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SpaceX Internet Satellite Network: Starlink

Discussion in 'SpaceX' started by Grendal, Nov 8, 2014.

  1. bxr140

    bxr140 Active Member

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    I appreciate the attempt to provide perspective. Unfortunately its hard to translate the...space...of Space to something that the average person can visualize. Something like velocity is difficult to comprehend (a LEO sat moves at ~7.5km/s, an aircraft might fly at 0.25km/s, a car might drive at .025km/s), and that folds into something like positional knowledge--including other debris--being not exactly an exact science. For instance, while the industry is completely different from the age of the Iridium-Kosmos collision and RMS knowledge values are massively more accurate, consider that those satellites were predicted to miss each other by like half a km. Even today, COLAs are performed to keep conjunction events to ~km's. So when one is trying to visualize how much "space" each satellite has, its not a tiny satellite that's zooming through that space amongst a bunch of other tiny satellites, its more like a bunch of km's wide planetoids.

    "Clutter" and collision avoidance are inexorably the same subject.


    By any metric, Starlink is cluttering up space. And to make sure I'm not giving the wrong impression, that's not to say its fundamentally a bad thing--as we established just upthread it is clearly the most affordable, timely, and technologically relevant service for underserved folks, and nobody will argue against the opportunity created by that kind of service. That's also not to say there will be a catastrophe--on both sides of the public domain fence SpaceX is honestly focused on being good stewards of space, so its not just potential bad PR or the motivation to not self-annihilate that drives their pursuit of excellence.

    What it means is that it does a disservice to downplay (or poorly reframe) potentially unfavorable elements simply because they are unfavorable.
     
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  2. banned-66611

    banned-66611 Guest

    Indeed. I find the most useful way of explaining it is in terms of probabilities, and in terms of environmental impact. Burning stuff does not make it disappear, it transforms it and disperses it into the atmosphere.
     
  3. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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  4. e-FTW

    e-FTW New electron smell

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  5. bxr140

    bxr140 Active Member

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    And I'm sure you also find it useful to ensure bigger picture context of global impact is not carpet-swept. As it were, the atmospheric fallout of re-entered Starlink mass cannot simply be framed by itself as A Bad Thing, as it is materially offset by both A) the global benefit to connecting the underserved and B) the significant [negative] environmental impact from any method of connecting the underserved.
     
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  6. bxr140

    bxr140 Active Member

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  7. bxr140

    bxr140 Active Member

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    Just to align, wood was used in satellites decades ago. T'aint nothing new under the sun.

    Generally, at the risk of stating the obvious, its biggest downside of wood is inconsistent material properties relative to alloys or [traditional space] composites.

    As noted in the Ars Technica article, the satellite mass fraction for all structural elements is pretty low--maybe 15-25%. There's still plenty of other mass that can't be wood. The structural mass also double-duty serves, to varying degrees, as radiation shielding for the important innards, thermal mass to manage duty cycle and diurnal loads, and a faraday cage to keep out all the charged up baddies...so its not like an all-else-equal (price, mass, performance) switch from an alloy to wood results in a useable design.

    To be clear, I'm not against any kind of material being used in space vehicles. If wood can find a place, that's awesome. But...it needs to check enough of the right boxes to make it justifiable.
     
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  8. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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  9. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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  10. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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    So, Reddit is obviously the place to stay up to date on Starlink news. I’m going to stop cross posting from there, and start living in Reddit for Starlink info. Cheers!

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/
     
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  11. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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  12. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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  13. DMC-Orangeville

    DMC-Orangeville 85D and John Deere 5100E

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  14. bxr140

    bxr140 Active Member

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    Its very common for megaconstellations to file for more satellites than they ever plan on launching. The reason is that its easier to scale back an ITU/FCC filing and not lose status. When amending for ''more", it is much more difficult to get blanket approval, and if one does get approved it can (depending on the ask) also relegate the filing in status.

    That ridiculous filing during bankruptcy was generally seen as a play to pump up value of oweweb. Filings and more importantly the frequency allocations (to a lesser degree, the constellation geometry) are like gold pressed latinum.
     
  15. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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    But surely the regulators didn't approve the 48,000 request?
     
  16. bxr140

    bxr140 Active Member

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    Honestly don't know. I'm more familiar with ITU. Generally "filing" implies acceptance, but news being news, its quite possible the message (s) haven't been sent with the fullest of precision....
     
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  17. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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  18. ItsNotAboutTheMoney

    ItsNotAboutTheMoney Well-Known Member

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  19. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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    I’m holding out for Elon to design space phasers.
     
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  20. Discoducky

    Discoducky Happy owner of a P100D X and a brand new 2021 M3!

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    Is there a beta thread? I've applied as I'm looking to buy a house that has no viable broadband. Wondering how long it might be or maybe it's a total mystery.
     

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