SpaceX Re-Schedules Record-Breaking Launch With 143 Satellites to Sunday (arstechnica.com) 82
Ars Technica reported Saturday that "The Falcon 9 rocket was ready. Its payload of 143 satellites were ready. But Mother Nature was not ready."
Although SpaceX pressed ahead with fueling of the Falcon 9 booster on Saturday morning, the company scrubbed the launch attempt of the Transporter-1 mission a few minutes before the window opened due to weather. Conditions at Cape Canaveral violated the electrical field rule for a safe launch. The company now plans to try to launch again on Sunday morning, with the launch window opening at 10am ET (15:00 UTC).
Slashdot noted earlier that SpaceX plans to launch the most satellites ever deployed in a single mission, 143, from Florida for more than a dozen customers. UPI reports: A 2017 mission by the India Space Research Organization launched 104 spacecraft, which would be the previous record if the SpaceX launch is a success... The Transporter-1 mission is the first in a series of regularly scheduled SpaceX rideshare projects for multiple customers. SpaceX also plans to carry 10 of its Starlink communications satellites on this mission.
"The Starlink satellites aboard this mission will be the first in the constellation to deploy to a polar orbit," according to the SpaceX mission description. Polar orbits circle the globe by passing over the North Pole and South Pole, while many satellites circle above equatorial regions. Houston-based space firm Nanoracks is acting as a broker to arrange some customers for the launch, said Tristan Prejean, a mission manager at Nanoracks. Nanoracks' two customers for Transporter-1 are two satellite companies, California-based Spire Global and Montreal-based GHGSat. Spire launches fleets of small satellites that monitor weather and patterns for shipping for aviation interests. GHGSat monitors industrial emissions of gasses from space -- especially greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
Although SpaceX pressed ahead with fueling of the Falcon 9 booster on Saturday morning, the company scrubbed the launch attempt of the Transporter-1 mission a few minutes before the window opened due to weather. Conditions at Cape Canaveral violated the electrical field rule for a safe launch. The company now plans to try to launch again on Sunday morning, with the launch window opening at 10am ET (15:00 UTC).
Slashdot noted earlier that SpaceX plans to launch the most satellites ever deployed in a single mission, 143, from Florida for more than a dozen customers. UPI reports: A 2017 mission by the India Space Research Organization launched 104 spacecraft, which would be the previous record if the SpaceX launch is a success... The Transporter-1 mission is the first in a series of regularly scheduled SpaceX rideshare projects for multiple customers. SpaceX also plans to carry 10 of its Starlink communications satellites on this mission.
"The Starlink satellites aboard this mission will be the first in the constellation to deploy to a polar orbit," according to the SpaceX mission description. Polar orbits circle the globe by passing over the North Pole and South Pole, while many satellites circle above equatorial regions. Houston-based space firm Nanoracks is acting as a broker to arrange some customers for the launch, said Tristan Prejean, a mission manager at Nanoracks. Nanoracks' two customers for Transporter-1 are two satellite companies, California-based Spire Global and Montreal-based GHGSat. Spire launches fleets of small satellites that monitor weather and patterns for shipping for aviation interests. GHGSat monitors industrial emissions of gasses from space -- especially greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
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> Because a failed satellite is by definition a piece of trash, mr. fuck yourself with a musk dildo
Try tossing a piece of trash up. Seriously, try it yourself. ... ... ...
I'll wait.
Where is the trash now? Still in the air? If you try it, I think you'll find that a piece of trash falls to the ground.
The higher and faster you throw it, the longer it takes to fall.
If you throw it 500,000 meters high at 27,000 km/h, it'll take about 5-10 years to fall.
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Where is the trash now? Still in the air? If you try it, I think you'll find that a piece of trash falls to the ground. The higher and faster you throw it, the longer it takes to fall.
Once you get to orbital velocity, things don't fall down of their own accord. They need air friction, and above about 500 km, there's very little of that.
