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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

#301

Post by mlindner »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #292
mlindner wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrometeorite#Introduction > An estimated 40,000 ± 20,000 tonnes per year (t/yr) of cosmic dust enters the upper atmosphere each year of which less than 10% (2700 ± 1400 t/yr) is estimated to reach the surface as particles.

The thread is about CO2 emissions. The entire total carbon emissions of producing and flying the second stage is non-trivial.

> The thread is about CO2 emissions.

I agree, but the post I was responding wasn't talking about CO2 emissions.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#302

Post by mlindner »

erulabs wrote: post #285
mlindner wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's a bit more complex than that. If you genuinely believe that society is a zero-sum-game, where any winner comes at the expense of some loser somewhere, then ultra-successful people must make you sick. You can hear a few whispers like "Tesla factories aren't the safest places to work at" or "An Amazon worker had to pee in a bottle" and it all lines up: these are horrible people who only got ahead because t…

> If you genuinely believe that society is a zero-sum-game, where any winner comes at the expense of some loser somewhere, then ultra-successful people must make you sick.

Which is an unfortunate myth that needs to be better educated out of people.

And thank you for the rest of your post. It puts into words thoughts I've had for a while in a constructed form better than I have done.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#303

Post by Dylan16807 »

laumars wrote: post #289
modeless wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the very high cost of Starlink service It's $99/mo for 100+ megabit service. Sure, it's moderately expensive if you're comparing to cable service in cities . It's downright cheap compared to the cost of connecting the extremely rural customers Starlink targets with physical cables. You don't think running a new set of physical cables to every rural residence in the world (or even cell towers to cover the same) woul…

Plus $500 sign up fee ;) This might all seem reasonable in rural America but it’s hugely expensive for internet in Europe.

> Plus $500 sign up fee ;)

That's going to average out to less than $10 a month pretty quickly.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#304

Post by Rebelgecko »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #170
Shank wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Try not to assume the worst, especially when it's pretty silly. I'm just asking questions -- I would be genuinely curious if SpaceX has a system for determining and evaluating risk when it comes to a situation like this. It does seem absurd that they wouldn't review the active warnings prior to launches. What is indisputable here is that they've announced the loss of 40 satellites during an active warning. I think…

I wonder if there was additional unannounced payload. SpaceX frequently seems to launch spy satellites. It may be that other cargo timing took a higher priority… Also curious if atmospheric warming is a predictable side effect of one of these storms or if we’re just learning about it.

Space weather is much-studied but not always predictable (although I think particular situation wasn't too surprising).

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#305

Post by skywal_l »

coffeeblack wrote: post #291
yzydserd wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It must be noted that the satellites were not directly damaged by the geomagnetic storm. The storm warmed the atmosphere which caused it to expand, leading to additional drag that prohibited the satellites from leaving their low "safe mode" orbit. So they perished “with” geomagnetic storm, not “of” geomagnetic storm?

The storm was the only cause, so it is in fact “of”.

The storm is a single event in a chain of events that caused the satellites to fail.

It's not the direct nor the first cause.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#306

Post by rklaehn »

samwillis wrote: post #295

I wander if Starlink launches are more susceptible to this than a normal launch with a single satellite? With there being a higher ratio of launched objects surface area to kinetic energy, I would assume they experience a higher effect of drag. It’s a bit like the difference between a shot gun and a rifle, both release a similar amount of energy but the shotgun shot has a much higher surface area and experiences more…

Yes.

SpaceX intentionally launches the sats into an extremely low orbit. That way, sats that can not be controlled due to a manufacturing defect or whatever will immediately reenter, and pose no threat to other spacecraft.

Normal satellites are directly launched into much higher orbits, so if there is an issue they will be space debris for decades.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#307

Post by usrusr »

vmception wrote: post #87
root_axis wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

it’s a fraction …. as long as we are using whole numbers

Those satellites are small but not infinitesimally small. So yeah, I'd say them going down in whole number units is a safe bet.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#308

Post by Rebelgecko »

Diesel555 wrote: post #207
hyperhopper wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like you ask this poster to assume the best of the company, I think you should assume the best of the poster. In my opinion it's pretty clear the jist of his message is "how did this happen when there was a freely available warning"

"Be Curious, Not Judgmental" - Ted Lasso, and (not?) Walt Whitman. To ask why "Does SpaceX not review the data / warnings before launch?" instead of asking "why did Space-X choose to launch when there was a warning" are two drastically different questions. The first has an assumption that checking for the warning is the problem while the second does not make an assumption of the problem. I think it's a pretty poor as…

I would be astounded if SpaceX asks NOAA's advice for how to position/maneuver satellites.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#309

Post by rklaehn »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #81

I have a genuine question, are we handing SpaceX a monopoly by allowing them to launch these satellites, or will competing companies be able to launch similar services? Will space be too cluttered for competition? (I'm guessing space is really big and that we can have _a lot_ of small satellites up there.)

There is plenty of room for active satellites, if we manage to clean up defunct satellites and space debris some time in the next decade. The more constrained resource is frequency spectrum.

I think SpaceX might run into trouble if they would refuse to launch sats from a competitor, given their dominant position in space launch. But they would happily launch sats for e.g. Project Kuiper by Amazon/Bezos or OneWeb.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#310

Post by i_like_waiting »

modeless wrote: post #257
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…

> the very high cost of Starlink service It's $99/mo for 100+ megabit service. Sure, it's moderately expensive if you're comparing to cable service in cities . It's downright cheap compared to the cost of connecting the extremely rural customers Starlink targets with physical cables. You don't think running a new set of physical cables to every rural residence in the world (or even cell towers to cover the same) woul…

It's crazy how many options it opens. With combination of remote work, many areas that were effectively shielded off from digital nomads, now have a chance to attract those tourists. I remember as well rejecting lots of vacation places because of terrible internet. Poor local people stayed poor and I spent my money in popular tourist destinations that already had high internet speeds. Overall its one of the factors that can transform the society and possibly partially break down the big cities.
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