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Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

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Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#471

Post by Fatnino »

toss1 wrote: post #451
ortusdux wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big proponent of the DOE's suggestion for a national strategic transformer reserve. They estimate $500mil (2017) would cover buying enough redundant transformers to resuscitate the power grid after a nationwide failure. Pre-covid, the typical lead time for a full scale transformer was ~2 years. I'm assuming it would take even longer now. I can't imagine how long it would take to replace our transformers if ~1/4…

THIS!! Having a full set of spares requires zero re-engineering of the existing grid, and will turn a multi-year grid failure catastrophe into a few days to restore critical components and some weeks of restoring full function. Since our solid solar observation capabilities now give several days notice before arrival of such storms, some could even be pre-positioned at critical substations. And you are absolutely cor…

Why not just disconnect the working ones at the same time and then they don't get fried

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#472

Post by mlindner »

rablackburn wrote: post #350
erulabs wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> He makes shitty, immature jokes. People think he's a bit of a dick.

See that doesn't make sense though. If he were a normal person you met at a party then yeah you'd say "whatever" about him and not talk to him any more. But he's not at all so saying people dislike him just because of a few personality quirks doesn't make any sense.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#473

Post by mlindner »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #393
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #152

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. Shortened excerpt: "These storms cause the atmosphere to warm and atmospheric density at our low deployment altitudes to increase.... speed and severity of the storm caused…

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…

> Given Musk's email about SpaceX being close to bankruptcy, how will this affect them financially? Can SpaceX survive without a bailout?

Musk clarified that stance on Twitter. They are not in fact close to bankruptcy. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1465793233729069063

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#474

Post by mlindner »

zakwear wrote: post #456
irthomasthomas wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[dead]

Musk has not "threatened" to take Starlink public. IF Starlink were to go public it would not be some absurd crypto currency ICO.

And no they're not "blocking astronomers". https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/palomar-survey-instrument...

Please don't spread propaganda.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#475

Post by mlindner »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #444
salawat wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Their products don't seem too popular. E.g. Falcon heavy flew 2 missions in 2019, and 0 since then.

Musk wanted to cancel Falcon Heavy, and according to rumors did internally, but then Shotwell (SpaceX COO) reminded him that they'd already sold Falcon Heavy missions to the Air Force so it forced their hand. In reality it should've been canceled as it's not very profitable. What happened is that the Falcon 9 performance kept getting better and better and ate up the market segment that would have been put on to Falcon Heavy.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#476

Post by LeifCarrotson »

zakwear wrote: post #449
jay_kyburz wrote: post #81

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 probably a failed financial model before it is even completed. They aren't the first-mover, either. HughesNet provides better service at a lower price, and they only have to keep 3 satellites operating at outer orbit. 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 develop…

Better service?!?! HugesNet geostationary satellite internet has 600-800ms ping, and maybe 20mbps down; it's barely usable. And it only works in lower latitudes.

Cheaper, faster broadband is only available if Comcast and the other loathsome telecoms can get their acts together, and they have been failing to do so for 30 years.

A constellation of 4,400 satellites, every 5 years, each costing $250k in parts and $50k in launch costs, totals to $264,000,000 per year of opex dedicated to keep the constellation in orbit. A poor country with about ten million subscribers would have to charge roughly $2/month to keep up with satellite replacement costs, but unlike terrestrial utilities, the satellites conveniently circle the whole globe.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#477

Post by modeless »

Thlom wrote: post #363
modeless wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the very high cost of Starlink service It's $99/mo for 100+ megabit service. Sure, it's moderately expensive if you're comparing to cable service in cities . It's downright cheap compared to the cost of connecting the extremely rural customers Starlink targets with physical cables. You don't think running a new set of physical cables to every rural residence in the world (or even cell towers to cover the same) woul…

Isn't it $99/mo for service? Afaik there is no guaranteed bandwidth at all at the moment as all users are beta testers? All users are on a "best effort all you can get" plan. I'm sure there will be different tiers as the network matures.

I hate to break it to you, but you don't get guaranteed bandwidth on your wired consumer ISP either. Reported speeds have been more than reasonable for a consumer service. 100 Mbps isn't even the peak speed, that's more like 250 Mbps.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#478

Post by mabbo »

aerospace_guy wrote: post #466
mabbo wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Launching on what, exactly? Right now they have 9 launches planned using Atlas 5. That's not going to get them a usable fleet of satellites. If they want to launch anything beyond that, Blue Origin must finish the BE-4: a rocket engine years behind schedule. (Either using them for Vulcan rockets or for the New Glenn). From Amazon's perspective, those 9 launches are money wasted if BO doesn't come through. I'd be ecst…

Amazon can launch Kuiper satellites on any launch vehicle, not just New Glenn.

Sure, but who has capacity to take on any serious number of launches? And who can do it at a competitive price to make Kuiper anything but a financial disaster?

The answer is: nobody.

What made Starlink financially possible was SpaceX's lower launch costs and high capacity.

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#479

Post by archon810 »

hajile wrote: post #405
oxplot wrote: post #20

40 sats makes up about 2% of the current fleet - so a rounding error in cost and time. The important part of this news is how those 40 sats deorbit and leave no junk either in orbit or on earth.

2% of a big number is still a big number. 62M to launch. 250-500k per satellite. That's $72M to $82M down the toilet. Given median per-person income is around $36k, that represents over 2,000 man-years of loss. There are less than 30,000 people out of 7,900,000,000 in the entire world worth more than 100M. You could buy around 20 windmills and power 15,000 entire homes per year with that money (or around 40,000 homes…

The bigger question I would be asking right now is if it happened this time with 40, who is to say it won't happen with 100 next time and what is being done to prevent it in the future?

Re: Starlink lost 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm

#480

Post by toss1 »

Fatnino wrote: post #471
toss1 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS!! Having a full set of spares requires zero re-engineering of the existing grid, and will turn a multi-year grid failure catastrophe into a few days to restore critical components and some weeks of restoring full function. Since our solid solar observation capabilities now give several days notice before arrival of such storms, some could even be pre-positioned at critical substations. And you are absolutely cor…

Why not just disconnect the working ones at the same time and then they don't get fried

That could definitely help. However, while I don't have the numbers, I'd expect that the required labor to disconnect them all would vastly exceed the 24-72 hour warning time.

Also, this would mean proactively shutting down the entire grid for days, at the first warning, then requiring days to restore power. So one warning would require a full week of zero power for the continent, and (I expect) saving only part of the grid.

But yeah, putting in some planning to do that would be a smart idea.

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