[HN Gopher] SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in ... ___________________________________________________________________ SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks Author : scottbucks Score : 141 points Date : 2021-03-14 17:42 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (techcrunch.com) (TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com) | ctdonath wrote: | While watching today's launch, occurred to me the ratio of | paying-client launches to Starlink launches is [whatever it is]. | Profit margins on paid launches must be high, maybe amazing, to | support so many Starlink launches. | [deleted] | jewel wrote: | They've also been raising money ($850M in February) so they | don't necessarily have to be using profit from paid launches. | sfblah wrote: | Does SpaceX really have any capital constraints? I'd assume | that in the current environment they can essentially | raise/borrow unlimited capital just on Musk's brand name. | adriancr wrote: | Just based on their reusable rockets, government contracts | and potential they can borrow unlimited capital... Musk is an | added bonus (that can also likely fund it himself fully) | BurningFrog wrote: | Starlink should make tons of money soon. | | These launch costs are investments. | martin8412 wrote: | They won't.. It's a product that's only remotely viable in | remote locations. So Australia, Canada and US. Most of the | rest of the world has no need for it | arcticfox wrote: | Seriously? Unless Europe is "most of the world", I think | you're quite mistaken. | | Join me in rural Brazil, for example! | [deleted] | _ph_ wrote: | 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 be able to finance large | space projects on their own. Of course there is Mars, but also | the Moon, perhaps a space station or asteroid mining. | taf2 wrote: | I agree I want to see Venus havoc mission. Floating a blimp in | the atmosphere seems so cool | aero-glide2 wrote: | The Soviets sent a balloon to Venus, floated for a few hours | I think. Would love to see such missions in HD. | sterlind wrote: | 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. | ruph123 wrote: | More junk, and no responsibilities of the companies whatsoever. | The cleanup (or kessler syndrome-related catastrophe) will be | payed with taxpayer money: | https://platform.leolabs.space/visualizations/leo | okl wrote: | That's a very cool visualization. When you zoom in you can even | see small 3D models that represent the type of debris. | shantara wrote: | Starlink satellites are flying in low Earth orbit with the | natural decay and reentry time no more than 5 years. | | I see this same argument repeated in every Starlink discussion | thread. | okl wrote: | Junk is junk, even if it's "just" 5 years. | immmmmm wrote: | 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 sky surveys). | manicdee wrote: | 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 thousands of satellites. There are no rules covering | this scenario. | | AFAIK the nearest we have to rules covering the proliferation | of communications satellites are ITU rules on access to | spectrum. There's no restriction on the number of satellites, | just who is using what frequency in which part of the sky. | | If you want to add rules about the number of satellites in | orbit, better get in quick before StarLink becomes too valuable | to ban. | immmmmm wrote: | thanks for the precisions! | | i fear however no one wants to rule on that, at least for | now. | TeMPOraL wrote: | > _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. | mullingitover wrote: | > i understand the enthusiasm but shouldn't these decisions let | to the people, countries, for instance a intergouvernemental | agency. | | The people elected the leadership which oversees the government | agency which approved this project, so ultimately the people | allowed this project to happen. This isn't a case of one person | doing something alone. | Strom wrote: | Would it apply only to the rich or to everyone? If everyone, | then why bring out the richness? | | Do you want to prevent satellites existing completely or just | keep it at some threshold that has been crossed? | | Most importantly, what's the actual problem here? You haven't | pointed out any downsides of having increased mass in LEO. | immmmmm wrote: | this applies to everyone but only the rich has the money. the | technology almost didn't change since von Braun in 1940, go | have a look at a V2 turbopump and compare with the latest | Barber-Nichols models. sure metal alloys changed a bit, ball | bearings are better, etc... "Rocket Science" is still the | same as 80 years ago: fine engineering and a lot of testing. | | there are a lot of useful satellites: for instance for Earth | monitoring, it happens we are on a climate transient, those | are very relevant. not saying that ppl in rural areas do not | deserve internet, but Musk was clear that Starlink was more | to finance his mars dream first and foremost. | | the problem is pollution and deregulation. and kessler | syndrome that might knock out essential satellites in the | long run. | jonplackett wrote: | I mean, they had to apply for a license to do it, and it was | granted. | immmmmm wrote: | by whom? the FCC. i live in switzerland, does USA own LEO? | bombcar wrote: | Effectively? Yes. Not in a "we can prevent anything we | want" but a "we can do whatever we want" way. | fabiospampinato wrote: | It doesn't work like that, "owning" and human laws in | general are kind of a fantasy, to make an absurd | hypothetical scenario to illustrate this: imagine the | aliens landed on Earth, would you say they should first get | a permit to anchor their spaceship somewhere before doing | that? At the end of the day words on paper don't matter | much, if Switzerland shoots those satellites down they | could be deleted from the world map with some nukes, who | has the power decides. | jhayward wrote: | Under the International Treaty for Outer Space, each | signatory nation is responsible for regulating that | activity of those operating from within their territory. | Switzerland signed the treat in 1967 [1] | | So that's all as it should be, and Switzerland agrees that | the mechanism of regulation is the operant one. