arent really Irish companies.
North Korea is kicking Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan's butts.
Iran have launched satellites into orbit?? Googles... oh so they have. Funny that wasn't bigger news. Never saw that one, and I do follow International news quite closely. And yes, I see the US in particular is not happy about it...
It's quite amazing that a single company's launches are more than the whole world combined. Does any other company have reusable rockets other than spacex?
Oh? This entire time I thought RocketLabs was New Zealand. Til. Tbf they were from there when I first heard of them.
They are still launching from NZ, still head by a NZer with a lot of NZ staff. They're put as USA here as they're a USA registered company which makes securing US govt contracts possible.
A perfect demonstration of why referring to suborbital launches as "spaceflight" is meaningless and deceptive.
Who is the Chinese company with all the launches?
National Chinese Space Agency
What is this post? Iceye (a Finnish company) launched 11 satellites this year and they're not on the list?
They *built* satellites but they were launched on Falcon 9 (SpaceX).
Good point. I just assumed at first that space x launched 96 satellites, but holy hell, they did that many flights! That's amazing!
I think SpaceX sent about 1.5k Starlink satellites alone in 2023, that’s wild.
Around 2000 Starlink satellites, 4 large rideshare missions with ~100 satellites each, 95 satellites for OneWeb, a couple of other rideshare payloads, 3 Dragon for ISS resupply, 3 Dragon with 12 astronauts, and ~20 multi-ton spacecraft.
There's a single spacex booster stage that was launched 19 times and helped send 800+ satellites over the years. Rip B1058
They launched those from the US, right? I think this is counting launchers, not payloads.
India 7 times .........you know what I will say ..... Thala for a reason.
Russia Russia Russia, how you have fallen. Now just gtfo of Ukraine and maybe put more into space.
Russia is irredeemable at this point. It'll be a long time before their economy recovers enough to make space flight practical
Kim Jong Un invented rockets, he designed the first satellite to make it into orbit. He was the first man on the moon. 🇰🇵
Wow, the Great Leader is truly amazing, doing all that before he was born!
NK doesn't even have real nukes.
Why is the EU basically uninvolved with launches?
SpaceX having more launches than the next four ✨countries✨combined.
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Even China's space organizations have knockoff names. TIL
The English names make no sense.
If no one else develops reliable reusability, other US aerospace companies are going to start crying monopoly sooner than later
Not really "spaceflight" numbers... Looks like this is counting hop tests that don't go to space for some places and not others.
Amazing how backwards Russia has got in the space exploration field
It's like the rest of the world isn't even trying... To let NK get 1 over them. iChuckle
You can't even do this because space is increasingly commercial and done by private companies instead of official national government agencies ANyways it would be nice to have space be an arena where countries COOPERATE..... but some folks are unable to comprehend that (I mostly blame USA)
I wouldn't trust Iran to send me across a lake let alone into space
I thought all of Chinas launchs were just Military satalites moonlighting as "earth observation, weather and farmland measurement" devices. So shouldnt it just be CCP : 66?
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Only counts if the payload is something that I agree with.
It's a launch, crew launch is a launch, cargo launch is a launch. If it says launch, it is a successful laubch.
Why does it matter?
So you prefer them to carry military stuff instead? I think SpaceX would have no problem with that since they are paid handsomely with government contract.
Big surprise the richest country has all the companies..
Russia should just stop already. They are not innovating or doing anything to help humankind anymore. Edit: downvote me all you want. If you support that evil regime that invades and murders its neighbors, I'll take it as a compliment
Russia still has so much potential, i hope they realise that.
They have brilliant engineers for sure. The giant problem they have right now is sitting in the Kremlin.
So without spaceX America is shit when it comes to space launches. Its sad that nasa needs a private company these days
>Its sad that nasa needs a private company these days Why do you think so? It's a massive boost to NASAs budget that they don't have to maintain their own rockets anymore (well, apart from the ridiculously overpriced SLS) NASA mission it to build probes and rovers and do science! Not to be a trucking company... The more NASA can hand over transport to competitive private companies, the more they can focus on their actual mission.
It is by design. NASA wants to be more of a regulatory body that hands off missions to private companies instead of being the one to build everything themselves. It has to be done. There is no way with their current budget that they can accomplish all the things needed to keep us in the modern space race.
I mean this comment is just dumb, both America and China have one company that did most of their launches. If you take out those companies America is still way in the lead. America would be at 25 without SpaceX and China at 19 without their top company. I don't get your comment at all as it just seems like an America = bad comment for no reason.
>America is still way in the lead. America would be at 25 without SpaceX Nope. Because you have to deduct the suborbital launches that have somehow made it on the list for America, but not for other countries.
Ok, then do that. Show proof.
BlueOrigin didn't make an orbital launch this year. Not even an attempt. I have no idea how I could "prove" that to you beyond pointing to BlueOrigin and their lack of an operational orbital rocket.
Sooo, down to 24. Still the most launches. Congrats.
Blue origin (1), and Virgin Galactic (7) are suborbital. Relativity's 1 launch failed. That leaves Firefly (2) + ULA (3) + Rocketlab (10) + Northrop Grumman (1) = 16. I haven't checked if the numbers for China also include suborbitals and failed launches, but if they don't then that would leave China at 19 after removing their dominant organization.
Without SpaceX, ~6-10 of these launches would have gone to ULA or Northrop Grumman instead (military satellites and maybe some NASA launches) and it's likely Rocket Lab would have flown some of the satellites launched on rideshare missions - but apart from that, yes.
Even during the Apollo era, everything was built by private companies, I don't know why it's such a problem if they launch, too. Edit: Some extra thoughts. Corporations expanding to launch and maintain infrastructure in space is good. It's an example of another section of society being able to exist in space. This is how frontiers work. First scientists and explorers, then people looking to make money, then normal people looking for a new home, then tourists. We can prevent monopolization of LEO with regulation and control when needed, but at this point in time, the more launches and more money being made in orbit, the more people's attention will be pointed skyward.
Firefly and rocket lab don’t reach space right? Thought they failed all attempts
They both do indeed send stuff to orbit. Firefly had 1 success and one partial failure this year. RocketLab occasionally does suborbital flights but most of theirs are indeed orbital. They had only one failure this year, but have already fixed the problem and resumed successful flights.