
SpaceX launches sixty Starlink satellites on thrice-flown rocket, sticks landing - kerng
https://www.space.com/spacex-launches-60-starlink-internet-satellites.html
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forgingahead
There's an episode of Stargate SG1 ("Absolute Power" in Season 4), whereby one
of the main characters in imbued with alien knowledge and leads a program to
launch a constellation of satellites, ostensibly as protection for Earth
against hostile invaders, however it turns out to be a massive weapons system
used for geopolitical advantage.

Starlink is incredible and ambitious, but that was the first thing that came
to mind.

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practice9
Isn't that a common trope? (Was also used in one of Marvel's Avengers movies
if I'm not mistaken)

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wmeredith
Yes. I believe it was a Stark Industries product called Iron Shield.

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jacquesm
Interesting tidbit: the satellites were simply shoved out into space on the
orbit they were already on without any effort to separate them or spread them
out nicely along predefined orbits. It's funny how I imagined this whole thing
as a giant orchestrated space ballet and instead it's more like throwing a
handful of sand into the winds and wait to see where they end up.

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kfrzcode
Why don't I see more discussion about ablation cascade, aka Kessler syndrome?
That seems like a serious concern.

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foxyv
Every launch has to account for de-orbiting and debris avoidance. In this
case, satellites will be intentionally de-orbited when their Krypton fuel gets
low and they can no longer station keep. The Starlink site has a quick blurb
about it:

"Starlink is on the leading edge of on-orbit debris mitigation, meeting or
exceeding all regulatory and industry standards."

"At end of life, the satellites will utilize their on-board propulsion system
to deorbit over the course of a few months. In the unlikely event the
propulsion system becomes inoperable, the satellites will burn up in Earth’s
atmosphere within 1-5 years, significantly less than the hundreds or thousands
of years required at higher altitudes."

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kfrzcode
I cannot imagine how complex it would be to simultaneously track each
significant piece of space trash.

After doing some Googlin', I found this cool interactive map

[https://satellites.wearejust.com/](https://satellites.wearejust.com/)

There are others too.

Crazy engineering!

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sdan
History in the making

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sidcool
I have been posting a lot of SpaceX kudos lately, but they absolutely deserve
it. I wonder if Tesla were private, away from the watering mouths of Wall
Street greed, it could do a lot better.

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adventured
Being public isn't the primary problem for Tesla.

Tesla would do a lot better if they had a world-class industrial CEO like Alan
Mulally or the equivalent running the show. Tesla needs their Gwynne Shotwell.
Musk should focus on product, technology, evangelizing, etc. Tesla needs more
Tim Cook right now, pushing manufacturing efficiencies and process perfection,
than it needs a Steve Jobs running the show. There is no great reason Musk
needs to be CEO of Tesla, his particular skill is elsewhere.

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Jedd
Always compelling to see people who aren't Elon, Tim, Alan, Steve, or Gwynne
describing what large corporations _need_ to do.

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zaroth
Seriously this. A Tesla wouldn’t be a Tesla if not for Elon at the helm.

They’re producing nearly 1,000/day at this point. I’d say they’re in for quite
a nice Q2.

Once Giga3 turns on (optimistically targeted to be by the end of the year),
they’ll be producing at a rate of over half a million cars a year. Hard to
believe they’ll have the battery capacity for that (37.5GW)

