[HN Gopher] SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in ...
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SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks
Author : scottbucks
Score : 141 points
Date : 2021-03-14 17:42 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| ctdonath wrote:
| While watching today's launch, occurred to me the ratio of
| paying-client launches to Starlink launches is [whatever it is].
| Profit margins on paid launches must be high, maybe amazing, to
| support so many Starlink launches.
| [deleted]
| jewel wrote:
| They've also been raising money ($850M in February) so they
| don't necessarily have to be using profit from paid launches.
| sfblah wrote:
| Does SpaceX really have any capital constraints? I'd assume
| that in the current environment they can essentially
| raise/borrow unlimited capital just on Musk's brand name.
| adriancr wrote:
| Just based on their reusable rockets, government contracts
| and potential they can borrow unlimited capital... Musk is an
| added bonus (that can also likely fund it himself fully)
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Starlink should make tons of money soon.
|
| These launch costs are investments.
| martin8412 wrote:
| They won't.. It's a product that's only remotely viable in
| remote locations. So Australia, Canada and US. Most of the
| rest of the world has no need for it
| arcticfox wrote:
| Seriously? Unless Europe is "most of the world", I think
| you're quite mistaken.
|
| Join me in rural Brazil, for example!
| [deleted]
| _ph_ wrote:
| Amazing times, when a private company can launch 3 flights in two
| weeks, not even counting the Starship tests :). It is faszinating
| to see, how quickly Starlink is progressing, we are on the brink
| of global satellite broadband internet. This could be a
| substantial change especially in all the countries without a wide
| broadband availability. It will be interesting to see whether
| SpaceX can generate enough revenue to be able to finance large
| space projects on their own. Of course there is Mars, but also
| the Moon, perhaps a space station or asteroid mining.
| taf2 wrote:
| I agree I want to see Venus havoc mission. Floating a blimp in
| the atmosphere seems so cool
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| The Soviets sent a balloon to Venus, floated for a few hours
| I think. Would love to see such missions in HD.
| sterlind wrote:
| I'm more excited about the sustainable capability to put so
| much stuff in orbit than for Starlink itself! This feels like a
| step towards a mega-scale space industry.
| ruph123 wrote:
| More junk, and no responsibilities of the companies whatsoever.
| The cleanup (or kessler syndrome-related catastrophe) will be
| payed with taxpayer money:
| https://platform.leolabs.space/visualizations/leo
| okl wrote:
| That's a very cool visualization. When you zoom in you can even
| see small 3D models that represent the type of debris.
| shantara wrote:
| Starlink satellites are flying in low Earth orbit with the
| natural decay and reentry time no more than 5 years.
|
| I see this same argument repeated in every Starlink discussion
| thread.
| okl wrote:
| Junk is junk, even if it's "just" 5 years.
| immmmmm wrote:
| am i the only person thinking that there should be laws to
| prevent rich individuals to increase the mass in LEO by a factor
| 10 in less than 10 years? i understand the enthusiasm but
| shouldn't these decisions let to the people, countries, for
| instance an intergouvernemental agency.
|
| also: is the dark coating working? without it those are quite
| visible, and make radio and optical astronomy much harder
| (especially large sky surveys).
| manicdee wrote:
| The dark coating isn't used anymore, they have a visor/sunshade
| instead. The satellites people can see with the naked eye have
| not reached their service orbit yet, and they are not aligned
| to use the sunshade (they are instead configured to raise orbit
| as quickly as possible).
|
| As for the rules about polluting space, the simple fact is that
| none of the rules makers expected that some agency would want
| to launch thousands of satellites. There are no rules covering
| this scenario.
|
| AFAIK the nearest we have to rules covering the proliferation
| of communications satellites are ITU rules on access to
| spectrum. There's no restriction on the number of satellites,
| just who is using what frequency in which part of the sky.
|
| If you want to add rules about the number of satellites in
| orbit, better get in quick before StarLink becomes too valuable
| to ban.
| immmmmm wrote:
| thanks for the precisions!
|
| i fear however no one wants to rule on that, at least for
| now.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _If you want to add rules about the number of satellites in
| orbit, better get in quick before StarLink becomes too
| valuable to ban._
|
| Question is, why would one want it? It's going to look like
| an equivalent of someone in XIX century capping the maximum
| amounts of widgets a factory can produce per year to a level
| that can be matched by artisan production, because all those
| conveyor belts and precision parts are making production
| _too_ fast.
|
| Assuming one likes the idea of humanity spreading out past
| Earth's surface, and perhaps taking the dirtiest aspects of
| civilization upwell - we're going to need a proper space-
| based economy. Mining, manufacturing and all. Starlink's
| impact on LEO is going to look like child's play in
| comparison. So if one wants to see space being developed,
| then one has to accept and embrace that Earth's orbit is
| going to get _way_ more cluttered than it is.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > i understand the enthusiasm but shouldn't these decisions let
| to the people, countries, for instance a intergouvernemental
| agency.
|
| The people elected the leadership which oversees the government
| agency which approved this project, so ultimately the people
| allowed this project to happen. This isn't a case of one person
| doing something alone.
| Strom wrote:
| Would it apply only to the rich or to everyone? If everyone,
| then why bring out the richness?
|
| Do you want to prevent satellites existing completely or just
| keep it at some threshold that has been crossed?
|
| Most importantly, what's the actual problem here? You haven't
| pointed out any downsides of having increased mass in LEO.
| immmmmm wrote:
| this applies to everyone but only the rich has the money. the
| technology almost didn't change since von Braun in 1940, go
| have a look at a V2 turbopump and compare with the latest
| Barber-Nichols models. sure metal alloys changed a bit, ball
| bearings are better, etc... "Rocket Science" is still the
| same as 80 years ago: fine engineering and a lot of testing.
|
| there are a lot of useful satellites: for instance for Earth
| monitoring, it happens we are on a climate transient, those
| are very relevant. not saying that ppl in rural areas do not
| deserve internet, but Musk was clear that Starlink was more
| to finance his mars dream first and foremost.
|
| the problem is pollution and deregulation. and kessler
| syndrome that might knock out essential satellites in the
| long run.
| jonplackett wrote:
| I mean, they had to apply for a license to do it, and it was
| granted.
| immmmmm wrote:
| by whom? the FCC. i live in switzerland, does USA own LEO?