If you throw it 500,000 meters high at 27,000 km/h, it'll take about 5-10 years to fall.
Actually, that's about right. This site suggests to estimate 10 years for a typical object at 500 km, but 5-10 years is a good range, since it It depends on ballistic coefficient and solar activity.
https://www.spaceacademy.net.a... [spaceacademy.net.au]
And exponentially longer times at higher altitudes; roughly a factor of 3 per hundred kilometers.
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> Once you get to orbital velocity, things don't fall down of their own accord. They need air friction, and above about 500 km, there's very little of that.
There isn't MUCH air. There is air. So rather than falling in one or two seconds like your tennis ball, it takes many thousands of seconds.
They do fall "of their accord". It simply takes a few years to slow down because there isn't MUCH air, there is a LITTLE air.
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There isn't MUCH air. There is air. So rather than falling in one or two seconds like your tennis ball, it takes many thousands of seconds.
If when you say "thousands of seconds" you mean "hundreds of millions of seconds," yes.
They do fall "of their accord". It simply takes a few years to slow down because there isn't MUCH air, there is a LITTLE air.
I had said "very little," and you are replying "there isn't much, there is a little."
I don't see any disagreement, just slightly different phrasing.
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>>They do fall "of their accord". It simply takes a few years to slow down because there isn't MUCH air, there is a LITTLE air.
> I had said "very little," and you are replying "there isn't much, there is a little."
> I don't see any disagreement, just slightly different phrasing.
Agreed.
> If when you say "many thousands of seconds" you mean "hundreds of millions of seconds," yes.
I think you said about 157 million seconds, aka five years.
Somebody, I forget who, seemed to think it won't d
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> Ground-based astronomers think 143 more satellites, working or not, is a big stinking pile of trash.
They do. And when they have Starship-delivered telescopes on the dark side of the Moon they'll mock the shortsightedness of their parents' generation.
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Yeah, because astronomers think it's all about them, that somehow because they look up they own what they are looking at and everyone else should heed their wishes. So if you need internet access and the only way you can get it is via satellite, screw you because astronomers are more important. Take all the satellites down and turn out all the night lights because....astronomers.
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In another 20 years or so, Earth-based observatories will be historical curiosities anyway if we manage to establish "boots on the ground" on the Moon. Launching a Hubble-like telescope to the Moon would be stupid, because it would cost more than putting one in Earth orbit & would only be useful about half the time... but with "boots on the Moon", it becomes viable to deploy a whole SHITLOAD of remote observatories along the Moon's surface (sending the electronics, mirrors, and lenses from Earth, but bu
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Air resistance. You can try it out yourself (Score:5, Informative)
You can test the mechanism yourself and prove to yourself that it works.
Grab a piece of paper and was it up, or you can use a soda bottle or a ball or any other object. Throw it. I think you'll see that after a little while it slows down and falls to the ground.
You may notice that your ball doesn't require a working computer and other systems to make itself fall. Stuff just falls. Nigel Calder has a good explanation of the mechanism that makes that happen of you're interested.
If you then throw something out of your upstairs window, you might find that takes longer to fall to the ground. If your upstairs was 10,000 stories up and you threw the ball at 17,000 mph you'd find it takes about 5-10 years for it to fall to the ground.
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The deorbiting mechanism being the atmosphere at 500km.
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https://www.nasa.gov/news/debr... [nasa.gov]
Debris left in orbits below 370 miles (600 km) normally fall back to Earth within several years.
What is your basic for the claim that 500km will take at least 50 years?
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This is why the moon is going to fall on our head just any minute now.... Stuff just falls. You will see, everything up in the sky falls down, raymorris says. Just try it with some trash you through in the air. See? This is why the moon will fall down any moment now.
The speed the discourse on this site degenerates is astonishing.
(BTW: I am theoretical physicist. Just please stop saying anything, please!)