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty#Respon | sibil... | cbozeman wrote: | Whoever has power and the inclination to enforce their will | upon others decides everything, period. | | This whole fantasy of "rights" that people like to engage | in is just that - a fantasy. | | The best you can hope for is that the strongest is also a | benevolent philosopher king. | mempko wrote: | FCC actually gave Spacex 900 million to put those things up | there. So Musk will profit at our expense. Are all his | businesses government subsidized? | | I could still see the trail of them before dusk so it appears | it isn't working. | | edit: the experts agree that spacex didn't do enough to reduce | reflectivity and that it's still an issue. | https://physicsworld.com/a/dark-coated-starlink-satellites-a... | kitsunesoba wrote: | If you're seeing trains of satellites, those have not yet | reached their parking orbits and have not oriented themselves | or deployed their sunshades. Once they've gotten to where | they're intended to be, they'll become far more dim and for | the most part should only be visible during a brief period | around dusk. | mempko wrote: | So they haven't solved the reflectivity issue? Solving it | would mean they aren't visible at all with the naked eye. | Since there are thousands of them, this is a problem for | land based observation no? | | edit: looks like it's still a problem according to experts. | https://physicsworld.com/a/dark-coated-starlink- | satellites-a... | aerovistae wrote: | "at our expense"? You clearly don't have to deal with rural | internet if you think this is a net loss for society. | mempko wrote: | It could have been a non-profit operation no? I would | expect rural internet to be cheaper than what SpaceX is | charging. $100 per month is very expensive, especially for | people in rural areas which generally are poorer. | | Example, I believe over 90% of rural china has high speed | internet and they pay less than $10 a month. | | Edit. Anyone have a good argument why we can't get $10 per | month high speed internet in rural areas in the USA? If | spacex can get there costs down to $10 per month, then I | will be impressed. Otherwise it isn't cheaper than laying | fiber. | sigstoat wrote: | > Anyone have a good argument why we can't get $10 per | month high speed internet in rural areas in the USA? | | do you have any idea how much it costs to dig a trench? | look up a calculator for figuring out the present value | of a perpetuity that pays $10/mo. that will barely cover | somebody digging a trench through your front yard, and | laying fiber in it, let alone doing that down miles of | rural street. | smoldesu wrote: | The whole point of this is that it isn't a non-profit, | though. I'd love to live in a world where we can snap our | fingers and motivate people to build $1/month internet, | but that's not even a remote possibility. Starlink's big | boon was that someone with money saw a problem and | invested a ton of money into fixing it, hoping to turn a | profit in the long-term. I'd love for someone to run | fiber out to my house, but even getting it to my | neighborhood would start at $30,000. Enter Starlink: cut | out the landline companies and offer good internet, | forcing the big players to offer better services in order | to compete. | | Also, if you think $100/month is expensive, you don't go | shopping for rural internet very often. There isn't an | ISP on the planet that offers the speeds or latency that | Starlink has right now, and believe me, I've tried to | find one. $500 for installation and $100/month is | reasonably appropriate for the services they're | providing, especially if they're taking a $1000-2000 loss | on each dish they ship to customers. | new_realist wrote: | Have you tried an LTE or 5G access point? They cover | roughly 97% of the U.S. population. And you don't have to | pay for Internet _and_ also pay for mobile service. | kitsunesoba wrote: | The problem with laying fiber in the continental US (and | I suspect also in Canada) is not typically cost. It's | death by a thousand cuts with problems acquiring land | rights, fighting incumbent ISPs and the local politicians | and congressmen in their pockets, and simple will on the | part of ISPs. | | Google tried to make fiber cheap and ubiquitous with | Google Fiber and failed. If an organization with the | power, resources, and clout of Google can't get it done, | I don't know who can short of the federal government | getting involved (which, thanks to lobbyists, is | unlikely). | | LEO constellations bypass these issues almost entirely | and ironically enough may motivate incumbent ISPs to try | to compete and stop being so obstructive. | cbozeman wrote: | Google didn't fail, they gave up. | | They have the money to do it, they didn't want to spend | it. They thought everyone would start writing letters to | their congressmen on their behalf and force the | government into making the other big fiber ISPs play | fair. | | That's how fucking dumb so the so-called "smartest people | in the room" can be. | | Google should have budgeted $10 billion a year for 10 | years for Google Fiber. And in 20 years' time, Google | could have been the largest provider of fiber Internet | service in the United States, possibly servicing almost | every single address in the country. Instead, they did | what they *ALWAYS* fucking do... it didn't "catch on" in | a year or two's time and they abandoned it. | | I can't wait to see Google utterly fail as a company, | given how shit they are at execution of everything but | the most obvious, largest, and easiest-to-enter markets. | | Elon Musk entered the three hardest markets known to | fuckin' mankind... automotive, orbital launch, and ISPs, | and he's utterly destroying mother fuckers. If I was an | executive involved with Google Fiber, I'd blow my brains | out due to utter shame. | ShockedUnicorn wrote: | For the people talking about space pollution and problems for | astronomers. Yes, it is definitely an issue, but this | constellation is also a way for many people to have access to | education and information that will help them and their | community. | | If you're curious about both the positives and negatives of | Starlink I highly recommend the mini documentary "Is this the END | of Astronomy?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TifUa8ENQes | | Most things in life are like this. Wind turbines are a great way | to supply green energy, but building them takes a lot of energy. | So it is important to also think about things like using low co2 | concrete, and making them more efficient. They also kill many | birds, but this is nothing compared to the amount of birds that | cats kill. And engineers are working on ways to get fewer birds | killed. | martin8412 wrote: | Many people? You mean people in rural US/Canada and Australia. | The rest of the world already has been options in most places. | newman8r wrote: | > They also kill many birds, but this is nothing compared to | the amount of birds that cats kill. | | FWIW, turbines may be worse than cats in terms of harming large | birds of prey. You won't see neighborhood cats killing eagles. | I'd still agree that it's probably a reasonable tradeoff | though, and that it could be further reduced with better | engineering. | rb666 wrote: | Wind turbines do not kill many birds, that is a myth pushed by | climate hoaxers. | | They have their drawbacks, but that aint one of 'em. | minitoar wrote: | Where are you