| bombcar wrote:
| Effectively? Yes. Not in a "we can prevent anything we
| want" but a "we can do whatever we want" way.
| fabiospampinato wrote:
| It doesn't work like that, "owning" and human laws in
| general are kind of a fantasy, to make an absurd
| hypothetical scenario to illustrate this: imagine the
| aliens landed on Earth, would you say they should first get
| a permit to anchor their spaceship somewhere before doing
| that? At the end of the day words on paper don't matter
| much, if Switzerland shoots those satellites down they
| could be deleted from the world map with some nukes, who
| has the power decides.
| jhayward wrote:
| Under the International Treaty for Outer Space, each
| signatory nation is responsible for regulating that
| activity of those operating from within their territory.
| Switzerland signed the treat in 1967 [1]
|
| So that's all as it should be, and Switzerland agrees that
| the mechanism of regulation is the operant one.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty#Respon
| sibil...
| cbozeman wrote:
| Whoever has power and the inclination to enforce their will
| upon others decides everything, period.
|
| This whole fantasy of "rights" that people like to engage
| in is just that - a fantasy.
|
| The best you can hope for is that the strongest is also a
| benevolent philosopher king.
| mempko wrote:
| FCC actually gave Spacex 900 million to put those things up
| there. So Musk will profit at our expense. Are all his
| businesses government subsidized?
|
| I could still see the trail of them before dusk so it appears
| it isn't working.
|
| edit: the experts agree that spacex didn't do enough to reduce
| reflectivity and that it's still an issue.
| https://physicsworld.com/a/dark-coated-starlink-satellites-a...
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| If you're seeing trains of satellites, those have not yet
| reached their parking orbits and have not oriented themselves
| or deployed their sunshades. Once they've gotten to where
| they're intended to be, they'll become far more dim and for
| the most part should only be visible during a brief period
| around dusk.
| mempko wrote:
| So they haven't solved the reflectivity issue? Solving it
| would mean they aren't visible at all with the naked eye.
| Since there are thousands of them, this is a problem for
| land based observation no?
|
| edit: looks like it's still a problem according to experts.
| https://physicsworld.com/a/dark-coated-starlink-
| satellites-a...
| aerovistae wrote:
| "at our expense"? You clearly don't have to deal with rural
| internet if you think this is a net loss for society.
| mempko wrote:
| It could have been a non-profit operation no? I would
| expect rural internet to be cheaper than what SpaceX is
| charging. $100 per month is very expensive, especially for
| people in rural areas which generally are poorer.
|
| Example, I believe over 90% of rural china has high speed
| internet and they pay less than $10 a month.
|
| Edit. Anyone have a good argument why we can't get $10 per
| month high speed internet in rural areas in the USA? If
| spacex can get there costs down to $10 per month, then I
| will be impressed. Otherwise it isn't cheaper than laying
| fiber.
| sigstoat wrote:
| > Anyone have a good argument why we can't get $10 per
| month high speed internet in rural areas in the USA?
|
| do you have any idea how much it costs to dig a trench?
| look up a calculator for figuring out the present value
| of a perpetuity that pays $10/mo. that will barely cover
| somebody digging a trench through your front yard, and
| laying fiber in it, let alone doing that down miles of
| rural street.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The whole point of this is that it isn't a non-profit,
| though. I'd love to live in a world where we can snap our
| fingers and motivate people to build $1/month internet,
| but that's not even a remote possibility. Starlink's big
| boon was that someone with money saw a problem and
| invested a ton of money into fixing it, hoping to turn a
| profit in the long-term. I'd love for someone to run
| fiber out to my house, but even getting it to my
| neighborhood would start at $30,000. Enter Starlink: cut
| out the landline companies and offer good internet,
| forcing the big players to offer better services in order
| to compete.
|
| Also, if you think $100/month is expensive, you don't go
| shopping for rural internet very often. There isn't an
| ISP on the planet that offers the speeds or latency that
| Starlink has right now, and believe me, I've tried to
| find one. $500 for installation and $100/month is
| reasonably appropriate for the services they're
| providing, especially if they're taking a $1000-2000 loss
| on each dish they ship to customers.
| new_realist wrote:
| Have you tried an LTE or 5G access point? They cover
| roughly 97% of the U.S. population. And you don't have to
| pay for Internet _and_ also pay for mobile service.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The problem with laying fiber in the continental US (and
| I suspect also in Canada) is not typically cost. It's
| death by a thousand cuts with problems acquiring land
| rights, fighting incumbent ISPs and the local politicians
| and congressmen in their pockets, and simple will on the
| part of ISPs.
|
| Google tried to make fiber cheap and ubiquitous with
| Google Fiber and failed. If an organization with the
| power, resources, and clout of Google can't get it done,
| I don't know who can short of the federal government
| getting involved (which, thanks to lobbyists, is
| unlikely).
|
| LEO constellations bypass these issues almost entirely
| and ironically enough may motivate incumbent ISPs to try
| to compete and stop being so obstructive.
| cbozeman wrote:
| Google didn't fail, they gave up.
|
| They have the money to do it, they didn't want to spend
| it. They thought everyone would start writing letters to
| their congressmen on their behalf and force the
| government into making the other big fiber ISPs play
| fair.
|
| That's how fucking dumb so the so-called "smartest people
| in the room" can be.
|
| Google should have budgeted $10 billion a year for 10
| years for Google Fiber. And in 20 years' time, Google
| could have been the largest provider of fiber Internet
| service in the United States, possibly servicing almost
| every single address in the country. Instead, they did
| what they *ALWAYS* fucking do... it didn't "catch on" in
| a year or two's time and they abandoned it.
|
| I can't wait to see Google utterly fail as a company,
| given how shit they are at execution of everything but
| the most obvious, largest, and easiest-to-enter markets.
|
| Elon Musk entered the three hardest markets known to
| fuckin' mankind... automotive, orbital launch, and ISPs,
| and he's utterly destroying mother fuckers. If I was an
| executive involved with Google Fiber, I'd blow my brains
| out due to utter shame.
| ShockedUnicorn wrote:
| For the people talking about space pollution and problems for
| astronomers. Yes, it is definitely an issue, but this
| constellation is also a way for many people to have access to
| education and information that will help them and their
| community.
