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Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

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Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#261

Post by mlindner »

lostlogin wrote: post #229
mlindner wrote: post #225

The title misrepresents things (people are posting this everywhere with this wrong title). The satellites were not lost to the geomagnetic storm. They were lost to the atmosphere expanding from the geomagnetic storm. The title implies some kind of electronic damage from the geomagnetic storm when in fact there has been none.

When my garage flooded during a storm, can I blame the storm?

> When my garage flooded during a storm, can I blame the storm?

Not a very good analogy. It's more like trying lay the blame for killing a piece of electronics on lightning that hit a mile from your house when in fact it was flooded by the rain.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#262

Post by asdff »

Symmetry wrote: post #65
KennyBlanken wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An entire launch worth of satellites is not a "rounding error." The carbon impact of just one launch is pretty obscene.

A Falcon 9 caries just a bit more fuel than a fully loaded 777. Which is big, to be sure, but still a drop in the bucket just in terms of transportation.

The falcon 9 first stage has been tested to be reused 11 times so far. A boeing airframe on the other hand lasts 30 years. There is therefore the cost of bringing these rare earth materials found perhaps around the world together in one place to launch a finished falcon 9 rocket, independent of any fuel considerations, that should also be thought about.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#263

Post by mlindner »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #253
mlindner wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The negative press is rather interesting and I'm always wondering where it's coming from. Why generate so much negative press.

Any time Musk comes up on twitter people are quick to hate him. He is a polarizing figure and while there are reasons to criticize him, there are also a lot of people who will happily misinterpret anything so they can perceive him as failing. So any negative story about Musk, correct or not, is emotionally satisfying to those people. Basically the stories come out because the crowd eats them up.

Which is sad because if you were to limit choices to picking individual people on the planet, I think Musk may be doing more to fix real existential problems in the world more than anyone else alive today. People are jealous creatures and like to hate on successful people.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#265

Post by markonen »

mlindner wrote: post #255
lmm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The carbon impact of just one launch is pretty obscene. It really isn't. It's what, 15 aeroplane flights' worth? For the sake of bringing internet to hundreds of thousands of people? By letting people shop online or stream entertainment they've probably paid for themselves in reduced car journeys already.

> It's what, 15 aeroplane flights' worth? Try a single aeroplane?

For just the fuel, yeah, but the expendable second stage adds a lot of impact.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#266

Post by z3t4 »

root_axis wrote: post #69
oxplot wrote: post #20

40 sats makes up about 2% of the current fleet - so a rounding error in cost and time. The important part of this news is how those 40 sats deorbit and leave no junk either in orbit or on earth.

I guess I'm being pedantic, but as a percentage of a whole, isn't 2% not a rounding error by definition?

With the same logic you could say that covid was a rounding error. Human lives are more valuable then satellites though

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#267

Post by mlindner »

joering2 wrote: post #110

I recently started researching into Starlink as my next (cheap) internet solution and stumbled upon these 2 videos below. The worst part for me is that once this becomes more popular the bandwidth will die down to crumble. I don't buy they will be able to upkeep with bandwidth sharing it from satellite to satellite using a.. laser beam (is that even possible to sync 2 satellites and send signal thru laser beam that h…

Thunderf00t and Common Sense Skeptic make up data and/or selectively pick facts to support their predisposed opinions of hating anything Musk related. So you should discard anything you heard in those videos and find better more direct sources.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#268

Post by mlindner »

KiwiJohnno wrote: post #163
joering2 wrote: post #110

I recently started researching into Starlink as my next (cheap) internet solution and stumbled upon these 2 videos below. The worst part for me is that once this becomes more popular the bandwidth will die down to crumble. I don't buy they will be able to upkeep with bandwidth sharing it from satellite to satellite using a.. laser beam (is that even possible to sync 2 satellites and send signal thru laser beam that h…

I don't know anything about Common Sense Skeptic but Thunderf00t has a well known hate of Elon musk and tries to trash pretty much everything he does. I watched a bit of the Common Sense Skeptic video and heard several completely incorrect claims in the first couple of minutes. It not even remotely close to an impartial look at starlink. Just for a start, they can't use the list cost for falcon 9 launches as the inte…

> Common Sense Skeptic

He is the same as Thunderf00t in video content. Exactly the same type of video alarmism and selectively picking outdated data or extrapolation assuming no progress/changes.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#269

Post by Aloha »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #144
lmm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The carbon impact of just one launch is pretty obscene. It really isn't. It's what, 15 aeroplane flights' worth? For the sake of bringing internet to hundreds of thousands of people? By letting people shop online or stream entertainment they've probably paid for themselves in reduced car journeys already.

You're citing the cost of 1% of the network against the entire network's function. It's more like 750 "flights worth." To provide internet service to ~250,000 people - about one quarter the population of a major east coast city. Also, these are consumable - much more so than cable plants. Starlink is horrifically bad for the environment compared to ground-based infrastructure. As witnessed by the very high cost of St…

I'm not convinced that starlink is cheaper or better for than ground based cellular infrastructure - its closest technical analog.

It does however possess two chief advantages - the appearance of being novel and speed of construction. To build a cellular network to cover the areas that starlink does would take a decade - where it can be done at all. The aforementioned novel appearance also gets it largely free spectrum, which I believe starlink didn't have to go thru auction for.

To be clear - it's not novel, it's more or less a cellular network where the cell sites move about instead of the subscriber - which is something iridium did. I'm still not sure it can make money however.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#270

Post by giomasce »

colordrops wrote: post #198
KennyBlanken wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're citing the cost of 1% of the network against the entire network's function. It's more like 750 "flights worth." To provide internet service to ~250,000 people - about one quarter the population of a major east coast city. Also, these are consumable - much more so than cable plants. Starlink is horrifically bad for the environment compared to ground-based infrastructure. As witnessed by the very high cost of St…

Individual consumers aren't the only customers of Starlink. It also will bring high-bandwidth low-latency connectivity to the entire globe once enough laser-linked satellites are up. Industry and militaries will be using it. Whether this is a net positive for the environment or otherwise remains to be seen. Also, the point of Starlink is to fund SpaceX's goal of a methane rocket. Methane was chosen because it can be…

If you can extract methane from the atmosphere at scale you don't need rockets to solve the carbon problem.
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