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It’s pretty cool, for sure. Flip side of course, it’s also very much a self serving offer. The last thing SX wants is for the brightness problem to get so untenable that it needs to be regulated; as [by far] the biggest constellation in the sky for at least the foreseeable future, Starlink...

Great white paper on mitigating sunlight reflection.

The earth escape elliptical orbits are not represented in the diagram. Those orbits are around earth (not the earth-moon system) and are generally small enough that representing them would be both a little confusing and also not to scale. (For reference, the moon is about ~30 earth diameters...

Interesting data points from down under.

FWIW, I think this is actually a smart more by Vlad. Its exactly what his supporters want to hear right now--its imperative Putin still gives them the impression he's still a global player and that Ukraine isn't all-consuming. More importantly, he has an out. This statement simply sets him...

Of course, consider that people like to know how and why things work, not because they need to know, but simply because they’d like to know. You can't fault people for honest curiosity. Hell, most of the threads in this forum wouldn't exist if every post #2 was "in the big picture you don't...

Good news, and a bit of a no brainer given Eutelsat's recent investment/stake in OW.

All downside for Ariane on that one, and that's not even factoring the crow eating of "ok fine, their rocket is better than our rocket". (Also no upside for SpaceX on that one)

Nothing is currently built around starship (other than Starlink, obviously), and you can bet there won't be many single-sat payloads the near future. Once starship is operational you'll see more appetite commercial entities to build a bigger GEO (or whatever) than the current 5m class of...

All but 0% chance it goes on starship. This is another L2 mission (like Webb) that would need a Starship refueling (and potentially even expending a Starship?), and there's no chance that's getting bought into by this kind of mission until there's significant heritage on the concept years...

It’s largely a new market—short haul aircraft like the dash 8 have never really been cost compatible with legacy in-air connectivity services, so it’s a no brainer addition where nothing has existed before. Conversely, many of the larger carriers have existing contracts with legacy services...

The Rimac and the Hummer are both very important for the EV agenda.

Yeah, Maritime is a good upside market that Starlink kinda gets 'for free'. There's ~50k or so merchant ships around the world which are all (or at least most of them) using other services already which are orders of magnitude slower than Starlink for +/-equivalent duckets. For price...

I can't remember if we have a general non-spaceX thread here... Anyway, a number of newer space companies have been added to the Russel 3000 index, which is generally good news. Notably kept off the island is Virgin Orbit and long-time industry player Maxar (who racks in bank from The Man...

Yeah--and for sure nothing SpaceX has submitted actually goes beyond that. On the flip side, only a fool would contest that ElonCo's is unaware of their a) lock on and b) ability to steer The Court Of Public Opinion, as evidence by the fact that a significant amount of people have been...

Yep, and an equivalent set on the far side.

Sure...and its probably also fair to figure Starlink might want a bigger guard band if the terrestrial power levels are permitted to far exceed that of the space PFDs (I honestly don't know, but would be surprised if there's a huge difference)...so we can conservatively limit Starlink's useable...

The flag could have easily been sent on the Soyuz progress mission that went up a month ago.

At the risk of beating the horse here, it affects less than “just [Starlink] customers close to the city”. It only affects Starlink customers that are very close to a terrestrial antenna broadcasting at 12ghz. Because those frequencies are so finneky in the first place (for example, and while...

For Starlink viability to be compromised as a result of 12gig terrestrial networks, the affected user base will necessarily have access to those 12gig networks. While bad for starlink’s bottom line (and, I suppose, the small percentage of users who would prefer to use Starlink), it’s good for...

They most certainly are confusing. Unfortunately your case, while eloquently conveyed, is not fully baked. There is 0% chance dish network will deploy 12gig mmWave service along the Denali highway (and probably anywhere in AK) and so there is zero possible conflict with your...

...except that the land right there really isn't that valuable from a track perspective (and is close to big power, close to where the temporary structures are always put)

Put exit is the higher elevation (where the port-a-potty is) and the actual pit stalls are much farther back. There may be some very brief flashes recognizable only to the Tesla community, but that’s about it.

Yeah--some people assume there's physical tracking going on with the motors like a traditional dish, but the logic doesn't check out...each satellite pass is measured on the order of minutes, and for the thing to do motorized tracking, it would need to reset back to the western horizon for the...

What you're looking at in that picture is the satellite mounted on to the payload adapter--a conical structure that goes between the second stage and the satellite--in front of one fairing half. Below the image the adapter has a large circular interface that bolts to the top of the second...

No new news here. The history of the space industry is the satellite schedule pushing out. Launch contracts are structured accordingly, to varying degrees depending on the payload/customer/launcher.

Satellite tracking during service is all beamforming. The UTs have motors but they are really just used for setup positioning, to account for mounting off-angles (as well as generally pointing the array toward the region that has the densest satellite coverage.)

