Buckminster
Well-Known Member
SpaceX says more Starlink orbits will speed service, reduce launch needs - SpaceNews.com
Sounds like a good plan - more rings.
Sounds like a good plan - more rings.
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Answer to a question I'd had:
I wonder if that is due to second stage manuvering, of by utilizing precession.
There's a minimum number of units per plane to ensure desired coverage. Its probably less than 22, but more than 16 (which, with 66 units/launch, would allow one launcher to launch 4 planes at once). Or it could be 22, which is why they're talking about 66 instead of 60...who knows?
Interestingly, I actually had a related conversation recently regarding precession--if one were to launch above ISS (say, 450km) and were to desire a final altitude ~200km higher, we WAGed that precession to offset planes would be on the order of weeks. Note that it also works in 'reverse', which is especially helpful with lower altitudes. You could launch into a [counterintuitively] higher than final altitude, then your precession actually gets help from drag.
The general concept also works really well for parking/spares, where you don't know what plane/phasing your spare will need to fit into, AND...it also works for active removal of dead sats, if you have a tow-truck sat waiting to pull dead ones out of prime orbital slots and send them into a more desired re-entry orbit
24 launches next year! That needs an extra !
SpaceX plans 24 Starlink launches next year - SpaceNews.com
SpaceX plans 24 Starlink launches next year - SpaceNews.com
adiggs
Well-Known Member
Even 12 launches would be a pretty big step forward by any standard otherwise currently available. Though that'd still leave the constellation short of the 1100 they mentioned in the article for economic viability. So I think part of what's going on here is to get those 1100 up with as short of a window between start and finish of those launches.
That makes that 17 number you picked an important milestone - my math says that's in that 1000 to 1100 range, and that tells me there will be an internal push to get there ASAP.
launch, land, load (satellites), repeat
I guess my vote in the office pool is 18. I think you're right that they'll miss a bunch of launches, but the economic pressure to get them up will keep them focused and motivated to not let launches slip any more than necessary - every launch will go up with the knowledge that there's a conga-line behind it.
That sounds like 36-48 launches total next year. The range related overhead is going to have to get a lot, lot lower and faster.
Perhaps straying from the topic a bit, I don't see them breaking 40. I think mid 30s is about the practical limit, with high 20s to low 30s being the likely final tally...assuming no launcher anomalies. As you note range overhead is bound to...umm...bound the launch rate at some point and, to beat the horse I always beat, payload availability will be the main factor in total launches.
Just looking over the manifest on wiki, there's ~16 non-Starlink/rideshare missions. Certainly some of the remaining '19 launches will slip but more of the scheduled '20 launches are going to slip into '21 than what will slip from '19 to '20. I'm going to call 13 non-Starlink/rideshare missions and 1 dedicated ride share mission in 2020, so including my 17 SWAG from above that's 31 total launches in 2020.
e-FTW
New electron smell
Wow, that pretty much guarantees that at least one booster hits 10 launches in 2020 if all goes well.
At a minimum, this will be a boon to their reusability knowledge (what wears out).
Can’t wait to try and spot Starlink sat train passes!
At a minimum, this will be a boon to their reusability knowledge (what wears out).
Can’t wait to try and spot Starlink sat train passes!
Buckminster
Well-Known Member
e-FTW
New electron smell
ars said:
Is your ISP saying things like that?
The promoted comment at the bottom sums up my thoughts:
e-FTW
New electron smell
Many LEO missions—especially when there’s only one satellite serving the mission—don’t have propulsion. Propulsion adds expense, complication, and mass.
And, pretty much any cubesat to date is without propulsion.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
Are you counting Spaceship / Booster launches as 1 by quantity or as some multiplier to cover the amount of F9 equivalents they get launched?
After watching the Spaceship announcement / Q & A tonight it seems like they'll have multiple launches to orbit next year with a need to do several to prove the system before they can put people on it and they want to put people on it next summer. So it seems to me that a perfect proof of ability mission would be to deploy starlink sats from spaceship for the required number of flights before everybody and their brother is willing to cry uncle and say OK you can put people on those.
Great idea! They can use the 3 engine bay storage areas for dispensing and thus not need to change the habitable area at all.
At this point the Starship Mk1 is many months away from its first orbital flight. And it’s just the first prototype. It seems far too risky to me to use it next year to put Starlink sats into orbit. And Mk1 lacks the movable nose cone piece (we need a name for that) needed to eject the payload once in orbit.
Then SpaceX has to spend resources designing those areas for dispensing satellites instead of what their actual planned use will be, which I assume is cargo that will be used on Mars and unloaded on Mars.
Pretty sure Elon said last night that Mark 1 will only be used for the 20km test. It’ll be mark 3 at the earliest that goes to orbit, might even be mark 5. They are learning as they go. For instance, mark 1 is built via welded steel plates (which is why it isn’t smooth). Mark 3(?) will be built using the steel coils directly from the factory. This will increase manufacturing speed and reduce weight.
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