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Your definition of “efficiency” is quite misleading. It’s more accurate to actually say they’re 0.0000001% efficient (though that’s also a pretty narrow metric).

It costs a lot of money and takes a lot of risk exposure for someone to develop reusability, and for 'quite a while' those trades have never been able to close by anyone other than SX (who always had significant internal demand and at-cost operation to support the trade). Bottom line is that...

Yeah, for sure. It's all a trade. And in your example, the reusable solution also needs bigger (and ostensibly, more expensive, complex) motors, etc... Big picture, reusability is and always will be a spectrum, not a point solution. SX always needed maximum cost efficiency on Falcon...

First, it's worth noting that this thread seems to conflate Glue and ULA. Not complaining, just pointing out... Not actually that hokey. It's something both Ariane and Blue have contemplated FTR, and something that ULA has had in the back of their mind since the inception of Vulcan (so hooks...

Certainly concerning there was no abort…though if it was never planned to actually move it’s possible commanding was all hardline and there was no airlink provision in place… Bit of a zombie rocket then…

Another disingenuous topic-change from someone who’d rather assign arbitrary fault rather than understand intent and context. ;)

Yes, for sure. Hyperbolic hypothetical: One battery maker could have a single modular battery that every satellite uses. That single battery might last a full mission for low-demand one off satellites. You might need a few of those batteries for a 4-5 year Starlink-like LEO, and maybe that...

True. Also true that, in the context of why space salvaging isn't as straightforward as we all wish it might be (which is clearly my drumbeat here), your points about decreasing launch costs and increasing access/cadence are useful to highlight how progress in launch capability works against...

Maybe leave the disingenuous commentary-ing to Elon. ;) Conservation and sustainability type initiatives have long been part of Blue's charter. There's clearly nothing all of the sudden going on, regardless how convenient that false narrative is to perpetuate here. Hell, even Jeff...

Complaining about a 10 year old comment (that still partially rings true--unless I missed it a SX is selling F9's at $5M) and then complaining about what Ariane 6 is (and isn't)...not exactly a fresh and compelling read. Of course that was all word count fill to get to dunking on "SS won't be...

Lol, I guess I assumed that autonomous salvaging has always been the implied method of execution. :p Exactly the point. Very true that salvaging is a fantastic concept. Also true that today and for the foreseeable future, it is very impractical concept. Its simply cheaper (and faster...

Questioning the impact of SS is 100% legitimate, period. Elon solely focusing on the dubious motivation of those asking the question is, IMO, an intentional effort to distract away from the real conversation...and thus, Elon is being far more disingenuous than Blue here. Hence the "there's a...

Salvage is a massively complicated concept that is not at all an obvious solution for space. I personally think we can get there at some point, but it's decades away at best. Some roadblocks to overcome: Equipment in space degrades over time; it is basically designed from the off to last the...

Another yawner quote fill from Berger…

GTOs are often launched into eclipse, so it wouldn’t be a major shock if they’d never seen a deployment.

Any reasonable mind would agree this is a case of ‘multiple things can be true’. Is it dubious for BO and ULA to try and impede SS through regulatory/authoritative mechanisms? Yes. Is it exactly what one would expect from a competitor? Yes. Is it appropriate to challenge the upside value...

Sensible choice to go with FH despite the satellite mass being easily within the capability of F9. FH is going to make the insertion orbit super high energy, which manifests as less propellant used to orbit ‘raise’ (insertion apogee will be higher than GEO…) and thus more propellant available...

I’d guess Comcast will abstract Starlink from the end users (hardware aside) and as such will have levels of service ~equivalent to what they currently offer terrestrially rather than generally mirroring starlink end user tiers. This is a smart move for Starlink—guaranteed/contracted Big...

1. Given that I'd already have Starlink Maritime and Apple's satellite feature set, zero. 2a. How many “people in the middle of the ocean" do you think there are? 2b. How many “people in the middle of the ocean” do you think it takes to materially impact the business model of a global...

It really is the most uncertain part. The other stuff can all be resolved with time. Human nature OTOH…especially when it comes to money… Yes. Link quality (occlusions) and data caps not withstanding, SX D2D has the ability to be full, unrestricted access. Probably something on the order...

You’d also need pretty sophisticated targeting sensors and actuators. (Pretty much a satellites attitude control subsystem) And…the structures are pretty floppy (relatively speaking), which manifests as lower resolution vs a dedicated satellite platform with the same imager.

Starlink mobile will be proper/full/normal connectivity. Your home office anywhere, as it were. Starlink D2D, even at its most aspirational state of performance, will be something less than above. Generally much slower speeds, congestion, tethering limits (or no tethering), constant...

If this article is any indication (and others like it, if The Googs are to be believed), yes. Though...in the cnet article I linked Apple Dude said "Messages via satellite doesn't currently support RCS". So also...no.

