Elon Musk’s SpaceX mocks Russia at Florida satellite launch

A SpaceX launch director jabbed back at Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin over his comments that Americans should use “broomsticks” to reach space

One Wednesday morning, SpaceX let a Falcon 9 rocket fly — right after letting loose a verbal barb at the controversial head of the Russian space program.

At around 14 minutes and 16 seconds into the video of the launch, SpaceX launch director Julia Black can be heard giving a colourful final approval for launch, saying “Time to let the American broomstick fly and hear the sounds of freedom.”

By calling the Falcon 9 rocket carrying 48 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit a “broomstick,” Ms Black was referencing Dmitry Rogozin, the politically appointed head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.

After Russia announced on 3 March that it would no longer sell rocket engines to the US in retaliation for US led sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine, Mr Rogozin quipped on Russian state television, “Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don’t know what.”

Mr Rogozin has not shied away from making inflammatory statements on social media.

While Nasa and the European Space Agency issued carefully worded statements supporting continued cooperation with Roscomos on space projects following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr Rogozin took to Twitter to threaten to pull Russian out of the International Space Station, feud with US astronauts, and liken Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Adolph Hitler.

Mr Rogozin’s broomsticks comment was similarly flippant and hearkens back to his time as Russia’s deputy prime minister in 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. After the US sanctioned Russia for its aggression in Crimea,Mr Rogozin tweeted that US astronauts should consider using “trampolines” to reach the ISS, Nasa being dependent on Russian spacecraft to reach the space station following the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

But 2022 is not 2014, and not only do US launch companies have enough rocket engines without buying more from Russia, SpaceX has been flying crew and cargo to the ISS since 2020 as part of Nasa’s commercial crew program.

Moved by the same spirit that more recently motivated Ms Black, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted a video of a 3 March Falcon rocket launch with the caption, “American broomstick.” Mr Musk said SpaceX plans to launch an average of one Falcon 9 rocket per week in 2022.

The Starlink satellites launched by that rocket will help fill out the more than 1,500 operational satellite-strong constellation Mr Musk has put at the disposal of Ukraine, helping the besieged country maintain connection with the global internet.