The year 2024 has come to an end, and it's time to remember everything that happened most important in the world of space launches with the Space Orbit space retrospective! =================================================== =========== ACCESS THE FOGUETEIRO STORE AT HTTPS://SPACEORBIT.COM.BR AND GET YOUR MINIATURES, T-SHIRTS AND MUCH MORE TO START 2025 WITH A GOLDEN KEY. Send a PIX to help Space Orbit: [email protected] (email key) Be a member of this channel and earn benefits: / @spaceorbit Follow Space Orbit on social media: Instagram: / pedropallotta TikTok: / pedropallotta Threads: https://www.threads.net/@pedropallotta Twitter: / pallottapedro Facebook: / canalspaceorbit Follow the Space Orbit News channels on Telegram https://t.me/spaceorbitnews and on WhatsApp https://whatsapp.com /channel/0029VaCz... and don't miss any event in the world of space launches. =================================================== =========== Hello everyone, welcome to the 2024 Retrospective of the world of space launches, full of spectacular events and bad jokes that happened this year. And for the fourth year in a row, Earthlings broke the record for launches into our planet's orbit, with no less than 261, that is, without any scrubbing until this recording. And the successes were the highlight, 251 of them were successful, and only 6 did some kind of kaboom, with 2 partial failures, which is impressive how rockets have become increasingly reliable, to the delight of those who are paying for this game billionaire. And it is also impressive that SpaceX alone is responsible for 138 of them, that is, more than 50% of everything that flew into orbit was from Elon Musk's company, with 132 Falcon 9, 2 Falcon Heavy and 4 Starships. And SpaceX, which is already used to breaking its own records, achieved 42 more flights than 2023, so you will hear a lot from it in this retrospective, as most of the feats were achieved by this company's missions. But the year of grace of 2024 in the space area has already begun on January 1st, with the Indians and their NORMAL PERFORMANCE, taking the PSLV with the XPoSat, to study neutron stars, black holes and supernovae in the X-ray spectrum. Also in this month we had a new rocket heading into orbit, as the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur finally unsealed, being a relief for the company that is going through the most complicated moment in its history. The Vulcan is an evolution of the Atlas V, with a touch of Delta IV, as it has intermediate capabilities between these two vehicles, but still costs a lot, around US$110 million, that is, more expensive than a Falcon Heavy. But this first flight had many feats achieved, such as the first time that Blue Origin put its BE-4 engines to test in the real world, and the result could not have been better, as the mission was a complete success until the payload separation. . It's a shame that the Peregrine lander had problems with propellant leaks and came to a premature end after just 10 days, failing to get anywhere near the Moon, which would be the first American vehicle to land on our natural satellite in more than 50 years. And since going to the Moon has become fashionable again, the United Arab Emirates decided that it will build a hatch for the Gateway Station, which will be in orbit to assist the Artemis missions. In return, NASA will provide a seat on a future launch, ensuring that an Emirati can at least reach orbit, the hardest part is finding someone who is actually a citizen of that country. And this was also the year of the Starlink constellation, which launched no less than 89 missions totaling 1979 satellites sent into orbit, which amounts to almost 1600 tons of equipment, which leaves SpaceX also in the lead in terms of mass sent into space. But the highlight is the new service called Direct To Cell, which allows you to communicate and use the constellation's internet without the need for an antenna, just using this thing called a cell phone. Throughout 2024, 414 Starlink satellites had this technology incorporated, but the tests already started in January, when they sent an SMS, a type of archaic text message, so generation Z can understand. And look, they did this with just 6 units in orbit just 1 week after launching with the Falcon 9, which showed the potential of the technology. Throughout the year the network improved, allowing the use of cellular data, so Musk could send one of his shitposts through Direct To Cell, to the point that they were able to reach more than 17 megabit speeds and make video calls.