|
| If you're curious about both the positives and negatives of
| Starlink I highly recommend the mini documentary "Is this the END
| of Astronomy?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TifUa8ENQes
|
| Most things in life are like this. Wind turbines are a great way
| to supply green energy, but building them takes a lot of energy.
| So it is important to also think about things like using low co2
| concrete, and making them more efficient. They also kill many
| birds, but this is nothing compared to the amount of birds that
| cats kill. And engineers are working on ways to get fewer birds
| killed.
| martin8412 wrote:
| Many people? You mean people in rural US/Canada and Australia.
| The rest of the world already has been options in most places.
| newman8r wrote:
| > They also kill many birds, but this is nothing compared to
| the amount of birds that cats kill.
|
| FWIW, turbines may be worse than cats in terms of harming large
| birds of prey. You won't see neighborhood cats killing eagles.
| I'd still agree that it's probably a reasonable tradeoff
| though, and that it could be further reduced with better
| engineering.
| rb666 wrote:
| Wind turbines do not kill many birds, that is a myth pushed by
| climate hoaxers.
|
| They have their drawbacks, but that aint one of 'em.
| minitoar wrote:
| Where are you getting this information from?
| eecc wrote:
| Yeah, apparently just paint one rotor blade differently to make
| it stand out and birds will stay clear [1]
|
| Maybe Starlink constellations will be an incentive to finish
| the JWT, and other space telescopes...
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/black-paint-on-
| wind-...
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Yeah, apparently just paint one rotor blade differently to
| make it stand out and birds will stay clear [1]_
|
| The study you're citing was only studied 4 wind turbines,
| while the evidence does point towards this working, I
| wouldn't say that the existing evidence is conclusive. Also,
| the turbines with the darker blades still killed birds, just
| less bird than the turbines with standard blades.
| biotinker wrote:
| Wind turbines don't kill enough birds to be more than a
| drop in the dead-bird bucket. It's a talking point used by
| people who were looking for reasons to be against wind
| turbines, but housecats kill four orders of magnitudes- not
| 4x, 10,000x- more birds each year.
|
| The percent of human-caused bird deaths due to wind
| turbines is smaller than the percent of Americans dying in
| airplane crashes each year, compared to all US deaths each
| year.
| agumonkey wrote:
| That would be smart of spacex to allocate some profits to do
| these projects. win-win business orientation
| serf wrote:
| >Most things in life are like this. Wind turbines are a great
| way to supply green energy, but building them takes a lot of
| energy.
|
| Reminder : we only have one sky.
|
| Things offer both positives and negatives, but
|
| a) generally those things are decided by local powers and
| authorities that can be influenced by local populations -- not
| corporations from specific countries that may or may not be far
| away and without local permission
|
| (those decisions that are made by foreign corporations that
| modify local attributes is generally frowned upon -- very few
| like the oil rigs scattered around the ocean, they tolerate
| them due to the profits associated)
|
| b) very few of these decisions create global impacts, the ones
| that do (say, environmental issues) have many confounding
| factors and influence groups working with them, representing
| many different people and locales.
|
| In just so happens that in the case of 'the sky' we're all
| 'locals' -- but very few people, with respect to 'the world',
| had a say in the matter.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Sure, but don't forget SpaceX is a for-profit organization.
| alextheparrot wrote:
| My mother was raving about the service the other day.
|
| Speeds are 10-15x faster, she's having an easier time with her
| online community college course and her job KPI is up by double
| digit percents [1]. She was worried that IT wouldn't be OK with
| it when I said it was satellite (They'd been burned too many
| times), but the IT guy was incredibly excited because he's also
| waiting to get Starlink.
|
| Looking forward to the service only getting better, really
| incredible execution.
|
| [0] My dad went on the roof in the cold Wisconsin winter to put
| it up.
|
| [1] Lines transcribed per hour, as a medical transcriptionist
| working from home.
| iso1210 wrote:
| Any issues with snow etc?
| robbiet480 wrote:
| Dishy will actually intentionally heat up to melt snow. I've
| seen YouTube videos of it melting a good amount of snow per
| hour and service remaining stable.
| bombcar wrote:
| Dishy also seems to continually pull 100 watts even when
| not in melt mode.
| [deleted]
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| I was thinking it might generate enough heat to keep it warm.
| But the comments in this thread appear to think it has a
| heater inside of it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JSq6xB591M
| kristofferR wrote:
| There's absolutely no heater inside it, as this great
| disassembly/destruction shows:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmdQnIlnRo
| jmreid wrote:
| Zero issues from my experience. The dish has a snow melt
| "mode", and I didn't have to manually clean it at all after a
| large snowfall.
| ttul wrote:
| I am excited to receive my base station shortly.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Faster than? Also, does anyone know who's behind this effort?
| Other leaders would celebrate the people behind the development
| but at spacex and tesla it's only ever news about Musk?
|
| Any interesting people behind what is happening at SpaceX ?
| m463 wrote:
| It appears to be faster than rural Wisconsin internet
| service.
|
| someone I know (coincidentally in wisconsin) is getting 100m
| down 20m up
|
| There's always (the other) Linus:
| https://youtu.be/Fh1a2K9ZgNA
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I'm in Wisconsin, just got it, and am seeing 65-115 down,
| 15-40 up. I was hoping it would be better than Hughesnet,
| but I didn't expect it would be quite this good. I did have
| about a five minute downtime yesterday. Not too shabby!
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| What's your latency like?
|
| I'm in exurban Wisconsin. Speeds are fine, but Charter
| has terrible routing that pushes everything out to
| Minnesota before routing back down to Chicago. 40ms to
| 60ms latency on EVERYTHING.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| It's varied from as low as 30ms up to almost 80. Latency
| is just not going to be great with satellites, seeing
| that we're pushing it out to _fricking space_.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Except it's low space. And signals travel faster in air
| than in glass. And the path is likely more direct.
|
| Just space alone isn't enough to say the latency will be
| worse.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| Couldn't find names but the employees did an AMA on reddit ht
| tps://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_the...
| rjzzleep wrote:
| > Couldn't find names
|
| That's kinda sad, isn't it?
| mulcahey wrote:
| Per this article Mark Juncosa has lead the development of
| the satellites
|
| https://qz.com/1627570/how-autonomous-are-spacexs-
| starlink-s...
| rjzzleep wrote:
| From what I see he's been working at SpaceX since he
| graduated college. I don't see where his satcom knowledge
| comes from, which is arguable the most interesting part
| of Starlink. Not the vehicle design.