getting this information from? | eecc wrote: | Yeah, apparently just paint one rotor blade differently to make | it stand out and birds will stay clear [1] | | Maybe Starlink constellations will be an incentive to finish | the JWT, and other space telescopes... | | [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/black-paint-on- | wind-... | heavyset_go wrote: | > _Yeah, apparently just paint one rotor blade differently to | make it stand out and birds will stay clear [1]_ | | The study you're citing was only studied 4 wind turbines, | while the evidence does point towards this working, I | wouldn't say that the existing evidence is conclusive. Also, | the turbines with the darker blades still killed birds, just | less bird than the turbines with standard blades. | biotinker wrote: | Wind turbines don't kill enough birds to be more than a | drop in the dead-bird bucket. It's a talking point used by | people who were looking for reasons to be against wind | turbines, but housecats kill four orders of magnitudes- not | 4x, 10,000x- more birds each year. | | The percent of human-caused bird deaths due to wind | turbines is smaller than the percent of Americans dying in | airplane crashes each year, compared to all US deaths each | year. | agumonkey wrote: | That would be smart of spacex to allocate some profits to do | these projects. win-win business orientation | serf wrote: | >Most things in life are like this. Wind turbines are a great | way to supply green energy, but building them takes a lot of | energy. | | Reminder : we only have one sky. | | Things offer both positives and negatives, but | | a) generally those things are decided by local powers and | authorities that can be influenced by local populations -- not | corporations from specific countries that may or may not be far | away and without local permission | | (those decisions that are made by foreign corporations that | modify local attributes is generally frowned upon -- very few | like the oil rigs scattered around the ocean, they tolerate | them due to the profits associated) | | b) very few of these decisions create global impacts, the ones | that do (say, environmental issues) have many confounding | factors and influence groups working with them, representing | many different people and locales. | | In just so happens that in the case of 'the sky' we're all | 'locals' -- but very few people, with respect to 'the world', | had a say in the matter. | moralestapia wrote: | Sure, but don't forget SpaceX is a for-profit organization. | alextheparrot wrote: | My mother was raving about the service the other day. | | Speeds are 10-15x faster, she's having an easier time with her | online community college course and her job KPI is up by double | digit percents [1]. She was worried that IT wouldn't be OK with | it when I said it was satellite (They'd been burned too many | times), but the IT guy was incredibly excited because he's also | waiting to get Starlink. | | Looking forward to the service only getting better, really | incredible execution. | | [0] My dad went on the roof in the cold Wisconsin winter to put | it up. | | [1] Lines transcribed per hour, as a medical transcriptionist | working from home. | iso1210 wrote: | Any issues with snow etc? | robbiet480 wrote: | 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. | bombcar wrote: | Dishy also seems to continually pull 100 watts even when | not in melt mode. | [deleted] | Topgamer7 wrote: | I was thinking it might generate enough heat to keep it warm. | But the comments in this thread appear to think it has a | heater inside of it: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JSq6xB591M | kristofferR wrote: | There's absolutely no heater inside it, as this great | disassembly/destruction shows: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmdQnIlnRo | jmreid wrote: | Zero issues from my experience. The dish has a snow melt | "mode", and I didn't have to manually clean it at all after a | large snowfall. | ttul wrote: | I am excited to receive my base station shortly. | rjzzleep wrote: | Faster than? Also, does anyone know who's behind this effort? | Other leaders would celebrate the people behind the development | but at spacex and tesla it's only ever news about Musk? | | Any interesting people behind what is happening at SpaceX ? | m463 wrote: | It appears to be faster than rural Wisconsin internet | service. | | someone I know (coincidentally in wisconsin) is getting 100m | down 20m up | | There's always (the other) Linus: | https://youtu.be/Fh1a2K9ZgNA | JasonFruit wrote: | I'm in Wisconsin, just got it, and am seeing 65-115 down, | 15-40 up. I was hoping it would be better than Hughesnet, | but I didn't expect it would be quite this good. I did have | about a five minute downtime yesterday. Not too shabby! | SkyPuncher wrote: | What's your latency like? | | I'm in exurban Wisconsin. Speeds are fine, but Charter | has terrible routing that pushes everything out to | Minnesota before routing back down to Chicago. 40ms to | 60ms latency on EVERYTHING. | JasonFruit wrote: | It's varied from as low as 30ms up to almost 80. Latency | is just not going to be great with satellites, seeing | that we're pushing it out to _fricking space_. | brianwawok wrote: | Except it's low space. And signals travel faster in air | than in glass. And the path is likely more direct. | | Just space alone isn't enough to say the latency will be | worse. | aero-glide2 wrote: | Couldn't find names but the employees did an AMA on reddit ht | tps://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_the... | rjzzleep wrote: | > Couldn't find names | | That's kinda sad, isn't it? | mulcahey wrote: | Per this article Mark Juncosa has lead the development of | the satellites | | https://qz.com/1627570/how-autonomous-are-spacexs- | starlink-s... | rjzzleep wrote: | From what I see he's been working at SpaceX since he | graduated college. I don't see where his satcom knowledge | comes from, which is arguable the most interesting part | of Starlink. Not the vehicle design. | | It's really unfortunate that this company unlike most | companies treats all the brain drain as an ego trip. | Rule35 wrote: | I haven't heard anything about NDAs that prevent you talking | about the general area of your work at any of Musk's | companies. There are certainly people on LinkedIn talking | about what they do. | | Look at any FAANG presentation. The VP of the department | introduces a PM, who may have a senior engineer with them. | The other 98% of the team isn't mentioned. | | > That's kinda sad, isn't it? | | Why don't you start a thread about it. Poll workers and see | if they find themselves upset by it or not. Don't just borrow | offense on their behalf. | agency wrote: | As someone stuck on old (HughesNet) satellite internet and | waiting on my Starlink pre-order, this is great news. I didn't | get into the