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SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

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Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#51

Post by idlewords »

panick21_ wrote: post #9
nbltanx wrote: post #7

Starlink plans to deploy 12,000 - 42,000 satellites. What if two competitors want to do the same? Can the low earth orbit handle 150,000 satellites that turn into space debris at some point?

The waste, waste majority of sats never turn into space debris. Every single sat that launches today in the West has a deorbit planned. The only sat that turn into space debris will be those that brake unexpectitly and totally unrecoverable. And the Starlink sats are so low that they dont really turn very meaningful debris ever. And in general, yes LEO can handle millions of sats. We have like 150k cars in a single t…

Except that all distinct orbits at the same altitude eventually collide.

Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#52

Post by saagarjha »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #35
arbuge wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One famous example occured on August 25, 2017, when a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Taiwan’s FORMOSAT-5 satellite created a hole four times bigger than the state of California. Doesn't sound too local to me.

Good point. Deserves some numbers. California's area is about 500 thousand km^2, and the Earth's is about 500 million, which means the side facing the Sun is about 250 million, so we're talking about 0.2% of the area facing the sun. Suppose the hole takes six hours to heal (the article makes it sound like it takes much less), and suppose there's a launch every month (since launches have in the past carried 600 satell…

Right, but presumably the effects are greater for the people in California?

Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#53

Post by dfox »

tamimio wrote: post #42
jrockway wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a dual frequency receiver (L1/L2), then the ionospheric error is corrected for. These are very common these days, so probably not the reason.

We had similar anomalies with tri-bands gnss drone before (L1, L2, and L5) with multi constellations support, I even remember before we had similar issues with an RTK enabled system. It is puzzling because the next day we would bring the sane drone and systems, and as of nothing happened, and since the problem solve itself we never bothered to investigate more.

That seems like ground based interference. Today a lot of stuff, including components of the drone itself, can be unintentional L-band radiators.

Getting what is probably the cheapest tier of spectrum analyzer and investigating that behavior seems somewhat prudent.

Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#54

Post by jcims »

panick21_ wrote: post #40
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Starlink sats are so low that they dont really turn very meaningful debris ever. Is that right? Scientific American seemed to think it could be a problem in 2019[1]. Space.com says Starlink satellites orbit at an altitude of about 342 miles (550 kilometers)[2]. And the Wikipedia article on Kessler Syndrome[3] (which is a chain reaction of satellite debris) mentions an incident at 555km that was problematic: "In…

The decay where the waste majority of it is gone in 10 years is just not long enough to meaningfully have a Kessler syndrom. The reality humanity wouldn't even have the launch capacity to put enough into orbit in that time period for it to matter. The real concern for meaningful space debris issues is in the regions where decay requires 100+ of years. The articles mentions the ASAT because that's what they used to st…

just because I appreciate it when people do it for me

waste -> vast

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vast

Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#55

Post by pseg134 »

esquivalience wrote: post #5

Seems like this isn't considered to be a big issue, beyond that it is a very visible thing that instinctively 'feels' like a bad idea. > Rocket engines spray water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the ionosphere, quenching local ionization by as much as 70%. A complicated series of charge exchange reactions between oxygen ions (O+) and molecules from the rocket exhaust produce photons at a wavelength of 6300 Å–the…

It may not seem like a big issue but it speaks to the attitude of billionaires. I am no longer free to vent personal amounts of coolant from a refrigerator but Elon Musk can punch all of the holes he wants with his expensive rockets.

Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#56

Post by onethought »

saagarjha wrote: post #52
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Deserves some numbers. California's area is about 500 thousand km^2, and the Earth's is about 500 million, which means the side facing the Sun is about 250 million, so we're talking about 0.2% of the area facing the sun. Suppose the hole takes six hours to heal (the article makes it sound like it takes much less), and suppose there's a launch every month (since launches have in the past carried 600 satell…

Right, but presumably the effects are greater for the people in California?

Because the hole was similar sized to their state?

I guess so, they will have to deal with increased fame and awareness of the size of their state.

People in Oregon on the other hand will continue to be snubbed.

Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#57

Post by ddq »

pseg134 wrote: post #55
esquivalience wrote: post #5

Seems like this isn't considered to be a big issue, beyond that it is a very visible thing that instinctively 'feels' like a bad idea. > Rocket engines spray water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the ionosphere, quenching local ionization by as much as 70%. A complicated series of charge exchange reactions between oxygen ions (O+) and molecules from the rocket exhaust produce photons at a wavelength of 6300 Å–the…

It may not seem like a big issue but it speaks to the attitude of billionaires. I am no longer free to vent personal amounts of coolant from a refrigerator but Elon Musk can punch all of the holes he wants with his expensive rockets.

They stole the commons from us and hold it ransom.

Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#58

Post by dylan604 »

saagarjha wrote: post #52
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Deserves some numbers. California's area is about 500 thousand km^2, and the Earth's is about 500 million, which means the side facing the Sun is about 250 million, so we're talking about 0.2% of the area facing the sun. Suppose the hole takes six hours to heal (the article makes it sound like it takes much less), and suppose there's a launch every month (since launches have in the past carried 600 satell…

Right, but presumably the effects are greater for the people in California?

We'll start seeing placards attached that says it's known to cause

Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#59

Post by [deleted] »

idlewords wrote: post #51
panick21_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The waste, waste majority of sats never turn into space debris. Every single sat that launches today in the West has a deorbit planned. The only sat that turn into space debris will be those that brake unexpectitly and totally unrecoverable. And the Starlink sats are so low that they dont really turn very meaningful debris ever. And in general, yes LEO can handle millions of sats. We have like 150k cars in a single t…

Except that all distinct orbits at the same altitude eventually collide.

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere

#60

Post by dylan604 »

pseg134 wrote: post #55
esquivalience wrote: post #5

Seems like this isn't considered to be a big issue, beyond that it is a very visible thing that instinctively 'feels' like a bad idea. > Rocket engines spray water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the ionosphere, quenching local ionization by as much as 70%. A complicated series of charge exchange reactions between oxygen ions (O+) and molecules from the rocket exhaust produce photons at a wavelength of 6300 Å–the…

It may not seem like a big issue but it speaks to the attitude of billionaires. I am no longer free to vent personal amounts of coolant from a refrigerator but Elon Musk can punch all of the holes he wants with his expensive rockets.

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