11–20 of 57 posts
"The number beats the previous record of 104 satellites carried aloft by an Indian vehicle in 2017" Does this vehicle not have a name? Or is the reporter too lazy to look it up? BBC never fails when it comes to its Anti-India stance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know these cubesats don't stay up for long in LEO, but at what point does it become too many cubesats?
How can we spin this as a bad thing, right?
Are satellites the size of books required to have a method of self de-orbiting? Or are they in orbits that have limited lifespans?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So one current generation Starlink satellite is estimated to weight about 260. One one unit cubesat weighs 1 kg. So discounting small details like deployment mechanisms and volume: 260 x 240 = 62400 cubesats for one Starship launch by weight.
I know these cubesats don't stay up for long in LEO, but at what point does it become too many cubesats?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So one current generation Starlink satellite is estimated to weight about 260. One one unit cubesat weighs 1 kg. So discounting small details like deployment mechanisms and volume: 260 x 240 = 62400 cubesats for one Starship launch by weight.
I know these cubesats don't stay up for long in LEO, but at what point does it become too many cubesats?
"The number beats the previous record of 104 satellites carried aloft by an Indian vehicle in 2017" Does this vehicle not have a name? Or is the reporter too lazy to look it up? BBC never fails when it comes to its Anti-India stance.
Nationalistic flamewar is particularly not where we want to go here.
"The number beats the previous record of 104 satellites carried aloft by an Indian vehicle in 2017" Does this vehicle not have a name? Or is the reporter too lazy to look it up? BBC never fails when it comes to its Anti-India stance.
Not sure why you’re offended, but on the world stage, India is largely a joke.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So one current generation Starlink satellite is estimated to weight about 260. One one unit cubesat weighs 1 kg. So discounting small details like deployment mechanisms and volume: 260 x 240 = 62400 cubesats for one Starship launch by weight.
I know these cubesats don't stay up for long in LEO, but at what point does it become too many cubesats?
Are satellites the size of books required to have a method of self de-orbiting? Or are they in orbits that have limited lifespans?
As a requirement for getting regulatory approval to launch your satellite, I think you have to submit a debris management plan, which can include raising a geostationary satellite to a graveyard orbit after EOL (GEO is really far from earth, it would take a lot of fuel to de-orbit them), or lower a low-earth orbit to an altitude at which it would decay in a few weeks or years.
Generally, I think these small satellites are quite cheap both to launch and manufacture, do not have a great lifespan, and certainly not have lots of fuel. So they are most likely intended for LEO, and a low one with that, where atmospheric drag is small, but could bring a satellite down in a few (~5-7) years. Hopefully smaller than the rate at which the operator renews them.
Picking LEO has many benefits: lower latency, higher bandwidth, smaller antennas, higher resolution for pictures, with a few drawbacks: more earth shadow, faster ground velocity, smaller coverage for earth sensors.
More stuff: the first Starlink satellites for polar orbits also launched on this flight. As I understand these were the first ones to have inter-satellite laser links too.
(I can’t imagine what an improvement cheap and high bandwidth satellite Internet must be for stations in Antarctica.)