beta sadly, though I was signed up and in the | eligibility area since day 1. | aero-glide2 wrote: | Did you sign up for the $99 deposit which puts you in the | queue? | agency wrote: | Yep, did so the day I was able to. I was pretty bummed not to | get into the beta, especially after torturing myself by | periodically checking /r/Starlink which was just wall-to-wall | posts of people celebrating their invites. Just glad to have | a spot in line at this point. | joezydeco wrote: | So where is Amazon in relation to all of this? | | I got pinged by a recruiter from Kuiper the other week and all I | can see is that there's no way they're on track to be working in | 5 years. They don't even have a stable launch platform. Would | Musk sell Bezos the ride? | rklaehn wrote: | I think SpaceX would sell them launches. | | First of all, why wouldn't they? They are confident that their | satellite tech is superior. | | And second, SpaceX is dominating the commercial launch market | to such a degree that they would run into antitrust issues if | they were to use their launch dominance for antocompetitive | behaviour. | | But Bezos would probably be too proud to launch on SpaceX... | Robotbeat wrote: | Yeah, I agree. And this would be one reason to spin off | Starlink in an IPO. So customers would be okay with SpaceX | launching their constellation. | marcusverus wrote: | Musk's stated goal for Space X is to colonize Mars. His | stated goal for Starlink is to fund said colonization. I 'm | not so sure that he would enable any competition that he saw | as having the potential to pose a real threat to his ultimate | goal. | m463 wrote: | You know, I have to wonder though. | | I've been ok with the tesla-only superchargers, because | they are good. But it is a self-serving infrastructure and | a competitive advantage. | | I wonder what the reality would be about sending up bezos's | satellites? It could also be a PR problem, PLUS it would | undermine the bezos employees working on their launch | platform. | [deleted] | MetaWhirledPeas wrote: | Bezos is in it only because he too has a rocket company. If he | wanted to be in the business of feeding on the scraps of others | he'd release his own terrestrial internet service. | parsimo2010 wrote: | AWS has also created satellite ground stations in the last | few years. A commercial satellite internet service running | from the ground stations would probably justify scaling out, | and having a larger network of ground stations would help AWS | attract more commercial space customers. Bezos has been | working this from a few angles, not just from a keep up with | Musk attitude. | Robotbeat wrote: | 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. | shantara wrote: | 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 | current maximum number of reuses of any booster as a whole | (currently at 9). | | Another example, they've stopped having static fires for | flight proven boosters first for Starlink, then for | customer payloads too, unless the customer explicitly | requests it. | | It's unbelievable that "flight proven booster" turned out | to be really what it says on the tin, and not just a piece | of marketing speak. | TeMPOraL wrote: | > _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. | the8472 wrote: | It's "booster", not "buster". | shantara wrote: | Fixed, thanks. | philistine wrote: | Webservers... in space! | hackeraccount wrote: | Given that Starlink will do links between satellites that's | actually an interesting idea. From what I've read one of | the problems with it is heat management. Space is chilly | but it's not a great heat sink and servers generate a lot | of heat. | dillondoyle wrote: | Would there be potential AWS synergies that make any sense? | | Besides having the money to basically give it away for free, | that could be a big value add if so. | | idk maybe enabling the blanketing of the earth in ever | expanding ring/echo surveillance. or a cdn though uploading | huge video files to a satellite hard drive might not make any | sense or actually save any MS given the inherent satellite -> | earth delay. | easton wrote: | There was always the hypothesis that servers in orbit would | lower latency since you wouldn't have to bounce back to | Earth, but given the maintenance and power requirements I | don't think that'd be very doable. A CDN would work I think, | provided you could power the hard drives. | unoti wrote: | > ...servers in orbit would lower latency since you | wouldn't have to bounce back to Earth... A CDN would work I | think, provided you could power the hard drives. | | But doing it all solid state with RAM + SSD could totally | make sense, especially if you cache only the highest access | items in space... Something like this could also make sense | to do custom silicon/ASICs to keep the power and weight | requirements down. | BooneJS wrote: | My high school daughter has really gotten into astronomy and | space in the last few years, and is torn between celebrating the | 9th use of the same first-stage rocket and hating the pieces of | space junk it's delivering to low earth orbit. | TameAntelope wrote: | Your high school daughter could be the person that helps SpaceX | figure out their "space junk" problem! | colechristensen wrote: | Starlink satellites will only stay up about five years without | propulsion, and unless a satellite breaks hard it will be | deorbited with propulsion much faster. | | Concerns about space junk aren't about these low orbits, they | are about orbits where things stay up hundreds of years or much | longer. | bombcar wrote: | Isn't low earth orbit the best place for space junk as it burns | up relatively easily? | Robotbeat wrote: | Yeah, and SpaceX has gone through extraordinary lengths to | reduce the visibility of Starlink satellites. However, the | astronomy community overall hates it and it's kind of a meme | now. | BooneJS wrote: | Like most engineering projects with continuous improvement, | the newer satellites are less reflective than the older | ones. | dcgoss wrote: | It's not space junk. When they're ready to be decommissioned or | they fail, the thrusters turn off and the whole thing descends | into the atmosphere and burns up. | missedthecue wrote: | I wonder how much rare earth material will get incinerated | over the next few decades with thousands of these things | burning up annually. Hope we figure out space mining quick. | Thorondor wrote: | Rare earth elements actually aren't that rare. For example, | neodymium makes up over 30 ppm of Earth's crust. That's | more common than lead, cobalt, tin, thorium, tungsten, | molybdenum, and quite a few other elements with large-scale | industrial applications. | | The difficult part of producing rare-earth elements is | separating them from everything else. Tiny pieces of | spacecraft dust scattered over a large area don't make very | high