
SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites - tosh
https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/03/spacex-launches-60-more-starlink-satellites-and-records-a-reusability-record-for-a-falcon-9-booster/
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sontek
As someone who lives in the mountains of Puerto Rico and has to rely on
"unlimited" cell phone coverage that data caps me and satellite internet that
also has data caps.... I can't wait until starlink is up and running and we
may have an option for high speed, low latency, internet for us who hate
cities and love nature :)

~~~
pier25
We lived for a year in some mountains in Mexico in an off-the-grid cabin. We
became accustomed to everything (energy starvation, driving 30 mins to the
nearest village, 2 hours to the nearest city, etc) except the lack of
connectivity.

I bought one of those huge Wifi antenna to connect to an open Wifi of a rural
school a couple of kilometers away. It was empty after 2pm so we had 4Mbps
just for ourselves all afternoon and night (if we had a sunny day and our
batteries were full). That lasted about 8 months until someone built a barn or
something and installed some electricity poles. We weren't able to connect
anymore.

After that we drove almost daily to the village and spent a couple of hours in
a café with a flaky 2Mbps connection but it became unpractical. We went back
to civilization 2 months later or so.

If Starlink would have been available back then maybe we'd still be living in
the mountains!

~~~
flexvision
> huge Wifi antenna to connect to an open Wifi of a rural school a couple of
> kilometers away

That's impressive, but how did this work from the school's side? Wouldn't they
need a huge wifi antenna too?

~~~
nrki
"huge" antennas usually have high gain, which increases your signal-to-noise
ratio - both Rx and Tx.

So one can "hear" signals further away and "speak" softer than would.be
normally necessary.

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pensatoio
This was the fifth time this particular booster launched and landed
successfully. Incredible.

~~~
new_realist
Like the Space Shuttle.

~~~
Valgrim
I didn't know the space shuttle reused it's boosters. Apparently the two solid
rocket boosters deployed parachutes after separation and were refurbished.
Interesting! However the main booster could not be reused...

~~~
hylaride
By "main booster" did you mean the big red thing? That was a fuel storage tank
and yes, it was not re-used.

~~~
DC-3
I believe it was actually one of the more strongly limiting factors on the
frequency with which space shuttle launches could be conducted because the
factory producing them could not turn them out particularly quickly.

~~~
mohaine
Or get foam to reliably attach.

~~~
numpad0
At least the H2 vent access arm can be visually verified retracted :p

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ktrl
There has been a lot of discussion about light pollution from the 1500+
planned Starlink satellites. However much of the discussion is based on the
assumption that the world will collectively let Starlink operate as monopoly.

How much will light pollution increase when the next competitor launches 1500+
satellites?

How much will light pollution increase when a Chinese competitor launches yet
another 1500+ satellites?

~~~
thekyle
I'm more concerned about the space junk aspect of it. My understanding is that
as satellites collide they produce millions of tiny deadly particles. If we
have enough of those in orbit then it will effectively trap us on earth.

I'm all for faster internet, but not at the cost of making space travel
impossible.

~~~
modeless
SpaceX moved the satellites to lower orbits, so any broken satellites or
debris will fall out of the sky within a few years due to atmospheric drag.
And they are specifically designed to burn up completely in reentry. The real
concern is in higher orbits where debris would persist for millennia. This is
not a concern for Starlink.

~~~
CrLf
A collision can eject debris into higher orbits.

~~~
modeless
Not really. The only way a collision could truly raise an orbit is if a
resulting piece of debris had far higher velocity than either incoming
satellite which, while maybe not theoretically impossible, seems exceedingly
unlikely. Furthermore, the way orbital mechanics works, all orbits resulting
from a collision go through the point of the collision, so the collision of
two objects in circular orbits can never result in an orbit with higher
perigee. The orbit of debris may turn from circular to elliptical with a
higher apogee, but those orbits will almost certainly have lower perigees and
decay faster.

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jblake
I'm so excited for Starlink! As a solo founder I do all of my support, but I
like to frequently go off-roading and camping outside of cell service. I have
a satellite messenger for critical things, but it still leaves me feeling
quite anxious to go on extended trips. If I can toss a starlink dish in a
briefcase and get fast affordable internet in the Sierra's, life will be good.

~~~
xenospn
I wanted to move to rural OR/WA a couple of years ago, but couldn't find a
single property with high-speed internet. This is (hopefully) a game-changer.

~~~
walrus01
You didn't look hard enough - for example big chunks of rural Okanogan county
are covered by WISP services from a company called NCI. Same in many other
areas.

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xenospn
Might not have been in my price range/area. I'll look again!

~~~
walrus01
Let me know if you want to look for WISPs in any particular county or area. I
know where most of them are in rural eastern OR and WA.

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erwinh
See the full constellation in development here [https://space-
search.io/?search=starlink](https://space-search.io/?search=starlink)

This latest launch should be in the dataset soon!

~~~
power78
Wow, fascinating website. When you are selecting Atlas or Falcon, are those
the orbits of the leftover second stages? If so, why are some of their orbits
so large? Were they placing a satellite that far out?

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modeless
The satellites may be visible over the SF bay area tonight around 9:35 PM:
[https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink](https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink)

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rootusrootus
Even for those of us living in a suburban area, it will be great having
another option to use as a bludgeon against Comcast. Right now they can just
laugh if you say you're going to cancel due to a rate hike, because they know
the next-fastest provider is 4 Mbps.

~~~
londons_explore
Whats wrong with 4G? Cellular isn't the fastest, but I still get 70 Mbps and
20 millisecond pings on a pretty regular basis.

