
SpaceX Launch: Starlink 12 [video] - cjnicholls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j4xR7LMCGY
======
codeulike
Everyone is commenting saying how mundane it has become to see the landings.
Hence you might enjoy this official SpaceX Blooper reel from 2017 that shows
the numerous spectacular failures that they worked through.

Innovation is a type of gamble. People forget that.

"SpaceX: How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ)

(and regular reminder that these things are 12-storey high explosive tubes)

~~~
skvark
If the Falcon 9 landings feel mundane, I would recommend to follow Starship
development. Starship SN6 might do a 150 meter hop later today:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky5l9ZxsG9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky5l9ZxsG9M)

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mabbo
The true beauty of SpaceX is that they've made landing their boosters boring
(almost). This makes their competitors throwing them away seem stupid.

It also shows how clever it was to livestream so much of what they do. So many
people have seen a rocket booster land. Children today will hear that ULA
doesn't land their boosters and ask "why not?".

~~~
imglorp
Let's talk about the "why not" for a second.

The incumbents have 200 years of collective head start over SpaceX, which
started from scratch in 2002. They had 18 years to use that advantage to beat
everyone else to reusable space access while remaining in the cherry
procurement positions. Instead, they mismanaged, wrecked their quality
culture, and lobbied for more handouts.

Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying
another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the China
card.

[https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-
national-s...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-
security/elon-musks-spacex-nasa-contracts-threatened-over-tesla-china-ties)

~~~
tenpies
> Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying
> another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the
> China card.

That's quite the leap, although I can see your logic.

Ultimately Musk should have seen this coming because it's obvious. He's tied a
huge amount of his net worth to the favour of the CCP and involved himself
with a program of national importance to a country that is at odds with the
CCP.

What's worst, Musk has zero respect for any sort of arms length separation
between his companies, so it's almost guaranteed that the CCP has some level
of access to SpaceX IP as they expand their grasp on Tesla through Shanghai.

This was all easily avoidable if Musk didn't insist on thinking that if he
didn't personally come up with the idea, the idea must be idiotic.

~~~
asfasfasf12
So if I fall your logic correctly then Boeing, which is part of ULA, is also
in CCP's pockets. They produce planes there, a lot. Just one example.

~~~
nickik
This. Embracing level of argument. Lets ignore the fact also that the US had a
50+ year standing relationship with China and it encouraged its companies to
work there, including China in the WTO and so on.

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bronco21016
It really is quite incredible how _boring_ this has become. I was chatting
with a friend who used to follow all of this stuff closely with me at the
beginning of the landing attempts. He wasn’t tuning in this morning (US east
coast) because he didn’t find it exciting without the almost 50/50 chance the
Stage 1 booster would RUD on landing.

Starhopper 150M hop window opened today. Hoping to see some action there as
that seems to be the new hotbed of SpaceX excitement. Not that I wish for a
RUD but it’s far more likely to see something crazy on these early experiments
making it more fun to watch.

~~~
waynenilsen
Last hop there was no RUD but the raptor did quite a job to the launch mount
it was definitely entertaining if not unexpected.

~~~
danw1979
The “small fire” around the raptor engine pipework also added to the tension,
even though we knew it was a success by the time we had that footage.

It definitely had that prototype feel to it.

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shantara
An interesting detail mentioned during the webcast was that SpaceX have
already performed initial testing of inter-satellite links on a pair of
Starlink satellites.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Was that laser or radio links?

~~~
shantara
The commentator called them "space lasers" on stream

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ttul
I love that the presenter is a female engineer. How inspiring this must be for
millions of girls around the world. Hopefully it encourages more girls to take
on engineering to help provide a better balance of gender in the field.

~~~
vardump
So is SpaceX President & COO Gwynne Shotwell.

You might be interested in her TEDx talk:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQPNDNulVc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQPNDNulVc)

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erwinh
Thats becoming one massive constellation [https://space-
search.io/?search=starlink](https://space-search.io/?search=starlink)

~~~
krick
Is it even possible to take them down without scattering debris all over the
orbit later on?

Also, is orbit considered to be a free real estate? Does the first one to call
dibs just take it or what? It's sure slowly getting a bit crowded over there.

~~~
jccooper
They already deorbit Starlink sats regularly. The "prototype" birds from the
first launch are being decommissioned. SpaceX could hit a button (well, run a
script, probably) and Starlink would disappear within 2-4 weeks.

Earth orbit is kinda first-come, first-served, though there is some
coordination for GEO and large constellations via FCC and the ITU. It's really
not particularly crowded. Starlink in particular basically occupies only one
orbital shell at the moment, and not a particularly popular one, though it'll
eventually have three or so.

~~~
moralestapia
>SpaceX could hit a button (well, run a script, probably) and Starlink would
disappear within 2-4 weeks.

Make me wonder what kind of security is in place to prevent a bad actor from
doing that.

Is there some 'field' of CS that deals with this? I would love to read about
it.

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stemc43
I've had so many outages this month with Cox. Can't wait for this project to
start rolling out to consumers.

~~~
chasd00
my wife and i are looking at property in the mountains of SE Oklahoma. I'm
hoping starlink comes online in the next 2-3 years.

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cowmix
They nailed the landing of the booster and I yawned.

Amazing.

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ape4
At 9:33 she says "100 Megabytes/second". Probably megabits/second. Still cool.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Eric Berger confirmed with SpaceX that it is 100 megabits.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/spacex-
launches-12th...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/spacex-
launches-12th-starlink-mission-says-users-getting-100-mbps-downloads)

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jguimont
What will be the speed of the internet down and up link when fully
operational? The video said 100Mbps at low latency. Do they expect more
afterward?

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perilunar
The satellite deployment seemed a bit wonky at the end of the video. Like they
were tangled. Hope it went ok.

~~~
_Microft
SpaceX hosts said during earlier launches that these satellites are built to
be able to bump into each other after payload separation. SpaceX chose to
stack the satellites on top of each other to save mass and volume that a
larger payload adapter would have required. The stacked satellites are held
together by 'tension rods' which are released to let them separate. In today's
launch, you can actually see a rod being released [0]. Normally they lose the
video feed around that time. They separate relatively easily because the
second stage spins up to 'throw' them out. It didn't look worse than during
other launches.

[https://www.starlink.com/](https://www.starlink.com/) has an image carousel
with renders of the satellites and the stack if someone wants to have a closer
look.

[0] [https://youtu.be/_j4xR7LMCGY?t=1780](https://youtu.be/_j4xR7LMCGY?t=1780)

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manuelabeledo
So, what about upload speeds?