grade ore... | tuatoru wrote: | "Earth" is an old word for ore. | | Rare earth elements are so named because their earths are | rare: there aren't many places on the crust where their | concentration is significantly above the average. Mining | depends on the existence of mineral earths. | | GP raises a valid point -- although a weak one. | jiofih wrote: | Probably about half a suburban town's worth of iPhones. | missedthecue wrote: | But all the components of an iPhone can technically be | recycled to one degree or another (even if they aren't at | present). Once a satellite has been incinerated, that's | it. And there will be thousands of these, and several | providers. That's thousands and thousands of pounds of | material disappearing for good, every year. | BooneJS wrote: | I think terminology can mean different things to different | people. Typically space junk refers to decommissioned or | otherwise useless satellites. But if you're a ground-based | astronomer taking long exposure photographs, the trails of | reflective satellites are of no use to you. | Magodo wrote: | 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? | TeeMassive wrote: | ADV China did a video segment about this. It's already illegal | in China to get satellite dishes, they really are afraid of | their citizens knowing what's really going on. | smoldesu wrote: | I've been torrenting plenty of... perfectly legal data over my | Starlink connection, I have yet to hear anything from Elon's | folks. | rklaehn wrote: | Any major space power (Russia, China, India) will be able to | dictate the conditions of Starlink operations. | | Basically: dear SpaceX, please switch off your sats over our | territory, or we will do it for you. | dillondoyle wrote: | talk about space debris - blowing up that many satellites | would be insane. | wffurr wrote: | They are low enough that any debris will deorbit shortly. | tidepod12 wrote: | It would only take blowing up one satellite to let the | world know they're serious about it, at which point SpaceX | would almost certainly be forced to comply with China's | demands, if only because SpaceX would have to acknowledge | that the debris from even a handful of destroyed satellites | would cause serious danger to the operations of the rest of | the constellation. | jiveturkey wrote: | you only have to jam it | zizee wrote: | Or arrest people that are using easily detectable | satellite dishes. | sangnoir wrote: | All satellite dishes are easily detectable when they are | in operation - they _have_ to transmit RF radiation which | can be detected and pinpointed to source anywhere from | low-altitude all the way up to space. Anyone of a certain | age who lived in a country that required TV licenses | remembers the enforcement trucks that would detect RF | emissions from vacuum-tube TV sets using directional | antennae. | MetaWhirledPeas wrote: | By pressuring Tesla. One thing making me nervous with Tesla's | China business is that it will become too big for Tesla to let | it fail, at which point Tesla (and every other Musk company) | will be beholden to the CCP. | jiofih wrote: | Concerns like this are why I think he considered taking it | private again. He can personally not give a fuck and decide | to pull out of China anytime, but being a public company and | "acting in shareholder's interests" might get in the way of | ethics... | rat9988 wrote: | I'm not sure how pulling out the plug is more ethical than | selling a gimped version of the product because of the | local laws. | dillondoyle wrote: | Maybe it will be moot since CCP might likely fund, steal, | push for - whatever it takes - their own internal 'ip' & | supply. Maybe batteries are difficult though. | easton wrote: | Starlink already said they will comply with whatever is needed | from a specific government, including selling through local | resellers and routing through things like the GFW. It's not | designed for censorship resistance, the only real way around it | would be to get a foreign dishy/modem. | KingMachiavelli wrote: | I would be surprised if it was that simple. Countries like | Russia and China are going to want a very visible method of | knowing whether a given ground dish is the normal version or | their countries specific version. Anything that is just | cosmetic would be too simple to fake. The biggest problem is | that if any other entity controls the satellites themselves; | they could turn routing the the GFW on and off which would be | a huge security risk for these countries. (i.e western | countries pressure Starlink to turn GFW routing off). | | I wouldn't be surprised if China just started their own state | sponsored low orbit satellite internet. | | Another decent, cheaper middle ground would be operating just | the 'first-hop' satellites that ground units communicate with | and adjusting the technology such that the dish units used in | china are substantially different in terms of the actual RF. | Then these China run satellites enforce the GFW and then | route traffic to Starlink and other 'non-china' satellites. | | The biggest downside I see to that setup is that this | satellite technology has to in a non-geostationary orbit | which means you need a lot more satellites to get 24 hour | coverage in a specific location. This isn't a problem if you | want to provide service to the entire planet but for country | specific networks; the extra satellites are a bit redundant. | | The even safer option is to make running a ground dish itself | a government enterprise. Private/non-state ownership remains | illegal but the state uses Starlink et al. as just another | backbone in their state network. This is probably the most | likely since it is far simpler to integrate and control. | | Starlink's stance on the issue is probably enough to satisfy | countries like the UK that have some unique internet laws but | are still satisfied with using the normal western legal | process to enforce their needs. | drglitch wrote: | Russia already has law in works to make possession of StarLink | hardware illegal. There was some coverage in January: | https://m.slashdot.org/story/380606 | grecy wrote: | Plenty of countries today already restrict the import of | certain products (sat phones, CB radios, weapons, etc.) | | The SpaceX receiving dish (dishy) will just be on that list for | certain countries. | elihu wrote: | > How will China enforce the Great Firewall for instance? | | By filing legal complaints through the ITU (which is a UN | agency), probably. I expect some international treaties | probably come into play. Basically, China complains to the UN, | the UN tells the US they can't provide Internet service in | China unless they follow China's rules, and then the FCC tells | SpaceX that if they don't comply the FCC will shut them down. | | Of course, the US government could just decide to ignore China | and let SpaceX do whatever