Of course its an issue...You're over indexing on the trees here; my whole point was forest-level. ;) To go analogy on this one, SpaceX is complaining that Dish is making it impossible for their subscribers to wear their sunglasses, and that's [generally] true. Its also true that most SX...

Probably not lying. But, like the Tobacco industry commissioning a report on cancer or the petroleum industry commissioning a report on climate change, one can't simply take Dish or SpaceX at face value on this one. Anyway, the actual issue SX has here is that the contemplated 5G network...

When you look at the lifecycle of making, storing, and using the fuel, it’s way too costly for that kind of application. (And also pollute-ey) FTR there’s a big power plant with 5 or 6 turbines (basically the west-most complex) that augments the solar farm.

Chef Art also re-vamped the restaurant semi-recently with a new look and menu. (Though I don’t think anything really changed externally). It’s the complex center right of the frame, and specifically the building with a “1” on it.

You're thinking cleanrooms where the payloads are built and tested and integrated onto rockets. Rocket final assembly buildings like the highbays at Starbase are all pretty similar with stuff more seemingly strewn about and a generally less kept feel. Except that nobody beside SX has a...

It’s still the case where the UT is pointed to maximize performance, it’s just that the ‘source’ is a set of fast moving satellites, not a geometrically fixed asset. Your UT is pointing north because that’s still where the highest density of Starlink satellites are relative to you [even at...

For better or worse, Blue leans heavily in the old school direction of ‘failure is not an option’. Not like full stop, but there's basically no chance they're going to light the candle without the highest of confidence they're going to land the main stage.

Can't find--rudimentary searches return a version of this most recent news, and then before that Viasat's complaining to the FCC to stop starlink expansion. But...I recall SX's argument against Viasat was rooted in logic but not a slam dunk, and I also recall it sort of shot itself in the foot...

And in related news, SpaceX and Viasat are still not friends. Viasat controlling Inmarsat will be a pretty BFD, as there will be significant FSS and MSS rights under one roof.

Here's a pretty solid op-ed on space regulation. (This seems like the most applicable thread)

Chance? Sure. Probability? I'd say next to zero at this point. The issue is ROI and limited SX resources. There simply aren't enough cubesats out there to make a material bottom line impact to SpaceX. Its just not worth diverting hours away from the core work streams of a) getting starship...

Lol…N2O4

Basically any ‘high’ thrust thruster in space uses a variant of hydrazine fuel (and usually N2H4 as oxidizer). Despite being massively toxic and a PITA to handle on the ground, they’re very stable on orbit and can be for decades. Something like the electric thrusters used on Starlink are...

The reality of launching a large constellation is such that you want to put as many satellites on a vehicle as possible, and that’s still going to be the case for Starlink v2. While I agree there’s convenient symmetry in what’s shown, a constellation would rather launch more sats and deal with...

X2, I wouldn’t put much stock in the animations or any early activity as representative of planned evolution. Remember that F9 early iterations pale in comparison to the current models.

I wouldn’t put too much stock in quantity shown in the deck or quantity on early (and in general, BC) launches.

Collision risk is a statistical thing, and time is a big part of the statistical equation. The main thing that causes natural orbital decay is atmospheric drag. As altitude increases atmospheric density decreases, so there’s less drag on an object and the object takes longer to re-enter…and...

And that's why SX's approach to the problem with starlink is so important--they've built the full lifecycle requirement in from the beginning. DOA sats naturally deorbit very quickly, and they're not shy about proactively deorbiting a slightly malfunctioning sat (rather than stringing it along...

Hard to say. There's past mention of $316M for a FH launch + the vertical upgrades (and also the long fairing and some VAFB upgrades) which, if fully overlapped with the 2020/21 award, would only leave $160M for two Falcon launches, which seems a bit low. Its also hard to say if any of those...

The big issue is physics—it takes a lot of time or a lot of propellant (and potentially both) to go fetch a particular piece of debris let alone many pieces of debris. And the more important pieces to fetch (the ones that are higher up) are also harder to get to. The first order solution is...

It’s worth noting that, per the linked article, last time The Man paid $140M per launch to ULA and $158M per launch to SpaceX… There’s a lot that goes into these kinds of contracts. “Favoritism” is an easy but far from comprehensive differentiator.

You also need a sat that has covisibility to a ground station, and if you’re in the Bay Area that basically means north in the Central Valley (up by Williams). Certainly the gateway links go to a lower elevation than the user links, but it’s possible some of your apparent ~southern exposure is...

Would be interesting to know price to the customer—even with the pricing of falcon, The Rocket Equation is hard to beat. For all but extreme corner case missions (and I can’t think of any FYI) it’s still more cost effective to insert into GTO and have the satellite do the apogee burns. What...