Ummm... I don't think so. Fire is just hot gas that's reacting and producing a visible emission spectrum. It may well include some ionized gas (plasma), but I don't think that's true in what we typically call a fire - like a word or natural gas flame. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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Ummm... I don't think so. Fire is just hot gas that's reacting and producing a visible emission spectrum. It may well include some ionized gas (plasma), but I don't think that's true in what we typically call a fire - like a word or natural gas flame. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
No more than the 21,000 object of 10cm of greater currently orbiting. One could suppose that, due to the quantity, Starlink is an issue. However, since they will be in defined orbits/ altitudes, it will not pose a great difficulty to avoid.
The other cool thing about this is that for those who can afford a “pizza box” receiver for $200 then they can bypass national firewalls ( China, Russia, Iran, Korea) Filtering the Internet will be very much harder when it gets deployed .. every receiver has a direct high speed link to the Internet..
Well, maybe I got a little overzealous with my waxing about spaceX doing non traditional stuff.
Sounds like its going to be a pretty classic satellite, just with the expected spaceX twists and in a non-traditional packaging/layout. I'm still holding out hope that the thing doesn't actually have wheels and stuff for precision control (and instead just relies on precision knowledge), but mostly just cause that's a super cool idea. Unfortunately, depending on the propulsion solution, precision control might be a necessity. If there's only one thruster, any offset of the thrust vector from the CG of the spacecraft (which, of course, changes as things get deployed and propellant gets consumed) creates an undesired spin rate that needs to be actively counter-acted by the attitude control systemI must say it is pretty awesome that the satellite is actually flat. ("Flatsat" is a concept used in the space industry, but it applies to testing, not a final configuration). That's HUGE for production simplicity--traditionally, anything that's bigger than about 50-75kg (give or take) basically becomes a three dimensional satellite that has to be manipulated/handled as such. No doubt Starlink's are built on a basic table and never flipped around..at least for the recurring units.
Krypton makes sense, that's pretty much where the non-mega-sat concepts are going, mostly for cost. Its still a noble gas like Xe and so works pretty much the same in an electric propulsion system that's pretty much the same, but its higher on the table and thus lighter, so its a little less efficient. Not awesome yet for a 5000kg satellite, not a big deal for a 250kg satellite. Argon is another interesting alternative to Xe, as it can be launched as a solid. Back to waxing a bit, what will be super cool is for technology to advance to the point where other molecules are practical. Theoretically you could use carbon dioxide in an EP system. I hear there's a place nearby that has a lot of that...
IMHO anyway, it all goes back to how far Starlink can push the price breakpoint versus fiber. Obviously there's a huge strength-in-numbers element to starlink that even the other big two aren't going to have, but when you go down into the individual spacecraft they all still individually have to adhere to a traditional conops, and that essentially translates into the fact that each spacecraft is really only providing max service (and potentially any service) for a relatively small amount of its orbital period. A big element in that investigation will be both the size and the steerability (or not) of the solar arrays. Anyone read anything on that?
Oh, so the other interesting thing here is that, even when you have full control over design and cost of both the launcher and the payload, direct inject is a hard case to close. 440 pretty much puts the injection above Station...its possible that was a constraint for minimum altitude, either self-imposed or strongly 'suggested'.
To be fair, that could just be a complete coincidence and 440 could simply be the right balance between maximizing launch mass (lower injection = more mass lifted, but lower injection = more propellant on each satellite) and minimizing drag on the satellites as they spiral out to 550...
They Might Be Giants were willing to change their tune (literally).
Is it 10:30 yet? I want to see how there dispenser works.
For reference, the original song that they "changed their tune" from:
Starlink clearly wins on cost if you want to stand up a cell tower in the middle of nowhere (paying a reasonable subscription cost versus installation of fiber from somewhere to nowhere, potentially hundreds of miles away and then paying a subscription cost on that), though the closer to existing fiber you get the less clear cut the cost win is, and by the time you're in a city it just comes down to how much profit do SpaceX & the fiber operators want to give up to try and undercut each other, and if there's a point they're not willing to go below.
There is no way that the governments of China, Russia, Iran, and (I assume) North Korea will allow their citizens to own/use a Starlink receiver that provides unfiltered internet access.
Can’t believe no one has responded to your post yet! Does your son work directly for SpaceX, or is he a contractor? Is he a crew person on Mr Steven?
In any case, I hope he is successful in his goal!
You are correct.. but lack of permission simply means black market deployment..
Not unlike the US feds still calling Marijuana an illegal drug. How well did that work for them?
And I was responding to someone elseI said “fire is oxidation”. I did not say, “all oxidation is fire”.
Mr Steven stayed in port, the two recovery vessels are out to pick up the halves from the ocean.
If SpaceX allows unfiltered access to the internet in China, Musk will basically be blacklisted and can forget about doing business in China. Not just SpaceX, but also Tesla. So I'm fairly sure SpaceX will implement filtering, simply refuse links originating in China, or only allow links originating in China to be bounced back to China (allowing the Chinese filtering to do the work).
Things might be better in countries that have no meaningful leverage. Like North Korea. But it's definitely not without risk for those who access Starlink...
I thought it was a very positive update on Starlink yesterday.
Successful deployment and testing of Starlink's first 60 satellites over the next few days should significantly increase Starlink's probability of building a viable business.
Key updates:
If this satellite deployment goes well, I expect Elon will be thinking the global satellite broadband race is also "Game, set and match".
Successful deployment and testing of Starlink's first 60 satellites over the next few days should significantly increase Starlink's probability of building a viable business.
Key updates:
- Recent Spacex funding rounds have been oversubscribed (disproving TSLAQ's SpaceXQ FUD). Elon thinks Spacex now has enough capital to get Starlink operational.
- Targeting 3-5% of the $1trn worldwide telecommunications revenue. So $30-50bn revenue.
- 60 satellites in first launch. 12 launches will cover the US. 24 will provide decent global coverage. Can begin selling services with c.400 satellites. Need c.1000 to be economically viable. Will continue to add satellites to meet demand.
- Falcons can potentially launch 1-2k per year.
- Targeting sub-20ms latency
- Each launch has "about a terabit of useful connectivity".
- Each Starlink costs more to launch than it does to make, even with the reused Falcon 9.
If this satellite deployment goes well, I expect Elon will be thinking the global satellite broadband race is also "Game, set and match".
Thanks for posting all that! Lots of great information. From a personal perspective, my favorite part is; “Just plug it in and it works! Woah. It will work on mobile devices like car or plane or boat.”
Would be fantastic to have for use with my travel trailer.
Looked at from a larger perspective, this is the best part: “They see this as a key stepping stone to establishing revenue for advanced rockets and a self sustaining city on Mars...internet connectivity revenue could be around $30 billion”.
That will pay for a lot of Starships.
My favorites.
There’s more solar power in those 60 satellites than on the entire ISS.
They’re going to rotate the 2nd stage to initiate the deploy sequence and we should be able to watch it. This is REALLY COOL to me!
A twitter user replied to everyday astronaut that he had already tried simulating this in KSP and put up a little video. Fascinating to watch if nothing else. At 1:45 deploy begins. He demonstrates 1 set of deployment without spin, things break. At 1:50 he begins rotation and deployment. Only thing I would guess is that SpaceX would orient the 2nd stage to be perpendicular to the surface of earth before beginning the rotation so the satellites all deploy at the same altitude.
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