441–450 of 508 posts
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> 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?
That's quite funny but it's clearly wasted here.
> SpaceX deploys its satellites into these lower obits Unintentional pun on "orbits", perhaps? It's incredible to me that launching satellites is so easy now that a failure of 40 satellites can be tolerated. On the bright side, I guess this gave SpaceX a chance to talk about their debris-limiting strategy!
Any loss of a mass production sat can be tolerated. Or at least tolerated better than the loss of a bespoke one off sat. So the loss of a batch of starlink or GPS or glonass is not a tragedy like the loss of Webb would have been.
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... We have been launching satellites for a long, long time. The process is very well understood, scientifically. Also, your prior should not be that just because you personally haven't heard of something, it must be a new discovery. In fact, in this case it appears to be literally the second bullet point on the first page I could find talking about the risks of geomagnetic storms: https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-are-…
your prior should not be that just because you personally haven't heard of something, it must be a new discovery Sorry I asked. I'll try to be less interested in science in the future.
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Given Musk's email about SpaceX being close to bankruptcy, how will this affect them financially? Can SpaceX survive without a bailout? What would a bailout look like, another Solarcity? https://spaceexplored.com/2021/11/29/spacex-raptor-crisis/ "Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it had seemed a few weeks ago. As we have dug into the issues following the exiting of prior senior management…
Then don't balls to the wall spool up terminal production, bump out your timescale, and shift your strategy to doing more launches, and hope there is enough interest to weather things. Frankly, I have issues with someone who defied every forseeable risk inherent in operating an LEO satcom network. There is a reason most long term comm infra tends to go to GEO... Replacing stuff in LEO because the atmo ate it is expen…
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The storm warmed the atmosphere which caused it to expand, leading to additional drag Was this an expected condition, or a new discovery? I only have a layman's understanding of space, but like the idea that we (as a species) just learned something new.
... We have been launching satellites for a long, long time. The process is very well understood, scientifically. Also, your prior should not be that just because you personally haven't heard of something, it must be a new discovery. In fact, in this case it appears to be literally the second bullet point on the first page I could find talking about the risks of geomagnetic storms: https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-are-…
Seems like a great way to test the resilience of Starlink launches during a predicted geomagnetic storm. And great PR considering how much negative press they’ve been getting over space junk. https://www.google.com/search?q=starlink+space+junk&rlz=1CDG...
I'm very confused about this comment - how is losing 40 operational satellites a "great way to test the resilience of Starlink launches during a predicted geomagnetic storm"? And what part of this is "great PR"?
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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…
> I think it's a bit more complex than that. Because we can always go one level deeper... When I ask people why they dislike Musk, the answer I get is usually not for some bleak, reasoned belief but because of his internet persona. He makes shitty, immature jokes. People think he's a bit of a dick. Interestingly, engineers I know tend to be a bit more positive on him. I wonder if it's because they're exposed to more…
People, however, don't care about nuance.
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.)
StarLink is trying to reduce ping by flying thousands of satellites at low orbit. The problem? No matter what you do, the ping will be worse, and cost more money, than broadband.
The developing world will never be able to pay for StarLink at a price high enough to replace thousands of satellites every 5 years. SpaceX will depend on users from rich countries to pay exorbitant fees, and users in those countries already have access to cheaper, faster broadband.
So, it may be that StarLink will go the way of SolarCity and need to be bailed out by another Musk company.
What's crazy to me is that 50 years ago, losing 40 satellites would have been a significant portion of all satellites ever launched . Today, it's a temporary setback for a company that launched nearly one thousand satellites last year.
What's kind of crazy is the expected lifespan of an individual satellite in the 'full' 12k constellation is supposed to be 5 years so 6-7 satellites a day will reenter or just go offline and need to be replaced. Unless that 12000 number includes some in longer parking orbits they bring down into the ELEO service orbit that's a dedicated Starlink launch about once every week.
People in the developing world are not going to pay a high enough price to float this business. The vast majority of people in rich countries have cheaper and better internet already installed.