they want. (This is all assuming | that SpaceX wants to be the Robin Hood of the global Internet | and take censorship from the powerful and give access to the | poor and not worry about the geopolitical or economic | consequences. They might just want to be a regular internet | service provider that follows all the rules in whatever country | they operate in and doesn't make waves. They could also just | not offer service in China.) | p2t2p wrote: | That's, easy, just like they do it in Russia - jail time and | fines for having Space X antenna. | Youden wrote: | 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? | kiba wrote: | China will just confiscate any satellite dishes. SpaceX will | comply if they want the market, or someone else will. | rfrey wrote: | I think the "if Amazon/Google/FB don't comply, someone else | will take their place" argument is weaker when replacement | requires a constellation of thousands of satellites. | Roritharr wrote: | I wonder if the USG would consider the shooting down of | Starlink Satellites as an act of war after SpaceX refuses | to comply with chinese regulations. | | It's probably all moot as China would probably simply halt | Tesla Sales, as they are not bound by the logics of | legality. | postingawayonhn wrote: | I don't think anyone has the ability to shoot down enough | Starlink satellites to make a difference. | | Musk's biggest risk in China is the CCP confiscating the | Tesla factory in Shanghai. | wcoenen wrote: | Turning one satellite into a cloud of debris would | suffice, Kessler syndrome would do the rest. | jiofih wrote: | We are very very far from that happening. Even with most | satellites being in the same torus around earth, if every | single one in orbit right now were to instantly shatter, | each piece would have something like a 1000sqkm volume to | roam in. | JasonFruit wrote: | *area | voldacar wrote: | Debris would deorbit rapidly, starlink satellites are | relatively low-altitude. | Demigod33 wrote: | > I don't think anyone has the ability to shoot down | enough Starlink satellites to make a difference. | | Not with rockets, but maybe with lasers? What damage can | a single one do? Could a country deploy them at specific | orbits to have enough coverage to destroy a sufficient | amount? | martin8412 wrote: | China most probably have the resources for that if they | want to | throwaway53453 wrote: | This is why the Space Force is unironically a great idea. | jiofih wrote: | There is no "airspace" controlled by countries in space, | and the satellites are not geostationary, so they would | have to shoot down everyone's fleet. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | Shooting down any satellites is extremely dangerous due | to the orbital debris this would create. The US would | take that act very seriously. | castratikron wrote: | Seems like there's an opportunity to produce an open-source | SpaceX compatible antenna that someone could build | themselves. I wonder if at some point SpaceX could allow this | on their network? | sigstoat wrote: | > Seems like there's an opportunity to produce an open- | source SpaceX compatible antenna that someone could build | themselves. | | you'd need at least $400 of test equipment to check that | the >$100 of parts were working right, and to diagnose any | problems. not cost effective. | zbrozek wrote: | I'd be amazed if it's that little in test equipment. | dmurray wrote: | That's certainly not prohibitive in the US. Starlink | already charge $500 for hardware and $100/month. | ben_w wrote: | I'm not an electrical engineer, but (both) family members | who got electronics qualifications have told me RF phase | matching circuits are a PITA to build right, and this | antenna is a many-element phased array. | | They told me this about 20 years ago and I don't know | what's changed since then. Presumably someone here knows if | it's still hard or if it became easy since 2001? | slickrick216 wrote: | SpaceX will deploy a low orbit ion cannon and DoS the Chinese | censors. | toast0 wrote: | I imagine China will apply pressure to the company/officers. If | that fails, they will track RF emissions and disappear users. | If that fails, they will start RF jamming. If that fails, | accidents in space. | | More interesting than China though are regional communications | shutdowns. Will India be able to turn off communications in | Kashmir? Will various countries be able to turn off the | internet on national school entrance exam days? Will | democracies for show be able to turn off the internet when the | votes aren't as expected? | fancy_pantser wrote: | China has started building their own satellite broadband | constellation (up to 12,992 have been applied for) that is | routed to comply with their policies. | fireeyed wrote: | They get "Jack Maa'd" | consumer451 wrote: | FWIW, there was a video with I believe Gwynn Shotwell saying | every country, including the USA, required an "off switch" to | receive approval. Nothing about line item censorship was | mentioned. | echopom wrote: | I'm really concerned about the alarms raised by Scientific in | regards to "Space Pollution".[0] | | Elon Musk has been dodging the question for the past years and | never gave a clear answer about it aside of "Umbrella" joke... | | Some astronomers are suggesting that with multiple space telecom | companies ( US + EU + China ) it would potentially mean we would | never be able to see space in plain sight ever. At least not | without visual pollution. | | [0]https://qz.com/1971751/a-flood-of-spacex-satellites- | started-... | caconym_ wrote: | SpaceX is taking concrete steps to make their satellites as | unobtrusive as possible without significantly compromising | their design. Beyond that, this is really a choice between | developing space and not. Quit with the FUD about Musk | "dodging" questions, etc.--say what you mean, which is that you | think pristine night skies should forever take precedence over | the economic development of space. Or, if it doesn't sound good | stated so straightforwardly, don't. | Robotbeat wrote: | I don't see how anyone who has read broadly on this topic could | say with a straight face that SpaceX has been just dodging | this. | | SpaceX has done more to mitigate visibility of their satellites | than any satellite maker/operator in history, with the possible | exception of classified payloads. They installed sunshades that | reduce the visibility of the satellites when fully deployed (in | operational orbit) to below the visibility limit in _almost_ | all conditions. You have to have exceptionally good timing, | eyesight, and dark skies to catch recent Starlink satellites | once operational now. But a satellite like ISS is so bright and | obvious, you can even sometimes see it in the daytime. (ISS is | as bright as all new operational Starlink satellites combined.) | | Read this article to see