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SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

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Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#161
post #24

On my early morning walk I can see the satellites as very bright (much brighter than the stars) line across the sky. It's clear they didn't do enough about the reflectivity issue. Edit: Already downvoted for stating a fact. Amazing. Edit: Changed 'did nothing' to 'didn't do enough' Edit: Looks like experts still believe reflectivity is still a problem: https://physicsworld.com/a/dark-coated-starlink-satellites-a...

Are you a TSLAQ retard, because you seem to be complaining about Musk and Tesla in every thread?

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#162
post #4

I'm keen to see Starlink deals with government censorship requests. Can a country even effectively enforce their requests? How will China enforce the Great Firewall for instance?

How does this work for existing satellite internet providers?

I'm guessing there will be Starlink ground stations located in China that are subject to the same conditions as all the other local ISPs?

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why Elon’s in it with Starlink. From Elon’s perspective, if Starlink merely breaks even, it will be more than worth it as it has drastically increased launch demand, enabling high flight rate reusable rockets.

Not just increased launch demand, Starlink launches serve SpaceX as a testbed for reusability and refurbishment techniques they want to experiment on themselves without risking customer hardware. For example, they intentionally swap hardware components between reflown boosters to better understand their behavior after multiple reuses, to the point they have individual modules that have flown more times than the curre…

> It's unbelievable that "flight proven buster" turned out to be really what it says on the tin, and not just a piece of marketing speak.

That's a thing to love about SpaceX. When they first started using this phrase, it was tongue-in-cheek in a pretty obvious way. Three years later, it was no longer a joke.

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why Elon’s in it with Starlink. From Elon’s perspective, if Starlink merely breaks even, it will be more than worth it as it has drastically increased launch demand, enabling high flight rate reusable rockets.

Not just increased launch demand, Starlink launches serve SpaceX as a testbed for reusability and refurbishment techniques they want to experiment on themselves without risking customer hardware. For example, they intentionally swap hardware components between reflown boosters to better understand their behavior after multiple reuses, to the point they have individual modules that have flown more times than the curre…

It's "booster", not "buster".

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#166
post #13

Amazing times, when a private company can launch 3 flights in two weeks, not even counting the Starship tests :). It is faszinating to see, how quickly Starlink is progressing, we are on the brink of global satellite broadband internet. This could be a substantial change especially in all the countries without a wide broadband availability. It will be interesting to see whether SpaceX can generate enough revenue to b…

I'm more excited about the sustainable capability to put so much stuff in orbit than for Starlink itself! This feels like a step towards a mega-scale space industry.

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dishy will actually intentionally heat up to melt snow. I’ve seen YouTube videos of it melting a good amount of snow per hour and service remaining stable.

Dishy also seems to continually pull 100 watts even when not in melt mode.

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#169
post #14

am i the only person thinking that there should be laws to prevent rich individuals to increase the mass in LEO by a factor 10 in less than 10 years? i understand the enthusiasm but shouldn't these decisions let to the people, countries, for instance an intergouvernemental agency. also: is the dark coating working? without it those are quite visible, and make radio and optical astronomy much harder (especially large…

The dark coating isn’t used anymore, they have a visor/sunshade instead. The satellites people can see with the naked eye have not reached their service orbit yet, and they are not aligned to use the sunshade (they are instead configured to raise orbit as quickly as possible). As for the rules about polluting space, the simple fact is that none of the rules makers expected that some agency would want to launch thousa…

> If you want to add rules about the number of satellites in orbit, better get in quick before StarLink becomes too valuable to ban.

Question is, why would one want it? It's going to look like an equivalent of someone in XIX century capping the maximum amounts of widgets a factory can produce per year to a level that can be matched by artisan production, because all those conveyor belts and precision parts are making production too fast.

Assuming one likes the idea of humanity spreading out past Earth's surface, and perhaps taking the dirtiest aspects of civilization upwell - we're going to need a proper space-based economy. Mining, manufacturing and all. Starlink's impact on LEO is going to look like child's play in comparison. So if one wants to see space being developed, then one has to accept and embrace that Earth's orbit is going to get way more cluttered than it is.

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