Speaking of Starlink, what piqued my interest is that Huawei Mate 60 incorporated satellite call module without being bulky. It is not yet able to do data transfer but in case they can, isnt that practically a portable starlink equivalent?
Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
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Re: Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
#22Lost 200 but launched 345, almost all of which are the latest upgraded version. The satellites are designed to last 5 years (the lifetime is limited by propellant because of atmospheric drag at their low altitude) and the first batches were launched 4 years ago now. As the constellation matures they will be de-orbiting satellites about as fast as they launch them. Seems to me like the long term viability of Starlink…
How many satellites can be launched at once? I assume that the number of satellites per orbit will be limited and changing the orbit would take extra fuel that either the launch vehicle or the satellite has to provide.
Re: Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
#23Lost 200 but launched 345, almost all of which are the latest upgraded version. The satellites are designed to last 5 years (the lifetime is limited by propellant because of atmospheric drag at their low altitude) and the first batches were launched 4 years ago now. As the constellation matures they will be de-orbiting satellites about as fast as they launch them. Seems to me like the long term viability of Starlink…
Launch way more, and I'd imagine the sweet spot for the amount of fuel each satellite gets to shift up considerably: with a launch the size of starship they can saturate the orbits reasonably reachable from that launch for decades (spares remain in higher orbits with less drag I think) and giving one satellite more fuel is cheaper than deploying two satellites with less fuel each. And achieve far more than twice the runtime, because the fuel complement in today's starlinklings is certainly quite far from 100% mass fraction. The current compromise is far quick global reach running on F9, with a generous dose of iteration.
Re: Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's reason to be skeptical of that. I think their most recent profitable quarter (maybe their only profitable quarter?) was with a profit margin of ~3%. Granted maybe there's some marginal benefits, eg launching n+1 rockets is cheaper per rocket than launching n rockets
SpaceX puts a lot money into research and development, and build out of infrastructure for future use. So if the company is breaking even, then its manufacturing & launch business must have good margins. Which means, self launched rockets cost SpaceX noticeably less than their commercial pricing.
SpaceX posted a Q1 2023 profit of $55 million on $1.5 billion in revenue
And the spend about $2 billion on Starship per year.
So $6 billion in, $2 billion on Starship, $4 billion in other costs.
In 2022 they launched 61 times, which is $65 million per launch on average, they charge $67 million per launch.
They got $2 billion from NASA for 2022.
In 2022 they launched 3 crewed missions, 2 for NASA and 1 private.
Re: Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you read the article you can answer both of your questions. The Sun has no intentions, and solar flares don't choose cohorts of satellites.
How do solar flares burn satellites? I thought they just mess up the ionosphere and inhibit communication.
Solar radiation pressure is a non-negligible perturbation to an orbit, especially during solar weather events.
Re: Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
#26So we have reached that stage of Universal Paperclips
Be careful googling this if you have a weak resistance to incremental games like I do as some hours will fly by quicky...
Re: Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
#27Lost 200 but launched 345, almost all of which are the latest upgraded version. The satellites are designed to last 5 years (the lifetime is limited by propellant because of atmospheric drag at their low altitude) and the first batches were launched 4 years ago now. As the constellation matures they will be de-orbiting satellites about as fast as they launch them. Seems to me like the long term viability of Starlink…
Launch way more, and I'd imagine the sweet spot for the amount of fuel each satellite gets to shift up considerably: with a launch the size of starship they can saturate the orbits reasonably reachable from that launch for decades (spares remain in higher orbits with less drag I think) and giving one satellite more fuel is cheaper than deploying two satellites with less fuel each. And achieve far more than twice the…
Until all those sats re-enter, burn up and pollute the upper atmosphere
Re: Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
#28Speaking of Starlink, what piqued my interest is that Huawei Mate 60 incorporated satellite call module without being bulky. It is not yet able to do data transfer but in case they can, isnt that practically a portable starlink equivalent?
More like Iridium
Re: Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
#29Re: Starlink quietly lost over $250M in burned satellites this summer
#30Speaking of Starlink, what piqued my interest is that Huawei Mate 60 incorporated satellite call module without being bulky. It is not yet able to do data transfer but in case they can, isnt that practically a portable starlink equivalent?
Thanks for mentioning that. Its the pro version and it apparently entails voice and text. Which makes it sound more like satellite phones then internet over satellite. Still, quite the interesting feature.