the significant changes they've made: | https://www.spacex.com/updates/starlink-update-04-28-2020/in... | findthewords wrote: | Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite orbits decay rapidly thanks to | atmospheric drag. | vasco wrote: | I can't wake up and see the world without loads of buildings | and roads and cars in sight either. | TeeMassive wrote: | If you know the position of the satellites it's very easy to | mitigate their effect. | rklaehn wrote: | SpaceX has put in a lot of effort to reduce the visual | pollution aspect of starlink. | | See | https://twitter.com/ralfvandebergh/status/136999054076322611... | for how the visibility of Starlink sats has changed over time. | | For professional earth based astronomy, it is possible to | remove the streaks digitally. But of course there is a slight | impact. But what is the alternative? Just stop development of | low earth orbit forever? | | The future of professional astronomy is space based. Imagine | what a telescope you can launch with a single starship | launch... | toomuchtodo wrote: | We could be constantly lifting new observatories to space, | launch is no longer the constraint, but satellite | manufacturing and cost. | | NASA needs the SpaceX equivalent of an org that churns out | satellites. The next bus to orbit leaves shortly. | TeMPOraL wrote: | Launch is not a constraint for... about a year now. | Satellites have a bit more lag time. | | I don't think NASA needs the SpaceX equivalent for | satellites - SpaceX itself is causing a boom in satellite | manufacturing, so commercial market is accumulating | expertise and lowering prices. NASA should find it easier | and cheaper to buy or subcontract pieces of satellites too, | and focus on bespoke mission-specific hardware. | shantara wrote: | I agree, and this applies to satellite manufacturing in | general. Starlink has demonstrated that the new launch | cadence requires a switch from single unit and small scale | to serial production. | | It's unbelievable that we don't currently have standard | designs not just for observatories, but for communication, | navigation, cartography and other satellite types. Cubesats | took a step into the right direction, the same needs to | happen for even larger payloads. | | Another side of the problem is that NASA budget is heavily | influenced by politics and PR. I'm sure there's plenty of | smart people there who have realized that from purely | scientific point of view, ten or twenty less capable and | more disposable interplanetary probes or observatories | could have advantage over unique absurdly expensive | projects like JWT and Perseverance. But they are not as | exciting and harder to sell to politicians and general | public. | hwc wrote: | Maybe SpaceX should make it up to the scientific community by | promising to (at no charge) put 100T of satellite telescopes | in a high orbit every year once Starship is functional. | cbozeman wrote: | I don't know why you're being downvoted... maybe it's the | "no charge" aspect of your post, but SpaceX offering to | send up research telescopes for at-cost-of-launch, or maybe | a little over, would be a great philanthropic endeavor. | TeMPOraL wrote: | It would be a great philanthropic endeavor indeed, but I | personally have a problem with suggesting they _have_ to | do this to "pay back" to the community. They've already | paid back to everyone who ever considers launching | anything to space, by cutting off a zero out of launch | costs - and they're about to cut off another zero. | | Launch costs tend to be a small part of mission costs for | bespoke scientific hardware - but what makes those | missions expensive is a feedback loop: rare and expensive | launches -> need to make best use of the mass budget -> | increased complexity -> need to make more robust -> | increased complexity -> more expensive -> rarer launches | -> more expensive launches. SpaceX just kicked that loop | into reverse. With that much cheaper launches, people can | afford less robust and less complex missions, and do more | of them, which lowers the costs as scale kicks in. | | SpaceX is making space cheap. That's already a great gift | to everyone. | rklaehn wrote: | That would be awesome PR, and not that expensive with | starship. | | But for low production rate things like telescopes, launch | cost is almost negligible even at current launch prices. | | A replacement for hubble could be launched with a single | falcon 9. Building it would cost more than a billion. | | The James Webb Telescope is at 10 billion USD and counting. | Launch with very expensive Ariane 5 will cost maybe 200 | million USD, so ~2%. | gbrown wrote: | Mirror size is the issue - until we can easily manufacture | huge, incredibly precise mirrors in-situ, space based will | never replace ground based astronomy. | iso1210 wrote: | There aren't many telescopes with a >8m diameter mirror, | and it looks like the largest single mirror is 8.2m | | Starship's payload is 8m. | Robotbeat wrote: | It's not manufacture. It's assembly. And I think astronauts | are faster and cheaper than robots for in space assembly. | Or they will be once Starship is operational. NASA did a | ton of work in EVA orbital assembly with Shuttle (and still | chooses to do exterior work on ISS via EVA and not purely | robotically) but it was always like 10 or 100 times too | expensive. Starship ought to change that. In addition to | its 8m diameter payload bay. | Jabbles wrote: | Surely they will only be visible a short time before sunrise or | after sunset, when the satellite can see both you and the sun? | jiofih wrote: | There are already 1200 of them in orbit, can you go outside and | point at a single one? | | When this controversy was started they addressed concerns by | reducing the satellites reflectance and it seems to have | worked. | tidepod12 wrote: | A couple points: | | 1) 1200 is a small percentage of the _tens of thousands_ of | satellites that the full system, plus the other similar | systems will eventually consist of. | | 2) Being able to go outside and point out a satellite has | absolutely no relevance on the satellite's impact on | professional astronomy. | | 3) It did not "seem to have worked". SpaceX experimented with | reducing the reflectivity of their satellites, but only some | satellites have that reduced reflectivity, and astronomers | found them to be only marginally better. | cbozeman wrote: | Yeah, and what's going to advance humanity as a whole more | significantly, I wonder... high-speed Internet access for | the entire planet... or professional astronomers not being | able to see into space as easily as they did 20 years ago? | | or... Or... OR... Launching massive powerful telescopes | into space using SpaceX rockets for professional | astronomers to use? | tidepod12 wrote: | I have no idea who you're addressing. If it's me, that's | quite a nice