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Are these still missing laser comms?

SEJeff 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
  - rkangel 6y ago
    It's about risk tradeoffs. Slight risk of fatal debris collision vs benefit of Starlink? Probably worth the risk. Slight risk vs cost of having Starlink design into more burnable bits? Probably worth having them redesign.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    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
- vmception 6y ago
  What's the plan there, it seems to be one of the primary features. Will they go up and add them retroactively or do they plan to just deploy so many satellites that have them later.
  - SEJeff 6y ago
    They just deploy the "Starlink v2" satellites when they're able to.
- adriancooney 6y ago
  Imagine the FCC being your CI. > git commit -m "lasers" > Test failed: broken satellites > No debris found on earth on re-entry
blakesterz 6y ago
A fairly recent stackechange post on this: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/41142/do-the-latest-starlink-satellites-use-inter-satellite-laser-communications https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/41142/do-the-lates... (I had no idea what "laser comms" were, unfortunately they're not laser cannons but rather lasers for communications between satellites. Which is still pretty cool)

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 6y ago
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.
- rkangel 6y ago
  It's about risk tradeoffs. Slight risk of fatal debris collision vs benefit of Starlink? Probably worth the risk. Slight risk vs cost of having Starlink design into more burnable bits? Probably worth having them redesign.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  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
vmception 6y ago
What's the plan there, it seems to be one of the primary features. Will they go up and add them retroactively or do they plan to just deploy so many satellites that have them later.
- SEJeff 6y ago
  They just deploy the "Starlink v2" satellites when they're able to.
adriancooney 6y ago
Imagine the FCC being your CI. > git commit -m "lasers" > Test failed: broken satellites > No debris found on earth on re-entry

blakesterz 6y ago

A fairly recent stackechange post on this: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/41142/do-the-latest-starlink-satellites-use-inter-satellite-laser-communications https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/41142/do-the-lates... (I had no idea what "laser comms" were, unfortunately they're not laser cannons but rather lasers for communications between satellites. Which is still pretty cool)