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40 sats makes up about 2% of the current fleet - so a rounding error in cost and time. The important part of this news is how those 40 sats deorbit and leave n
by oxplot 5y ago
40 sats makes up about 2% of the current fleet - so a rounding error in cost and time.
The important part of this news is how those 40 sats deorbit and leave no junk either in orbit or on earth.
- Victerius 5y agoSpaceX should build a satellite picker satellite to collect their dysfunctional Starlink satellites and bring them back on Earth. They could study their vulnerabilities and apply the lessons learned to shield future Starlink satellites against solar storms.
- oxplot 5y agoThey are building that - it’s called Starship and one of the configurations will be a cargo ship with a bay and an arm that can pick stuff up and bring them back.
- nmstoker 5y agoIt is not that the satellites were insufficiently shielded against solar storms, it's that the atmosphere was impacted and thus their tactic of low Earth orbit didn't work at this precise moment.
- HWR_14 5y agoThe press release implies that the issue is known. They entered a safe mode just after launch, and had not yet reached an orbit from which they were able to successfully leave safe mode.
- bagels 5y agoA complete waste of resources. Cheaper just to send more of them up there. They know what caused these to come down.
- mlindner 5y agoYou apparently did not read the article as the solar storm did not in fact knock out any satellites.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoAn entire launch worth of satellites is not a "rounding error." The carbon impact of just one launch is pretty obscene.
- kant_adorn_arts 5y agoI think it is worth having a conversation about the actual numbers for carbon cost for launches, vs cost of other internet deployment technologies. Starlink is really cool but I want to know if I'm a fanatic or making rational decisions.
- oxplot 5y agoIn context of 1700 starlink satellites already in orbit and 30+ launches that put them there, it’s a rounding error. Same goes for carbon impact, etc.
- codeyperson 5y ago1700 - 40 = 1660. Rounded it to the nearest integer.
- cshimmin 5y agoIn scientific notation (orders of magnitude is what matters here): 1.700e3 rounded -> 2e3 1.660e3 rounded -> 2e3 Put another way: if your bill for lunch is $16.60, wouldn't you just as easily call it $17? Or even $20, if you're feeling a bit imprecise?
- oxplot 5y agoYes, where I live, a lot of businesses charge you credit card surcharge of 2-3%. That’s $17 for a $16.60 priced item.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Dylan16807 5y ago
- cshimmin 5y agoFrom the press release: "up to 40 of the satellites will reenter or already have reentered the Earth’s atmosphere. The deorbiting satellites pose zero collision risk with other satellites and by design demise upon atmospheric reentry—meaning no orbital debris is created and no satellite parts hit the ground." The satellites are deliberately inserted into a low orbit so that any that fail to initialize properly will get pulled down by atmospheric drag. After successful initialization, they travel to a higher orbit (where presumably deorbiting under failure is more of an issue).
- root_axis 5y agoI guess I'm being pedantic, but as a percentage of a whole, isn't 2% not a rounding error by definition?
- vmception 5y agoit’s a fraction …. as long as we are using whole numbers
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- usrusr 5y agoThose satellites are small but not infinitesimally small. So yeah, I'd say them going down in whole number units is a safe bet.
- p1mrx 5y agoIt is if you're rounding to the nearest 5%.
- shswkna 5y agoSomeone driving a venture, that is trying to become profitable will disagree.
- z3t4 5y agoWith the same logic you could say that covid was a rounding error. Human lives are more valuable then satellites though
- nine_k 5y agoIf you earned $100k, that would be $2000. Would you write it off as a rounding error?
- notreallyserio 5y agoYeah. I mean, if I was doing something risky.
- Firmwarrior 5y agoHanging out on WallStreetBets? Yes Paying for lunch? No
- pmalynin 5y agoI already write off 43k due to taxes, so sure, why not .
- sgtnoodle 5y agoMaybe rounding error isn't the best term, but it seems below the threshold to worry about. Here in California, probably at least 30K of it would go to taxes anyway, and I wouldn't know how much within $2000 of accuracy unless I paid a tax accountant $300 to type the numbers into their software. Notably, the IRS requires you to be within 90% of your tax liability over the year to avoid penalties. 0.1*30k is $3000, so the IRS seemingly agrees that $2000 on $100K is below the threshold of being substantial.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hajile 5y ago2% of a big number is still a big number. 62M to launch. 250-500k per satellite. That's $72M to $82M down the toilet. Given median per-person income is around $36k, that represents over 2,000 man-years of loss. There are less than 30,000 people out of 7,900,000,000 in the entire world worth more than 100M. You could buy around 20 windmills and power 15,000 entire homes per year with that money (or around 40,000 homes with natural gas).
- JaimeThompson 5y agoWhat Bezos is paying for his boat could pay for all of that 6 times over.
- ineedasername 5y agoIt might not be the full $62M though. SpaceX often launches other payloads at the same time. I recall one that sent off a couple of BlackSky says at the same time. I don't know what % of the payload that constitutes though, and as I write this out I realize that I'm probably splitting hairs...
- hajile 5y agohttps://spaceflightnow.com/2022/01/06/spacex-deploys-49-more-starlink-satellites-in-first-launch-of-2022/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/01/06/spacex-deploys-49-more... This had 48 satellites, so definitely a dedicated launch.
- ineedasername 5y agoThe launch I referenced with BlackSky also had 48 satelites: https://www.satellitetoday.com/launch/2021/12/02/spacex-launches-starlink-batch-with-2-rideshare-blacksky-satellites/ https://www.satellitetoday.com/launch/2021/12/02/spacex-laun... I didn't find a quick # of lift capacity of Falcon 9 to LEO in reusable mode, but SpaceX has stated >= 60% capacity in reusable mode. LEO in non-reusable mode has about 23,000kg, so there could be a fair bit of headroom for extra mass in LEO reusable mode even with 48 starlink sats. Admittedly, probably not enough to really change the magnitude of the GGP's calculations.
- slingnow 5y agoIf we end up losing 2% of the population due to covid, I look forward to the news briefing that this loss is just a rounding error.
- oxplot 5y agoGlobal death is 1% in a year. And you won’t hear about it, because it’s rounding error.