SpaceX Launches 14th Falcon 9 this Year

LA Times - Unclear if the photograph is from today's launch


SpaceX launched its 14th Falcon 9 rocket of 2017 on Monday, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The rocket carried 10 Iridium satellites to orbit for the communications provider’s Iridium NEXT network, Techcrunch reports. It was the third mission for Iridium that SpaceX has conducted. SpaceX recovered the first stage booster of the Falcon 9 rocket it used for this mission, returning the used rocket to its floating drone ship in the Pacific Ocean, the report said.

RT:  SpaceX launches 14th Falcon 9 this year, 10 Iridium satellites carried to orbit


The fact of this SpaceX launch is impressive and even more so when coupled with a successful landing by the booster rocket but it's stunning when there's consideration of the fact they have done it fourteen times in ten months.


The Sixties gave us a riotous period of rocket flight but, man, we did wait between launches.  Today there will be another one in a few weeks and it's astounding.

Alan Shepard was the first American to be launched into space but it was a suborbital flight and maybe that's why he doesn't get the recognition of John Glenn was the first American to be launched into Earth orbit.  They were setting some kind of crazy record every time they flew and it was tremendously exciting.


The individual launches aren't so exciting today, mostly because there are so many of them, but the overall space program, particularly with all this civilian participation, is just as exciting but in a different way.

Hat tip from the Rockhouse to SpaceX for doing a truly spectacular job of it.

Zen Yogi:  it's more than fourteen launches for the year since SpaceX isn't the only civilian outfit providing launch services

You're right, Yogi, as it's a rapidly expanding form of evolution in action.  Previously we were watching the evolution in slow motion but it runs at full speed now.  At the present time there are soft landings on Earth, landings on the Moon, and landings on Mars all under active consideration at the same time.

Zen Yogi:  hang on to your hat

Or your helmet, mate, since some are flyin' and the rest are watchin'.  It's an astounding thing to watch.