strawman you've built. Next time perhaps try | to actually address the words written in my comment | rather than inventing some boogeyman that nobody brought | up except you. | | Here, I'll demonstrate: | | >high-speed Internet access for the entire planet | | Musk himself has said that only a tiny, _tiny_ fraction | of the world will ever be able to use Starlink. It is not | anywhere close to "internet access for the entire | planet", and certainly isn't providing any more internet | access than is already provided by existing satellite | internet providers. | | >or professional astronomers not being able to see into | space as easily as they did 20 years ago? | | In case you weren't aware, astronomy is responsible for | some of the most significant scientific advancements | since for literally millennia. If you really want an | answer to your questions, it's this: professional | astronomers being prevented from doing research is | _significantly_ more of a negative impact to humanity 's | advancement than the positive impact from 0.001% of the | world having access to lower ping internet. It's not even | close. | | >or... Or... OR... Launching massive powerful telescopes | into space using SpaceX rockets for professional | astronomers to use? | | Even with something the size of Starship, it's physically | impossible to launch anything even remotely close to the | size of telescopes needed by professional astronomers. | genericone wrote: | Their livelihoods are under attack, they're going to | fight it regardless of the upside of starlink. | robocat wrote: | No different from city light pollution preventing optical | telescopes being near cities. | | Or radio pollution causing constraints for radio-astronomy. | | My guess is that cheap reliable worldwide internet connectivity | will help science overall by _far_ more than the costs of | modifying terrestrial optical observations to mitigate the | extra satellites. | mempko wrote: | 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... | _Microft wrote: | They only adjust to an orientation in which reflectivity is | reduced once they have reached their proper orbits. You most | likely observed them while they were still boosting themselves | to these orbits. The statement that you saw a "bright line" | makes it sounds like they were launched recently as they spread | out after a while. The boosting process takes a few weeks. | coiledsnake wrote: | > _On my early morning walk I can see the satellites as very | bright (much brighter than the stars) line across the sky._ | | No you do not. Satellites, when visible by the naked eye, are | seen as point sources of light. Dots, not lines. One of two | things has happened here: Either you saw meteor showers and | mistook them for satellites (meteors move fast enough to be | seen as lines, not points of light) or you saw long-exposure | photographs of satellites online, assumed that is what it would | look like through your eyeballs as well, and BSed your story | about seeing them yourself. | | > _Edit. Already downvoted for stating a fact._ | | More likely you were downvoted for either being mistaken or for | lying. | ben_w wrote: | "Did nothing" is different from "didn't do enough": | https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/abc0e9 | jiofih wrote: | How can you tell Starlink from the other 6000 satellites in | space right now? That's an amazing skill. | | If you saw a tight line of satellites, those have just been | launched and are not in their final (higher) orbit. | topkeks wrote: | Are you a TSLAQ retard, because you seem to be complaining | about Musk and Tesla in every thread? | jws wrote: | When the satellites are transitioning to their service orbits | they are not in the low reflectivity orientation. | beebmam wrote: | I'd like to point out that I'm a big astrophotography nerd. And | these satellites are regularly showing up in my long exposure | images. It's really quite a nuisance, and I don't look forward to | it getting worse. | [deleted] | gitgud wrote: | Interesting, can you share some photos? | Havoc wrote: | That's really cool - essentially mission accomplished for | reusability. Clearly they're not degrading fast so with | optimisation more will be possible | kjrose wrote: | Could someone explain to me how/if this resolves the speed issues | that all satellite internet has had since its inception. | [deleted] | Malician wrote: | it's a few hundred miles up instead of 22,300. this means that | it's not geostationary and you gotta switch your dish between | satellites often as they go overhead, but latency is far lower. | kjrose wrote: | Ok, that would make a huge difference. the biggest argument | I"ve made against this with people is simply that the latency | would be terrible (and it's still not great), but it's a | helluva lot better than 22.3k. | xen2xen1 wrote: | And many, many, many more satellites. | Disgardia wrote: | How much is starlink? Hope its cheap, so i can move on from | mobile data | swhalen wrote: | These satellites have marred the night sky. There is more to life | than broadband availability. | ragebol wrote: | Tell that to the people not on this, or any, forum because they | are left behind and don't have any or a decent internet | connection. | | In I were in that spot, I'd happily trade a few bright spots in | the sky for catching up with the developed world. | Symbiote wrote: | It's disappointing indeed that America's failure to provide | rural broadband lumbers the whole world with these satellites. | sto_hristo wrote: | Yeah. City light pollution even more so. Time to deprecate | civilization and go back to the caves. | colinmhayes wrote: | There is more to life than the night sky. | oh_sigh wrote: | Says the guy with broadband availability. | Disgardia wrote: | I'm ready for the high speed it provides | mabbo wrote: | Worth also pointing out: That's the 9th flight of Booster 1051. | And it had a perfect landing. | | The goal of this design of Falcon 9 is to handle 10 flights with | minimum refurbishment. Right now, it looks like they're within a | couple months of achieving that goal for the first time, with | booster 1049 close as well, at 8 flights. | | SpaceX is soon going to reach a point that they don't need to | build more Falcon 9 boosters. | yakz wrote: | Wouldn't they want to continue building them to some extent | just so they don't lose the institutional knowledge of how to | build them? Or is the expectation that Starship will render it | obsolete soon enough? | gameswithgo wrote: | Some clients request brand new boosters, and some mission | profiles require losing the booster. I think there is no | danger of them ceasing to build booster. | vermontdevil wrote: | Saw from one of the Space reporters on Twitter that this | booster will do an April launch of another Starlink mission. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-14 23:01 UTC)