The moon actually isn't in the atmosphere (Score:2)
> Re:Air resistance
> This is why the moon is going to fall on our head
> I am theoretical physicist. Just please stop saying anything, please!)
If you're theoretically a physicist, you might want to take notice of the fact that air resistance doesn't happen where there is no air. The moon isn't actually in the atmosphere, you see.
If you're studying physics, you can probably figure out where to look up "layers of the atmosphere". These particular satellites are a layer called the thermosphere. At ab
Re:That's a lot of trash (Score:5, Informative)
"It's all just garbage in a few years."
And just one country, wait until 195 countries do the same.
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Fuck you for not wanting people to have internet, GPS, or weather reports.
Re: Time to get out the record laser (Score:2)
Has somebody done the math on that?
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Output power is not a very big issue, but keeping the beam focused at 300+ km will probably be.
Laser debris removal [Re: Time to get out the ...] (Score:2)
Has somebody done the math on that? [laser de-orbiting of space debris]
In fact, yes. A lot of thinking on that subject in the late 90s and early 2000s. Some randomly chosen references:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citation... [nasa.gov]
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.383... [arxiv.org]
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.383... [arxiv.org]
https://www.researchgate.net/p... [researchgate.net]
More recently, Philip Lubin's group at UCSB has done some good work: http://wedge.deepspace.ucsb.ed... [ucsb.edu]
Might aswell start dumping his other thrash too. (Score:2)
So they have the removal included in the cost and business plan?
Because otherwise, this will be abandoned in a few years, when they are at their end of life, outdated, or the business running them is outsourced, bought out, and sucked dry with a controlled bankruptcy, by a hedge fund.
Dumping the actual removal cost on us. As always.
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"Relatively quickly" is quite meaningless here. It looks like that a small satellite in such an orbit will take decades to reenter. That's not quick by any definition of the word except astronomical.
Re:Might aswell start dumping his other thrash too (Score:5, Informative)
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About 5 years, depending on the exact mass, size, and the solar activity.
?
Re: Might aswell start dumping his other thrash to (Score:5, Informative)
According to this site, at around 500km a satellite might be expected to deorbit naturally in a decade. https://www.spaceacademy.net.a... [spaceacademy.net.au]
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Hmm, should we go with the multiple credible sources, or should we go with the anonymous guy that made shit up.... decisions decisions....
Re:Might aswell start dumping his other thrash too (Score:4, Insightful)
They are in a 525km high orbit, and small satellites have more drag, so they'll all deorbit relatively quickly.
In other words, all the materials which went into making these satellites will be lost forever, never to be reused or recycled. For a guy which talks about being "green" with his electric cars, it sure is amazing how wasteful he is with this.
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Re:Might aswell start dumping his other thrash too (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure someone down the line said "5 tons of plastic is nothing in the size of the oceans. Don't worry about it."
The principle that anyone can throw whatever load of soon-to-be-obsolete business materials into orbit any time they feel like it is not one I am very happy about.
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A lot of it ends up as ions in the ocean.
We don't have the technology to recycle much any way. Some bulk common materials and that's it, all the uncommon metals in complex items are lost to us at this point and likely at any point which matters unless there is some singularity to save us. Peak everything and our inability to recycle complex composite items is going to hit humanity hard.
If the singularity saves us we can mine ions from the ocean.
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What do you mean by "wasteful"?
This material doesn't disappear, it was utilised, produces viable science or other economic value and disintegrated (i.e. burns) on re-entry - aka was returned to the Earth in it's almost purest form. When one eats a banana and mostly breaths it out in the form of CO2 (with part of it in other forms), which later banana tree can absorb to produce new bananas - is it wasteful?
Mini/cube satellites are mostly aluminium, silicon and plastics (carbon, oxygen and hydrogen), so mostl
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At 525 km their orbital life time will far outlast their useful lifetime. They will be de-orbited on purpose long before drag takes its tole.