|
| It's really unfortunate that this company unlike most
| companies treats all the brain drain as an ego trip.
| Rule35 wrote:
| I haven't heard anything about NDAs that prevent you talking
| about the general area of your work at any of Musk's
| companies. There are certainly people on LinkedIn talking
| about what they do.
|
| Look at any FAANG presentation. The VP of the department
| introduces a PM, who may have a senior engineer with them.
| The other 98% of the team isn't mentioned.
|
| > That's kinda sad, isn't it?
|
| Why don't you start a thread about it. Poll workers and see
| if they find themselves upset by it or not. Don't just borrow
| offense on their behalf.
| agency wrote:
| As someone stuck on old (HughesNet) satellite internet and
| waiting on my Starlink pre-order, this is great news. I didn't
| get into the beta sadly, though I was signed up and in the
| eligibility area since day 1.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| Did you sign up for the $99 deposit which puts you in the
| queue?
| agency wrote:
| Yep, did so the day I was able to. I was pretty bummed not to
| get into the beta, especially after torturing myself by
| periodically checking /r/Starlink which was just wall-to-wall
| posts of people celebrating their invites. Just glad to have
| a spot in line at this point.
| joezydeco wrote:
| So where is Amazon in relation to all of this?
|
| I got pinged by a recruiter from Kuiper the other week and all I
| can see is that there's no way they're on track to be working in
| 5 years. They don't even have a stable launch platform. Would
| Musk sell Bezos the ride?
| rklaehn wrote:
| I think SpaceX would sell them launches.
|
| First of all, why wouldn't they? They are confident that their
| satellite tech is superior.
|
| And second, SpaceX is dominating the commercial launch market
| to such a degree that they would run into antitrust issues if
| they were to use their launch dominance for antocompetitive
| behaviour.
|
| But Bezos would probably be too proud to launch on SpaceX...
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yeah, I agree. And this would be one reason to spin off
| Starlink in an IPO. So customers would be okay with SpaceX
| launching their constellation.
| marcusverus wrote:
| Musk's stated goal for Space X is to colonize Mars. His
| stated goal for Starlink is to fund said colonization. I 'm
| not so sure that he would enable any competition that he saw
| as having the potential to pose a real threat to his ultimate
| goal.
| m463 wrote:
| You know, I have to wonder though.
|
| I've been ok with the tesla-only superchargers, because
| they are good. But it is a self-serving infrastructure and
| a competitive advantage.
|
| I wonder what the reality would be about sending up bezos's
| satellites? It could also be a PR problem, PLUS it would
| undermine the bezos employees working on their launch
| platform.
| [deleted]
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| Bezos is in it only because he too has a rocket company. If he
| wanted to be in the business of feeding on the scraps of others
| he'd release his own terrestrial internet service.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| AWS has also created satellite ground stations in the last
| few years. A commercial satellite internet service running
| from the ground stations would probably justify scaling out,
| and having a larger network of ground stations would help AWS
| attract more commercial space customers. Bezos has been
| working this from a few angles, not just from a keep up with
| Musk attitude.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| That's why Elon's in it with Starlink. From Elon's
| perspective, if Starlink merely breaks even, it will be more
| than worth it as it has drastically increased launch demand,
| enabling high flight rate reusable rockets.
| shantara wrote:
| Not just increased launch demand, Starlink launches serve
| SpaceX as a testbed for reusability and refurbishment
| techniques they want to experiment on themselves without
| risking customer hardware.
|
| For example, they intentionally swap hardware components
| between reflown boosters to better understand their
| behavior after multiple reuses, to the point they have
| individual modules that have flown more times than the
| current maximum number of reuses of any booster as a whole
| (currently at 9).
|
| Another example, they've stopped having static fires for
| flight proven boosters first for Starlink, then for
| customer payloads too, unless the customer explicitly
| requests it.
|
| It's unbelievable that "flight proven booster" turned out
| to be really what it says on the tin, and not just a piece
| of marketing speak.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _It 's unbelievable that "flight proven buster" turned
| out to be really what it says on the tin, and not just a
| piece of marketing speak._
|
| That's a thing to love about SpaceX. When they first
| started using this phrase, it was tongue-in-cheek in a
| pretty obvious way. Three years later, it was no longer a
| joke.
| the8472 wrote:
| It's "booster", not "buster".
| shantara wrote:
| Fixed, thanks.
| philistine wrote:
| Webservers... in space!
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Given that Starlink will do links between satellites that's
| actually an interesting idea. From what I've read one of
| the problems with it is heat management. Space is chilly
| but it's not a great heat sink and servers generate a lot
| of heat.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Would there be potential AWS synergies that make any sense?
|
| Besides having the money to basically give it away for free,
| that could be a big value add if so.
|
| idk maybe enabling the blanketing of the earth in ever
| expanding ring/echo surveillance. or a cdn though uploading
| huge video files to a satellite hard drive might not make any
| sense or actually save any MS given the inherent satellite ->
| earth delay.
| easton wrote:
| There was always the hypothesis that servers in orbit would
| lower latency since you wouldn't have to bounce back to
| Earth, but given the maintenance and power requirements I
| don't think that'd be very doable. A CDN would work I think,
| provided you could power the hard drives.
| unoti wrote:
| > ...servers in orbit would lower latency since you
| wouldn't have to bounce back to Earth... A CDN would work I
| think, provided you could power the hard drives.
|
| But doing it all solid state with RAM + SSD could totally
| make sense, especially if you cache only the highest access
| items in space... Something like this could also make sense
| to do custom silicon/ASICs to keep the power and weight
| requirements down.
| BooneJS wrote:
| My high school daughter has really gotten into astronomy and
| space in the last few years, and is torn between celebrating the
| 9th use of the same first-stage rocket and hating the pieces of
| space junk it's delivering to low earth orbit.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Your high school daughter could be the person that helps SpaceX
| figure out their "space junk" problem!
| colechristensen wrote:
| Starlink satellites will only stay up about five years without
| propulsion, and unless a satellite breaks hard it will be
| deorbited with propulsion much faster.
|
| Concerns about space junk aren't about these low orbits, they
| are about orbits where things stay up hundreds of years or much
| longer.
| bombcar wrote:
| Isn't low earth orbit the best place for space junk as it burns
| up relatively easily?
