SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

#131

Post by valuearb » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:33 AM UTC

stetrain wrote: post #13

KoftaBob wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the entire thing is reusable!

Except the Falcon 9 second stage is not reusable. Shuttle had an advantage since the orbiter was both first and second stages. The orange fuel tank was lost on each mission, and the solid rocket boosters were recovered and refurbished after a swim in the ocean. So by some measures the Shuttle system was very reusable, but the complexities of the system resulted in high costs to tear down, inspect, and refurbish betwe…

SRBs weren’t reused; some of their parts were. Hitting the ocean at 200 MPH and floating in corrosive saltwater damaged them pretty significantly.

It would have been cheaper to build new ones.

Re: SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

#132

Post by valuearb » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:36 AM UTC

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #21

SEJeff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The shuttle boosters were expended every single launch. The Falcon 9 booster comes back and lands. Ironically, the Falcon 9 second stage is expended every single launch, but that will not be the case with Super Heavy / Starship that is in development.

No they were not. Only the external tank was expended. The SRBs were refurbished and the orbiter was reused/refurbished.

Nope, only some parts of SRBs were reused to make new SRBs. That 200 MPH collision and saltwater damaged them too much.

Re: SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

#133

Post by power78 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

erwinh wrote: post #30

See the full constellation in development here https://space-search.io/?search=starlink This latest launch should be in the dataset soon!

Wow, fascinating website. When you are selecting Atlas or Falcon, are those the orbits of the leftover second stages? If so, why are some of their orbits so large? Were they placing a satellite that far out?

Re: SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

#134

Post by stetrain » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #131

stetrain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the Falcon 9 second stage is not reusable. Shuttle had an advantage since the orbiter was both first and second stages. The orange fuel tank was lost on each mission, and the solid rocket boosters were recovered and refurbished after a swim in the ocean. So by some measures the Shuttle system was very reusable, but the complexities of the system resulted in high costs to tear down, inspect, and refurbish betwe…

SRBs weren’t reused; some of their parts were. Hitting the ocean at 200 MPH and floating in corrosive saltwater damaged them pretty significantly. It would have been cheaper to build new ones.

The number I can find is 76 feet per second, or about 50mph. They had parachutes.

My understanding is that refurbishment meant basically stripping them for parts and using them to build new boosters, but still a significant amount of percentage re-use of parts.

It just highlights how important the amount of type of required refurbishment is to making re-usability actually practical. Falcon 9 is noteworthy because it's relatively inexpensive up-front compared to traditional boosters, relatively simple in design and part count (compared to STS) and relatively quick and inexpensive to re-use.

Re: SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

#135

Post by walrus01 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 11:56 PM UTC

xenospn wrote: post #121

walrus01 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't look hard enough - for example big chunks of rural Okanogan county are covered by WISP services from a company called NCI. Same in many other areas.

Might not have been in my price range/area. I'll look again!

Let me know if you want to look for WISPs in any particular county or area. I know where most of them are in rural eastern OR and WA.

Re: SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

#136

Post by elif » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 10:34 PM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #120

elif wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will work from anywhere after about 90 more launches and thousands of ground relays being installed, and the antenna is the size of a watermelon. So "anywhere" would be limited to vanlife on up, in a place that doesn't have trees, in the markets initially served, which will likely be rural US. But starlink v2? I'll be on a cute Panamanian island :)

> in a place that doesn't have trees What problems do trees cause for starlink?

I don't know anything specific a out starlink, but I have hundreds of days of experience trying to hit iridium sattelites while hiking in the wild. You need direct line-of-sight to sky.