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Yes, it's called gravity. Starlink satellites will be in LEO (more specifically, at an altitude of 500 km [wikipedia.org]). SpaceX plans are to deorbit them when they go EOL, so the "years" time only applies if the satellite dies before it can be deorbited. Each satellite weighs about 260kg, so 12,000 satellites is about 3,120 tonnes. To put that into perspective, 15,000 tonnes [wikipedia.org] of meteoroids enter the atmosphere every year. However StarLink satellites will have a life expectancy of about 4 years [citation needed], so they
Re: Might aswell start dumping his other thrash to (Score:1)
Dumping the actual removal cost on us.
Lots of zeroes raining down on your head and possibly a little ash.
Re: BOOOOM (Score:1)
Keep going, let's block out the sun! (Score:1)
Yes the sky and space are vast, but humans always find a way of filling open spaces with junk. Just look between our ears.
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Can't speak to any other nation
But if the telcos in the USA had spent the money we gave them like they promised (building out the last mile) then we wouldn't even need this shit
P.S. It was hundreds of billions of dollars
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But if the telcos in the USA had spent the money we gave them like they promised (building out the last mile) then we wouldn't even need this shit
The part you really arent going to like is that they did build it out. The money was given to them when 1Mbit was an extremely fast home connection (the fastest most would have had access to before the funding was ISDN, while most people ran 56K modems or slower), and DSL being DSL, the telcos that built out couldnt compete with the cablecos that built out.
The cableco's at the time frequently advertised as "@HOME" as part of that funding, and most of the cable broadband today is still running through the
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The part you really arent going to like is that they did build it out.
No, they didn't. They never managed to meet the requirements of the programs at the time. And frankly, they haven't even done what they claimed they would do at the time, either, and I don't know why you imagine that they did. Remember Pacific Bell? Yeah, way back before they were acquired by SBC, which was in turn acquired by ATT. They promised that they would have every subscriber wired up to DSL by 2000. They were bought out by ATT in 1997, but retained the Pacific Bell name until 2002. Neither Pac Bell
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Just keep tossing junk in the sky and eventually we won't have to worry about global warming.
I assume that this is intended to be satirical.
It would take about a hundred trillion Starlink sized satellites to block out enough sunlight to make a significant amount of shade. If we're launching ten trillion satellites a year, I expect that the world will have changed a lot in other ways as well.
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"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."
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Hahahaha. .. Do you know how many cars are in the world? Nearly 1,500,000,000. That's 1.5 billion. Is the ground blotted out with cars? A car is way smaller than these satellites and there aren't any cars driving around in the ocean.
Idiot.
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I think you meant a car is way larger than these satellites.
Each satellite is only ~260kg at launch. Cars are around 4X that, with average mass around 1 metric ton(1k kg). You're right, these satellites, on the scale of just about everything except maybe printer ink, are tiny.
Launch scrubbed, trying again on Sun 24th (Score:1)
Today's launch was scrubbed at around T-6 mins owing to the weather not cooperating.
Another launch attempt is scheduled for tomorrow, Sun 24th Jan at 10am EDT / 1500 UTC.
I just love SPIN (Score:1)
Man, don't you just love the way UPI spins such a simple fact, and not even very successfully? Why wouldn't something like the following be preferrable?
The current record is 104 spacecraft, which were launched by the India Space Research Organization in 2017.
It's no wonder people worldwide are so mistrustful of the mainstream media's ability to "inform imp
In Soviet Russia (Score:2)
Typical shitty Florida weather (Score:2)
SpaceX could dramatically improve its cadence just by doing all launches from Boca Chica, not from the Cape.
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> SpaceX could dramatically improve its cadence just by doing all launches from Boca Chica, not from the Cape.
A launch mount for Superheavy is currently under construction there.
Business plan? (Score:2)
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The customer being the owner of the satellites. Not the customers of them.
I.e starlink missions only have 1 customer.
In other news (Score:2)