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yeah, and SpaceX has gone through extraordinary lengths to
| reduce the visibility of Starlink satellites. However, the
| astronomy community overall hates it and it's kind of a meme
| now.
| BooneJS wrote:
| Like most engineering projects with continuous improvement,
| the newer satellites are less reflective than the older
| ones.
| dcgoss wrote:
| It's not space junk. When they're ready to be decommissioned or
| they fail, the thrusters turn off and the whole thing descends
| into the atmosphere and burns up.
| missedthecue wrote:
| I wonder how much rare earth material will get incinerated
| over the next few decades with thousands of these things
| burning up annually. Hope we figure out space mining quick.
| Thorondor wrote:
| Rare earth elements actually aren't that rare. For example,
| neodymium makes up over 30 ppm of Earth's crust. That's
| more common than lead, cobalt, tin, thorium, tungsten,
| molybdenum, and quite a few other elements with large-scale
| industrial applications.
|
| The difficult part of producing rare-earth elements is
| separating them from everything else. Tiny pieces of
| spacecraft dust scattered over a large area don't make very
| high grade ore...
| tuatoru wrote:
| "Earth" is an old word for ore.
|
| Rare earth elements are so named because their earths are
| rare: there aren't many places on the crust where their
| concentration is significantly above the average. Mining
| depends on the existence of mineral earths.
|
| GP raises a valid point -- although a weak one.
| jiofih wrote:
| Probably about half a suburban town's worth of iPhones.
| missedthecue wrote:
| But all the components of an iPhone can technically be
| recycled to one degree or another (even if they aren't at
| present). Once a satellite has been incinerated, that's
| it. And there will be thousands of these, and several
| providers. That's thousands and thousands of pounds of
| material disappearing for good, every year.
| BooneJS wrote:
| I think terminology can mean different things to different
| people. Typically space junk refers to decommissioned or
| otherwise useless satellites. But if you're a ground-based
| astronomer taking long exposure photographs, the trails of
| reflective satellites are of no use to you.
| Magodo wrote:
| I'm keen to see Starlink deals with government censorship
| requests. Can a country even effectively enforce their requests?
| How will China enforce the Great Firewall for instance?
| TeeMassive wrote:
| ADV China did a video segment about this. It's already illegal
| in China to get satellite dishes, they really are afraid of
| their citizens knowing what's really going on.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I've been torrenting plenty of... perfectly legal data over my
| Starlink connection, I have yet to hear anything from Elon's
| folks.
| rklaehn wrote:
| Any major space power (Russia, China, India) will be able to
| dictate the conditions of Starlink operations.
|
| Basically: dear SpaceX, please switch off your sats over our
| territory, or we will do it for you.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| talk about space debris - blowing up that many satellites
| would be insane.
| wffurr wrote:
| They are low enough that any debris will deorbit shortly.
| tidepod12 wrote:
| It would only take blowing up one satellite to let the
| world know they're serious about it, at which point SpaceX
| would almost certainly be forced to comply with China's
| demands, if only because SpaceX would have to acknowledge
| that the debris from even a handful of destroyed satellites
| would cause serious danger to the operations of the rest of
| the constellation.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| you only have to jam it
| zizee wrote:
| Or arrest people that are using easily detectable
| satellite dishes.
| sangnoir wrote:
| All satellite dishes are easily detectable when they are
| in operation - they _have_ to transmit RF radiation which
| can be detected and pinpointed to source anywhere from
| low-altitude all the way up to space. Anyone of a certain
| age who lived in a country that required TV licenses
| remembers the enforcement trucks that would detect RF
| emissions from vacuum-tube TV sets using directional
| antennae.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| By pressuring Tesla. One thing making me nervous with Tesla's
| China business is that it will become too big for Tesla to let
| it fail, at which point Tesla (and every other Musk company)
| will be beholden to the CCP.
| jiofih wrote:
| Concerns like this are why I think he considered taking it
| private again. He can personally not give a fuck and decide
| to pull out of China anytime, but being a public company and
| "acting in shareholder's interests" might get in the way of
| ethics...
| rat9988 wrote:
| I'm not sure how pulling out the plug is more ethical than
| selling a gimped version of the product because of the
| local laws.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Maybe it will be moot since CCP might likely fund, steal,
| push for - whatever it takes - their own internal 'ip' &
| supply. Maybe batteries are difficult though.
| easton wrote:
| Starlink already said they will comply with whatever is needed
| from a specific government, including selling through local
| resellers and routing through things like the GFW. It's not
| designed for censorship resistance, the only real way around it
| would be to get a foreign dishy/modem.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| I would be surprised if it was that simple. Countries like
| Russia and China are going to want a very visible method of
| knowing whether a given ground dish is the normal version or
| their countries specific version. Anything that is just
| cosmetic would be too simple to fake. The biggest problem is
| that if any other entity controls the satellites themselves;
| they could turn routing the the GFW on and off which would be
| a huge security risk for these countries. (i.e western
| countries pressure Starlink to turn GFW routing off).
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if China just started their own state
| sponsored low orbit satellite internet.
|
| Another decent, cheaper middle ground would be operating just
| the 'first-hop' satellites that ground units communicate with
| and adjusting the technology such that the dish units used in
| china are substantially different in terms of the actual RF.
| Then these China run satellites enforce the GFW and then
| route traffic to Starlink and other 'non-china' satellites.
|
| The biggest downside I see to that setup is that this
| satellite technology has to in a non-geostationary orbit
| which means you need a lot more satellites to get 24 hour
| coverage in a specific location. This isn't a problem if you
| want to provide service to the entire planet but for country
| specific networks; the extra satellites are a bit redundant.
|
| The even safer option is to make running a ground dish itself
| a government enterprise. Private/non-state ownership remains
| illegal but the state uses Starlink et al. as just another
| backbone in their state network. This is probably the most
| likely since it is far simpler to integrate and control.
|
| Starlink's stance on the issue is probably enough to satisfy
| countries like the UK that have some unique internet laws but
| are still satisfied with using the normal western legal
| process to enforce their needs.
| drglitch wrote:
| Russia already has law in works to make possession of StarLink
| hardware illegal. There was some coverage in January:
| https://m.slashdot.org/story/380606
| grecy wrote:
| Plenty of countries today already restrict the import of
| certain products (sat phones, CB radios, weapons, etc.)