I'd say it's certainly good enough to use if your cable company wants to
charge too much.

~~~
Rebelgecko
At least at my location and with my carrier, 4G and 5G don't give anything
close to those speeds

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eloff
My parents live in the rain forest in the mountains of Panama. They struggle
with slow ADSL that goes to hell whenever moisture gets into the lines or it
rains. It's the rainy season now, and you can imagine it rains often in the
rain forest. Their internet is awful, we try to time or Skype calls for when
it is not raining. They can boost the signal slightly by leaving their phone
off the hook. Sometimes they tether with a weak signal on 3g. They are so
eagerly awaiting the public availability of starlink.

I think in the cities of the developed world we don't realize how big this
going to be for rural dwellers and people in the developing world.

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_curious_
I can't believe it's been 10 years since the first flight of Falcon 9.

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sunseb
Just a question. Will we actually see those things in the nightsky? I hope
not...

~~~
ceejayoz
Yes, they're visible in the night sky (close to dawn/dusk; you won't see one
at 2am).

~~~
sunseb
Thanks your answer! :)

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TenJack
I'm kinda bummed Starlink is not going to lead to cheaper consumer internet
and replace cable internet. Sounds like it is mainly for rural areas which is
great but I hoped it was going to bunny hop fiber.

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tomerico
Not initially, but as cost to orbit goes down and the satellite tech improves,
it could become the default way over time.

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the-pigeon
Can the spectrum they are using support that many users?

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mensetmanusman
future versions of the cybertruck will have phase array starlink antennas on
the roof.

Combined with covid / unrest / remote work, starlink could dramatically enable
population decentralization.

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benmw333
Any public knowledge out there for who builds and supplies the components for
Starlink satellites?

~~~
ChickeNES
SpaceX does all work in-house AFAIK.

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codekilla
Can anyone specify the coverage this will have in the Northern US? Are there
any coverage maps?

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renox
Have they stopped trying to catch the fairings? Nobody talk about this
anymore..

~~~
ChickeNES
They haven't. In fact, the fairing catcher ships were out for yesterday's
launch, though no news if they were successful or not yet

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giomasce
What is the total bandwidth Starlink is going to use once it is fully
deployed?

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mohit
This is good website to track the location of starlink satellites near you:
[https://findstarlink.com/](https://findstarlink.com/)

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new_realist
Are these still missing laser comms?

~~~
SEJeff
Yes. They couldn't make them entirely burn up on re-entry so the FAA blocked
them using them until they solve that. It is the risk of them falling on
someone.

~~~
jetrink
I'm curious what the level of risk actually is. The earth is struck by many
small meteorites every day. We don't know how many, but based on how many are
observed, it's probably on the order of 10/day. The last person struck by a
meteorite was Ann Hodges in 1954. She was only bruised, since, like most
people at any given time, she was protected by a roof. A woman named Lottie
Williams was struck by part of a Delta rocket in 1997 and was also uninjured.
The chance of hitting someone is tiny and even then, it's not necessarily
fatal or even serious. And wouldn't SpaceX be able to de-orbit the satellites
over unpopulated areas, except in rare cases where there was some sort of loss
of command?

Maybe living in a world where a trip to the grocery store can have fatal
consequences has warped mysense of risk, but this doesn't seem worth worrying
about.

~~~
Rebelgecko
Somewhere in the FCC filings there's a NASA ODAR report on Starlink. The
typical standard used is that the odds of death or injury when something
reenters stay below 1 in 10,000. However I wouldn't be surprised if that gets
adjusted in the future. Within a few years we will see constellations that are
so large that statistically speaking they would be allowed to kill a few
people

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fossuser
I don't know how Loon [0] (graduated Google X project) can look at this and
justify their continued existence.

Low earth orbit satellites with global coverage seem like such a better
approach than balloons that you have to handle in the air assuming the
following is true:

\- Latency difference between the two is negligible

\- Satellites are not uniquely affected by weather

\- Balloons are not better in some other unknown way?

I wonder if they're seeing this as the existential threat that it is.

What am I missing?

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiEZfRh-
h-s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiEZfRh-h-s)
[https://loon.com/](https://loon.com/)

~~~
gpm
Balloons don't cost a million dollars to launch.

Balloons can be concentrated in the areas where they are needed most. The
nature of non-geosynchronous orbital planes is you end up having to distribute
satellites roughly uniformly around the earth (you get non-uniform effects
with latitude but in very limited ways).

Balloons can be brought down and be serviced, satellites are basically throw
it up there and replace it when it breaks.

Google already has experience with being an ISP with fiber and fi.

I tend to agree that starlink is winning, but balloons do have some
advantages.

~~~
fossuser
SpaceX is developing the launch capability so this is even more concerning for
Loon since they can't really compete on that reduced cost. Launch is also
mostly an up front cost, balloon launch, tracking, and recovery is recurring.

I think you're right on balloon concentration and there's a narrow use case
here for things like congested events, but it's pretty niche. I think Starlink
is trying to get uniform satellite distribution? Global coverage in the common
case seems a lot more important than concentration as long as you can meet the
minimum bandwidth required (which they probably can).

I think servicing is a good point, maybe the balloons can improve faster as a
result, but it's also a negative (having to service/track them all of the
time). It's also not global coverage - has Loon given up on this goal
entirely?

Global coverage for Starlink means access to a global customer market which
can help cover their increased costs (since I'd guess margins after launch are
low). Without a global market even if Loon has lower costs it'll be harder for
them to get the revenue to cover them.

> "Google already has experience with being an ISP with fiber and fi."

They abandoned Fiber and I hear Fi kind of sucks, but you're right that this
is a point in their favor.

These feel like rationalizations of a losing position to me.

If I worked at Loon I would be worried.

