SpaceX does it again!!! + Rolling out Starlink

[Sailor Steve]

Pretty amazing, that. As usual, yesterday's science fiction is today's experimental technology and tomorrow's mundane reality. When Star Trek first aired the Communicators were thought to be impossible. Just fifty years later the modern cell phone is so far beyond what they dreamed of then that those too young to have been there can't imagine what it was like.

These vertically-landing rockets were also once the stuff of science fiction, and there was a time when even travelling into space was unimaginable. My own grandfather grew up in a time when there were no airplanes, no cars and no electric lights. I just wish I could see what the next hundred years will bring.

[Eichhörnchen]

I had no idea about this... ASTOUNDING!

When I was a kid my favourite show was Thunderbirds and this kind of landing was perceived then as becoming routine one day... but I never thought I'd live to see it

[Skybird]

These booster rocket landings remind of old Ray Bradbury stories, namely the Martian Chronicles. Bradbury repeatedly described scenes of a spacehsip from Earth landing, and the spaceshipo always was shaped like an conventional rocket.

Ray Bradbury is one of my absolute favourite authors.

[Platapus]

That is always amazing to watch.



I used to laugh when I watched Sci Fi movies made in the 1950's for their unrealistic and impossible vertical landings.





Not laughing any more.

[Jimbuna]

Great stuff

[August]

Bah easy stuff. Press a button and it either happens or it doesn't. Try changing tack in a square rigger off Cape Horn in a gale with a short handed crew.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Those returning booster-rockets point-landing on their landing pads is a view that stuns me time and again. That a pole with flames at one and lands in this fashion on its end without wings, without rotor, without any visible assistance device or guiding rail, just does clicks in my head and then echos on and on. For me a truly unbelievable sight. Thats sight mesmerizes me more than a landing orbiter or a walk on the moon.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-...llite-delivery

Like a movie of a missile start played backwards.

But as the Everyday Astronaut (check out his You Tube channel) says, those aren't poles, they're freaking 15 story buildings with flamey stuff coming out the bottom that land light as a feather. We are living in the future and it's great!

[eddie]

The main booster was supposed to land like that on a barge at sea, wonder if it made it? Didn't work the first time, hope it does this time anyway.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by eddie

The main booster was supposed to land like that on a barge at sea, wonder if it made it? Didn't work the first time, hope it does this time anyway.

All three boosters made it back; two on ground, one on the drone ship/barge "Of course I still love you". Check the highlights video I posted in post #2.

[eddie]

Thanks Dowly! That is really incredible!!!!

[Onkel Neal]

This will be huge for folks who don't live in the cities.

[Onkel Neal]

A New Launch. Every two weeks.
https://www.businessinsider.com/spac...k-works-2020-1

[Onkel Neal]

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/...ellite-br.aspx

On Monday evening, January 6, SpaceX successfully launched its second "official" Starlink mission, carrying 60 satellites into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. In addition to the 115 operational satellites put into orbit on previous launches, this gives the company about 175 operational internet satellites in orbit today.

Assuming SpaceX continues putting satellites in orbit at a rate of 60 satellites per launch (and doesn't attempt to accelerate deployment by using bigger Falcon Heavy or Starship rockets), 11 more Falcon 9-Starlink missions should suffice to surpass the 800-sat threshold for "moderate" internet coverage. At a planned launch rate of two Falcon 9 launches per month, therefore, Starlink should reach this goal by the end of June 2020. By the end of the year, Starlinks in orbit should reach 1,500.


Of course, the most important advantage SpaceX should get from its rapid rate of rocket launches this year is also the most obvious: less time to market.

A more rapid launch pace means faster deployment of SpaceX's Starlink satellites to orbit. That means the company can begin reaping the 60% operating profit margin that SpaceX expects to earn from providing broadband internet service from space sooner. By 2025, internal SpaceX documents show the company hoping to earn as much as $22 billion in annual operating profit -- most of it from selling satellite internet service.

And 2020 is the year it all starts to happen.

[Catfish]

So Starlink would be available from everywhere in the world.. for free? Looks liek some countries will build a giant jamming device..

[Sean C]

I just hope they're able to minimize the interference to astronomy as they said they will try to do. We have enough problems with light pollution on the ground - we don't need more up there.