|
| The SpaceX receiving dish (dishy) will just be on that list for
| certain countries.
| elihu wrote:
| > How will China enforce the Great Firewall for instance?
|
| By filing legal complaints through the ITU (which is a UN
| agency), probably. I expect some international treaties
| probably come into play. Basically, China complains to the UN,
| the UN tells the US they can't provide Internet service in
| China unless they follow China's rules, and then the FCC tells
| SpaceX that if they don't comply the FCC will shut them down.
|
| Of course, the US government could just decide to ignore China
| and let SpaceX do whatever they want. (This is all assuming
| that SpaceX wants to be the Robin Hood of the global Internet
| and take censorship from the powerful and give access to the
| poor and not worry about the geopolitical or economic
| consequences. They might just want to be a regular internet
| service provider that follows all the rules in whatever country
| they operate in and doesn't make waves. They could also just
| not offer service in China.)
| p2t2p wrote:
| That's, easy, just like they do it in Russia - jail time and
| fines for having Space X antenna.
| Youden wrote:
| How does this work for existing satellite internet providers?
|
| I'm guessing there will be Starlink ground stations located in
| China that are subject to the same conditions as all the other
| local ISPs?
| kiba wrote:
| China will just confiscate any satellite dishes. SpaceX will
| comply if they want the market, or someone else will.
| rfrey wrote:
| I think the "if Amazon/Google/FB don't comply, someone else
| will take their place" argument is weaker when replacement
| requires a constellation of thousands of satellites.
| Roritharr wrote:
| I wonder if the USG would consider the shooting down of
| Starlink Satellites as an act of war after SpaceX refuses
| to comply with chinese regulations.
|
| It's probably all moot as China would probably simply halt
| Tesla Sales, as they are not bound by the logics of
| legality.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| I don't think anyone has the ability to shoot down enough
| Starlink satellites to make a difference.
|
| Musk's biggest risk in China is the CCP confiscating the
| Tesla factory in Shanghai.
| wcoenen wrote:
| Turning one satellite into a cloud of debris would
| suffice, Kessler syndrome would do the rest.
| jiofih wrote:
| We are very very far from that happening. Even with most
| satellites being in the same torus around earth, if every
| single one in orbit right now were to instantly shatter,
| each piece would have something like a 1000sqkm volume to
| roam in.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| *area
| voldacar wrote:
| Debris would deorbit rapidly, starlink satellites are
| relatively low-altitude.
| Demigod33 wrote:
| > I don't think anyone has the ability to shoot down
| enough Starlink satellites to make a difference.
|
| Not with rockets, but maybe with lasers? What damage can
| a single one do? Could a country deploy them at specific
| orbits to have enough coverage to destroy a sufficient
| amount?
| martin8412 wrote:
| China most probably have the resources for that if they
| want to
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| This is why the Space Force is unironically a great idea.
| jiofih wrote:
| There is no "airspace" controlled by countries in space,
| and the satellites are not geostationary, so they would
| have to shoot down everyone's fleet.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Shooting down any satellites is extremely dangerous due
| to the orbital debris this would create. The US would
| take that act very seriously.
| castratikron wrote:
| Seems like there's an opportunity to produce an open-source
| SpaceX compatible antenna that someone could build
| themselves. I wonder if at some point SpaceX could allow this
| on their network?
| sigstoat wrote:
| > Seems like there's an opportunity to produce an open-
| source SpaceX compatible antenna that someone could build
| themselves.
|
| you'd need at least $400 of test equipment to check that
| the >$100 of parts were working right, and to diagnose any
| problems. not cost effective.
| zbrozek wrote:
| I'd be amazed if it's that little in test equipment.
| dmurray wrote:
| That's certainly not prohibitive in the US. Starlink
| already charge $500 for hardware and $100/month.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm not an electrical engineer, but (both) family members
| who got electronics qualifications have told me RF phase
| matching circuits are a PITA to build right, and this
| antenna is a many-element phased array.
|
| They told me this about 20 years ago and I don't know
| what's changed since then. Presumably someone here knows if
| it's still hard or if it became easy since 2001?
| slickrick216 wrote:
| SpaceX will deploy a low orbit ion cannon and DoS the Chinese
| censors.
| toast0 wrote:
| I imagine China will apply pressure to the company/officers. If
| that fails, they will track RF emissions and disappear users.
| If that fails, they will start RF jamming. If that fails,
| accidents in space.
|
| More interesting than China though are regional communications
| shutdowns. Will India be able to turn off communications in
| Kashmir? Will various countries be able to turn off the
| internet on national school entrance exam days? Will
| democracies for show be able to turn off the internet when the
| votes aren't as expected?
| fancy_pantser wrote:
| China has started building their own satellite broadband
| constellation (up to 12,992 have been applied for) that is
| routed to comply with their policies.
| fireeyed wrote:
| They get "Jack Maa'd"
| consumer451 wrote:
| FWIW, there was a video with I believe Gwynn Shotwell saying
| every country, including the USA, required an "off switch" to
| receive approval. Nothing about line item censorship was
| mentioned.
| echopom wrote:
| I'm really concerned about the alarms raised by Scientific in
| regards to "Space Pollution".[0]
|
| Elon Musk has been dodging the question for the past years and
| never gave a clear answer about it aside of "Umbrella" joke...
|
| Some astronomers are suggesting that with multiple space telecom
| companies ( US + EU + China ) it would potentially mean we would
| never be able to see space in plain sight ever. At least not
| without visual pollution.
|
| [0]https://qz.com/1971751/a-flood-of-spacex-satellites-
| started-...
| caconym_ wrote:
| SpaceX is taking concrete steps to make their satellites as
| unobtrusive as possible without significantly compromising
| their design. Beyond that, this is really a choice between
| developing space and not. Quit with the FUD about Musk
| "dodging" questions, etc.--say what you mean, which is that you
| think pristine night skies should forever take precedence over
| the economic development of space. Or, if it doesn't sound good
| stated so straightforwardly, don't.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I don't see how anyone who has read broadly on this topic could
| say with a straight face that SpaceX has been just dodging
| this.