If those were accomplished SX would be hucking D2D sats up like gangbusters. OS/portal for things like guiding users through do's and don'ts and limiting demand on the system. Could be more Apple-like (actual UI), could be more messaging-on-a-plane like.

Certainly building and launching the sats is not the long pole…with the asterisk that a D2D launch necessarily impacts the Starlink launch cycle (which we know they pretty much need to maintain in perpetuity). Likely no practical impact to Starlink, but worth noting. The long poles for SX...

Apple's been publicly using Globlastar's satellite network for the better part of two years now...or at least it's been public knowledge. (See post #1 in this thread...) Given that--at least as of today--Starlink cannot connect to mobile phones in a production environment, your question is...

Lots of positive reviews coming in for Apple's satellite texting. I Saw the iPhone's Most Underrated iOS 18 Feature. We Should Be Talking About It More Also, it turns out anyone can download the beta version of ios18 by signing up (for free) as a developer. Related to the above...

RTG….

Time will tell, but I'm not so sure. Starlnk D2D is of course going to require a device OS update, but I'd also bet its going to have a dedicated "satellite mode", and I'd also bet that the production service its going to require 5G enabled devices. (As with every new technology, it's pretty...

RKLB Pete’s actually been using the cash to squire technologies and develop salable products.

Of course the aspiration is a seamless experience Reality is that the major roadblock is not the protocol (noting that Starlink will almost certainly use a bespoke, lightweight NTN variant of 5g, not a ‘bone stock’ terrestrial protocol), it is the signal strength. You can count link margin in...

Hard to say what Apple’s plans are given how tight lipped they are, but global satellite service takes time to rollout. Look at Starlink. Look at Apple’s emergency satellite service. Look at iridium and globalstar, neither of which actually provide truly global service even decades after they...

Non-emergency roadside is already one of Apple’s satellite based off-grid services. Why wouldn’t it? If you’re Apple, you’re going to go to the 9’s to make it as close to a ‘regular’ texting experience on grid. And given that the existing emergency satellite texting feature is already two...

Texting soon on iOS.

It’s generally launch vehicle agnostic and—human rating aside—could theoretically launch on most of the worlds existing and upcoming 5m class vehicles…though practically it’s just Atlas (and then eventually Vulcan). Bit of a bummer it costs so much given the inevitable timeline of starship...

Atlas 5 has always used rd-180. Nobody (except The Reds) has ever been happy about that.

“Work to understand why” = root cause investigation. The SW trips on the symptom/effect.

“Developed with the support of the Russian Federation” is quite different than “for Russia”. What that means is: DPRK bought satellite tech from Russia. I’d guess they bought some old generation imager, though I could see it being the whole satellite too (and some level of supporting...

Lol! I was answering your [presumably rhetorical] question about the US government’s better than Starlink options for Ukraine with: T’aint no such thing.

It’s worth noting that such a service doesn’t exist. Starshield isn’t a thing yet and there’s no way The Man would let Ukraine—a country that’s closer to The Enemy Of Our Enemy than Best Buds on the Are They An Ally? spectrum—use DOD satcomm solutions anyway. (Existing or not) There may be a...

Pretty unlikely SX would catch it but certainly non-zero. At the risk of stating the obvious the thing about testing [regardless the design philosophy] is that if you’re not purposely testing for a thing, the probability that you find it ‘by accident’ is pretty much the same as the...

Impressive pics from ULA on the different stages of production. Even the first steps machining the orthogrid is a LOT of work.

Shades of the charity bet threads here with the launch timeline…

That kind of mission really isn’t in SX’s wheel house. Long duration, ‘deep’ space, high reliability, low quantities/mass. The non-rotation (of sorts) of the moon also means that orbiting comms are really only required for far-side operations. Anything near side generally first-principals...

And you don’t wait until construction is done and everything is all buttoned up…

I'm certainly happy to have my interpretation-o-meter recalibrated, but I pretty clearly hear "General such-and-such says Falcon has saved the DOD $40B in defense satellite launch costs". Its ultimately somewhat irrelevant because even if we rack in non-DOD state funded launches--basically...

No question Falcon is cheaper for US taxpayers, but there's some context missing from that statement. Out of the all the launches F9/FH has to date, 25 of them (or less...?) have been DOD (USAF/USSF/SDA/NRO/etc). In round numbers, DOD probably spends $100M per Falcon. Round numbers, let's say...

Why? Its a Mars mission mission with a total budget (including launch) of $80M.

Thinking about this one a little more, if it were me, I’d prioritize minimizing DF battery capacity--and thus mass and volume--based on: Maximum discharge rate during flight. This one's basically the same problem space as Tesla batteries (sometimes) limiting the maximum acceleration of the...

A corollary data point: The space industry builds in what most here I suspect would consider unfathomable margin into battery sizing. For decades the gold standard on satellites has been to limit per-orbit DOD to 20%--usually that's marked against the nameplate or, even more conservatively...