There they go.
This is where Elon Musk cuts into the feed, informs us all that they’re actually orbital reentry kinetic weapons, and demands that he be installed as world dictator, correct?
I did not expect them to just all dump out in one bunch like that.
I saw someone describe it as “Brownian deployment”. Seems like a decent analogy; after several minutes of lightly bumping each other they should naturally spread out semi-evenly without any work if all goes well.
I thought the second stage was supposed to spin and launch all the satellites outward using centrifugal force. I am disappoint.
It did, it was just slow and end-over-end. Watch the horizon move past in the minute before they detach.
Each of those satellites have tiny thrusters on them right?
They do, yes. And they can move/maintain position autonomously.
I meant around the vertical axis. Can’t think of anything similar at the moment. Not that it matters at this point.
Here’s a fun one: there are enough Starlink satellites planned that, prior to their redesign to burn up entirely on reentry, the FCC worked out that reentry debris would hit something interesting (i.e., not dirt or water) about once every six years. (Well, not exactly—50% odds over six years—but I can’t be bothered to do the math this early.)
If Musk wants to be evil, this is actually a way better way to do it. He’s giving himself a telecommunications monopoly over a huge portion of the planet’s population…
Zuckerberg had his own comms satellite too, but it blew up before launch.
Did they ever publicly disclose what the cause of that failure was? I don’t remember reading anything about it after the initial article.
Not sure. IIRC there was some suspicion (on the part of SpaceX) at the time of a competitor at a neighboring facility due to a large flash of light emanating from there.
Also, it was the satellite that initially blew up, not the rocket. Which is kind of weird.
But that’s all I know.
It was a high-pressure helium tank. These little helium tanks basically inside of the fuel tanks are used to equalize pressure as the fuel is used up. During fuel loading, some temperature differences from cryogenic fuels touching the helium tank caused some of the material to buckle weirdly. This then ruptured and exploded. There was something new about the type of materials configuration that made the buckling not anticipated.
NASA has had them working on a new tank for the past year or two due to this, and they have to fly it a number of times before any astronauts are put on board to prove how it works and provide operational data for it.
Tman
3023
Maybe this was already linked, but 60 miles up is a major accomplishment by a group of undergraduate students.
Brian Cox has a new documentary series out, on the planets. I assume it’ll be aired on BBC America or Nova or somewhere like that. As tends to be the way with modern astronomy shows, it has more CGI and less satellite imagery than I’d like, but it seems to be good on the science nonetheless, in particular giving more emphasis to uncertainty than TV usually does.
Oooh! This makes me happy. Thank you, @Ginger_Yellow!
-xtien