|
| SpaceX has done more to mitigate visibility of their satellites
| than any satellite maker/operator in history, with the possible
| exception of classified payloads. They installed sunshades that
| reduce the visibility of the satellites when fully deployed (in
| operational orbit) to below the visibility limit in _almost_
| all conditions. You have to have exceptionally good timing,
| eyesight, and dark skies to catch recent Starlink satellites
| once operational now. But a satellite like ISS is so bright and
| obvious, you can even sometimes see it in the daytime. (ISS is
| as bright as all new operational Starlink satellites combined.)
|
| Read this article to see the significant changes they've made:
| https://www.spacex.com/updates/starlink-update-04-28-2020/in...
| findthewords wrote:
| Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite orbits decay rapidly thanks to
| atmospheric drag.
| vasco wrote:
| I can't wake up and see the world without loads of buildings
| and roads and cars in sight either.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| If you know the position of the satellites it's very easy to
| mitigate their effect.
| rklaehn wrote:
| SpaceX has put in a lot of effort to reduce the visual
| pollution aspect of starlink.
|
| See
| https://twitter.com/ralfvandebergh/status/136999054076322611...
| for how the visibility of Starlink sats has changed over time.
|
| For professional earth based astronomy, it is possible to
| remove the streaks digitally. But of course there is a slight
| impact. But what is the alternative? Just stop development of
| low earth orbit forever?
|
| The future of professional astronomy is space based. Imagine
| what a telescope you can launch with a single starship
| launch...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| We could be constantly lifting new observatories to space,
| launch is no longer the constraint, but satellite
| manufacturing and cost.
|
| NASA needs the SpaceX equivalent of an org that churns out
| satellites. The next bus to orbit leaves shortly.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Launch is not a constraint for... about a year now.
| Satellites have a bit more lag time.
|
| I don't think NASA needs the SpaceX equivalent for
| satellites - SpaceX itself is causing a boom in satellite
| manufacturing, so commercial market is accumulating
| expertise and lowering prices. NASA should find it easier
| and cheaper to buy or subcontract pieces of satellites too,
| and focus on bespoke mission-specific hardware.
| shantara wrote:
| I agree, and this applies to satellite manufacturing in
| general. Starlink has demonstrated that the new launch
| cadence requires a switch from single unit and small scale
| to serial production.
|
| It's unbelievable that we don't currently have standard
| designs not just for observatories, but for communication,
| navigation, cartography and other satellite types. Cubesats
| took a step into the right direction, the same needs to
| happen for even larger payloads.
|
| Another side of the problem is that NASA budget is heavily
| influenced by politics and PR. I'm sure there's plenty of
| smart people there who have realized that from purely
| scientific point of view, ten or twenty less capable and
| more disposable interplanetary probes or observatories
| could have advantage over unique absurdly expensive
| projects like JWT and Perseverance. But they are not as
| exciting and harder to sell to politicians and general
| public.
| hwc wrote:
| Maybe SpaceX should make it up to the scientific community by
| promising to (at no charge) put 100T of satellite telescopes
| in a high orbit every year once Starship is functional.
| cbozeman wrote:
| I don't know why you're being downvoted... maybe it's the
| "no charge" aspect of your post, but SpaceX offering to
| send up research telescopes for at-cost-of-launch, or maybe
| a little over, would be a great philanthropic endeavor.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It would be a great philanthropic endeavor indeed, but I
| personally have a problem with suggesting they _have_ to
| do this to "pay back" to the community. They've already
| paid back to everyone who ever considers launching
| anything to space, by cutting off a zero out of launch
| costs - and they're about to cut off another zero.
|
| Launch costs tend to be a small part of mission costs for
| bespoke scientific hardware - but what makes those
| missions expensive is a feedback loop: rare and expensive
| launches -> need to make best use of the mass budget ->
| increased complexity -> need to make more robust ->
| increased complexity -> more expensive -> rarer launches
| -> more expensive launches. SpaceX just kicked that loop
| into reverse. With that much cheaper launches, people can
| afford less robust and less complex missions, and do more
| of them, which lowers the costs as scale kicks in.
|
| SpaceX is making space cheap. That's already a great gift
| to everyone.
| rklaehn wrote:
| That would be awesome PR, and not that expensive with
| starship.
|
| But for low production rate things like telescopes, launch
| cost is almost negligible even at current launch prices.
|
| A replacement for hubble could be launched with a single
| falcon 9. Building it would cost more than a billion.
|
| The James Webb Telescope is at 10 billion USD and counting.
| Launch with very expensive Ariane 5 will cost maybe 200
| million USD, so ~2%.
| gbrown wrote:
| Mirror size is the issue - until we can easily manufacture
| huge, incredibly precise mirrors in-situ, space based will
| never replace ground based astronomy.
| iso1210 wrote:
| There aren't many telescopes with a >8m diameter mirror,
| and it looks like the largest single mirror is 8.2m
|
| Starship's payload is 8m.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| It's not manufacture. It's assembly. And I think astronauts
| are faster and cheaper than robots for in space assembly.
| Or they will be once Starship is operational. NASA did a
| ton of work in EVA orbital assembly with Shuttle (and still
| chooses to do exterior work on ISS via EVA and not purely
| robotically) but it was always like 10 or 100 times too
| expensive. Starship ought to change that. In addition to
| its 8m diameter payload bay.
| Jabbles wrote:
| Surely they will only be visible a short time before sunrise or
| after sunset, when the satellite can see both you and the sun?
| jiofih wrote:
| There are already 1200 of them in orbit, can you go outside and
| point at a single one?
|
| When this controversy was started they addressed concerns by
| reducing the satellites reflectance and it seems to have
| worked.
| tidepod12 wrote:
| A couple points:
|
| 1) 1200 is a small percentage of the _tens of thousands_ of
| satellites that the full system, plus the other similar
| systems will eventually consist of.
|
| 2) Being able to go outside and point out a satellite has
| absolutely no relevance on the satellite's impact on
| professional astronomy.
|
| 3) It did not "seem to have worked". SpaceX experimented with
| reducing the reflectivity of their satellites, but only some
| satellites have that reduced reflectivity, and astronomers
| found them to be only marginally better.
| cbozeman wrote:
| Yeah, and what's going to advance humanity as a whole more
| significantly, I wonder... high-speed Internet access for
| the entire planet... or professional astronomers not being
| able to see into space as easily as they did 20 years ago?
|
| or... Or... OR... Launching massive powerful telescopes
| into space using SpaceX rockets for professional
| astronomers to use?
| tidepod12 wrote:
| I have no idea who you're addressing. If it's me, that's
| quite a nice strawman you've built. Next time perhaps try
| to actually address the words written in my comment
| rather than inventing some boogeyman that nobody brought
| up except you.
|
| Here, I'll demonstrate:
|
| >high-speed Internet access for the entire planet
|
| Musk himself has said that only a tiny, _tiny_ fraction
| of the world will ever be able to use Starlink. It is not
| anywhere close to "internet access for the entire
| planet", and certainly isn't providing any more internet
| access than is already provided by existing satellite
| internet providers.
|
| >or professional astronomers not being able to see into
| space as easily as they did 20 years ago?
|
| In case you weren't aware, astronomy is responsible for
| some of the most significant scientific advancements
| since for literally millennia. If you really want an
| answer to your questions, it's this: professional
| astronomers being prevented from doing research is
| _significantly_ more of a negative impact to humanity 's
| advancement than the positive impact from 0.001% of the
| world having access to lower ping internet. It's not even
| close.
|
| >or... Or... OR... Launching massive powerful telescopes
| into space using SpaceX rockets for professional
| astronomers to use?
|
| Even with something the size of Starship, it's physically
| impossible to launch anything even remotely close to the
| size of telescopes needed by professional astronomers.
| genericone wrote:
| Their livelihoods are under attack, they're going to
| fight it regardless of the upside of starlink.
| robocat wrote:
| No different from city light pollution preventing optical
| telescopes being near cities.
|
| Or radio pollution causing constraints for radio-astronomy.
|
| My guess is that cheap reliable worldwide internet connectivity
| will help science overall by _far_ more than the costs of
| modifying terrestrial optical observations to mitigate the
| extra satellites.
| mempko wrote:
| On my early morning walk I can see the satellites as very bright
| (much brighter than the stars) line across the sky. It's clear
| they didn't do enough about the reflectivity issue.
|
| Edit: Already downvoted for stating a fact. Amazing.
|
| Edit: Changed 'did nothing' to 'didn't do enough'
|
| Edit: Looks like experts still believe reflectivity is still a
| problem: https://physicsworld.com/a/dark-coated-starlink-
| satellites-a...
| _Microft wrote:
| They only adjust to an orientation in which reflectivity is
| reduced once they have reached their proper orbits. You most
| likely observed them while they were still boosting themselves
| to these orbits. The statement that you saw a "bright line"
| makes it sounds like they were launched recently as they spread
| out after a while. The boosting process takes a few weeks.
| coiledsnake wrote:
| > _On my early morning walk I can see the satellites as very
| bright (much brighter than the stars) line across the sky._
|
| No you do not. Satellites, when visible by the naked eye, are
| seen as point sources of light. Dots, not lines. One of two
| things has happened here: Either you saw meteor showers and
| mistook them for satellites (meteors move fast enough to be
| seen as lines, not points of light) or you saw long-exposure
| photographs of satellites online, assumed that is what it would
| look like through your eyeballs as well, and BSed your story
| about seeing them yourself.
|
| > _Edit. Already downvoted for stating a fact._
|
| More likely you were downvoted for either being mistaken or for
| lying.
| ben_w wrote:
| "Did nothing" is different from "didn't do enough":
| https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/abc0e9
| jiofih wrote:
| How can you tell Starlink from the other 6000 satellites in
| space right now? That's an amazing skill.
|
| If you saw a tight line of satellites, those have just been
| launched and are not in their final (higher) orbit.
| topkeks wrote:
| Are you a TSLAQ retard, because you seem to be complaining
| about Musk and Tesla in every thread?
| jws wrote:
| When the satellites are transitioning to their service orbits
| they are not in the low reflectivity orientation.
| beebmam wrote:
| I'd like to point out that I'm a big astrophotography nerd. And
| these satellites are regularly showing up in my long exposure
| images. It's really quite a nuisance, and I don't look forward to
| it getting worse.
| [deleted]
| gitgud wrote:
| Interesting, can you share some photos?
| Havoc wrote:
| That's really cool - essentially mission accomplished for
| reusability. Clearly they're not degrading fast so with
| optimisation more will be possible
| kjrose wrote:
| Could someone explain to me how/if this resolves the speed issues
| that all satellite internet has had since its inception.
| [deleted]
| Malician wrote:
| it's a few hundred miles up instead of 22,300. this means that
| it's not geostationary and you gotta switch your dish between
| satellites often as they go overhead, but latency is far lower.
| kjrose wrote:
| Ok, that would make a huge difference. the biggest argument
| I"ve made against this with people is simply that the latency
| would be terrible (and it's still not great), but it's a
| helluva lot better than 22.3k.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| And many, many, many more satellites.
| Disgardia wrote:
| How much is starlink? Hope its cheap, so i can move on from
| mobile data
| swhalen wrote:
| These satellites have marred the night sky. There is more to life
| than broadband availability.
| ragebol wrote:
| Tell that to the people not on this, or any, forum because they
| are left behind and don't have any or a decent internet
| connection.
|
| In I were in that spot, I'd happily trade a few bright spots in
| the sky for catching up with the developed world.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's disappointing indeed that America's failure to provide
| rural broadband lumbers the whole world with these satellites.
| sto_hristo wrote:
| Yeah. City light pollution even more so. Time to deprecate
| civilization and go back to the caves.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| There is more to life than the night sky.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Says the guy with broadband availability.
| Disgardia wrote:
| I'm ready for the high speed it provides
| mabbo wrote:
| Worth also pointing out: That's the 9th flight of Booster 1051.
| And it had a perfect landing.
|
| The goal of this design of Falcon 9 is to handle 10 flights with
| minimum refurbishment. Right now, it looks like they're within a
| couple months of achieving that goal for the first time, with
| booster 1049 close as well, at 8 flights.
|
| SpaceX is soon going to reach a point that they don't need to
| build more Falcon 9 boosters.
| yakz wrote:
| Wouldn't they want to continue building them to some extent
| just so they don't lose the institutional knowledge of how to
| build them? Or is the expectation that Starship will render it
| obsolete soon enough?
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Some clients request brand new boosters, and some mission
| profiles require losing the booster. I think there is no
| danger of them ceasing to build booster.
| vermontdevil wrote:
| Saw from one of the Space reporters on Twitter that this
| booster will do an April launch of another Starlink mission.
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