Sic Semper Tyrannis

NEA Scout: the next solar sailing mission - TTG

NEA Scout is an exciting new mission that was recently selected by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) by a team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Marshall Space Flight Center. This innovative, low-cost concept will map an asteroid and demonstrate several technological firsts, including being the first CubeSat to reach an asteroid.

Before sending astronauts to any new space environments, it is important to send robotic scouts to survey the destination and learn about the risks and challenges they may pose to future human explorers. Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, or NEA Scout, will perform reconnaissance of an asteroid using a CubeSat and solar sail propulsion, which offers navigation agility during cruise for approaching the target. Propelled by sunlight, NEA Scout will flyby and observe a small asteroid (<300 feet in diameter), taking pictures and observing its position in space, the asteroid's shape, rotational properties, spectral class, local dust and debris field, regional morphology and regolith properties. NEA Scout's observations will directly assist in retiring the unknowns related to human exploration of asteroids and planetary small bodies. The data collected will enhance the current understanding of asteroidal environments and will yield key information for future human asteroid explorers. (NASA JPL)

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This mission clearly doesn’t have the cachet of the trio of probes arriving at Mars this month or the idea of quantum space travel. But I’m intrigued by this next adventure in solar sailing. The Planetary Society is sharing lessons learned from their crowd sourced Light Sail 2 mission. I wrote about that mission back in July 2019. One thing discovered by Light Sail 2 was that atmospheric drag exists at 720 kilometers above earth. Even with that unexpected drag, the sail is still sailing the heavens far beyond its expected life.

The launch date for NEA Scout is set for 1 November this year. I look forward to seeing how this sail performs beyond Earth’s orbit. Perhaps the next Light Sail mission by the Planetary Society will place a solar wind propelled CubeSat into a high lunar orbit. That would be marvelous and eminently doable. I see sailing the solar winds as an excellent means of deep space exploration. Historically appropriate, I think.

TTG    

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/near-earth-asteroid-scout-neascout

https://www.planetary.org/sci-tech/lightsail

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/07/from-diana-to-lightsail-2-ttg.html

"Next stop Mars: 3 spacecraft arriving in quick succession" phys.org

"Perseverance is aiming for an ancient river delta that seems a logical spot for once harboring life. This landing zone in Jezero Crater is so treacherous that NASA nixed it for Curiosity, but so tantalizing that scientists are keen to get hold of its rocks.

"When the scientists take a look at a site like Jezero Crater, they see the promise, right?" said Al Chen, who's in charge of the entry, descent and landing team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "When I look at Jezero, I see danger. There's danger everywhere."

Steep cliffs, deep pits and fields of rocks could cripple or doom Perseverance, following its seven-minute atmospheric plunge. With an 11 1/2-minute communication lag each way, the rover will be on its own, unable to rely on flight controllers. Amal and Tianwen-1 will also need to operate autonomously while maneuvering into orbit."  phys.org

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The Perseverance landing attempt is scheduled for 18 February.   pl

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-mars-spacecraft-quick-succession.html

NASA’s Lunar Crater Radio Telescope - TTG

First, I want to give a tip of the hat to Martin Oline who posted a link to a fascinating article about a NASA concept for establishing a radio telescope on the far side of the moon. I found watching the embedded video to be a surprisingly enjoyable experience. This video presented at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium in September 2020 by Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, a robotics technologist at NASA JPL  at Caltech. His accent may take a little getting used to, but I was immediately transported back to the physics lab at RPI. Our lab team constructed a Satyen K. Das to English dictionary to aid in our study. 

This project is exciting on several levels. It is a unique and bold idea for space exploration. It is a challenging and intricate robotics problem. And it is a revolutionary advance for radio astronomy that may answer many questions about the origin of the universe. I find it especially exciting because it is eminently doable. I have a feeling we’ll be watching this in real time this decade.

This won’t be the first piece of radio astronomy on the far side of the Moon. The Chinese Queqiao relay satellite and Chang'e 4 lander are engaged in some radio astronomy tasks right now from the Von Karman crater, but it doesn’t come close to the scope of this NASA concept. 

TTG

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/building-earth-s-largest-telescope-on-the-far-side-of-the-moon-1.5882554

Starlink Launch Alert- January 31, 2021

 

https://spacelaunchnow.me/launch/falcon-9-block-5-starlink-17

pl

Starship Launch

https://spacelaunchnow.me/launch/starship-sn9-10-km-flight

pl

Falcon 9 Transporter launch

pl

 

https://spacelaunchnow.me/launch/falcon-9-block-5-transporter-1-dedicated-sso-rides

Starlink Launch Alert

 

https://spacelaunchnow.me/launch/falcon-9-block-5-starlink-16

Virgin Galactic Space Launch

https://spacelaunchnow.me/launch/launcherone-launch-demo-2

51% of Americans ready to go to Starlink

"A recent survey has determined that over half of Americans are ready to switch to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service. This was despite only 5% of internet subscribers in the United States being connected via satellite today. 

The study was conducted by Reviews.org, which asked respondents whether they would consider getting on board with Starlink once the satellite internet service is fully set up. As it turns out, over half of those surveyed stated that they’d be signing up for the Starlink Beta program, despite the $499 cost of the satellite dish and the service’s current $99 per month fee. "

"Interestingly enough, 55% of the study’s respondents who do not use satellite internet today noted that they would stay with Starlink permanently if the system’s connection was faster, even if its price was higher than their current internet service provider. Over 40% of the respondents also stated that they would stay with Starlink if SpaceX would allow subscribers to make payments on the satellite system instead of an upfront $499 fee. "   Teslarati

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It seems to me that Musk is going to get richer and richer.  Hell, I can't wait to disconnect from Comcast.  

The amount of revenue available to him is going to fund all his visionary colonial schemes for outer space.  Up! Up! And Away!   (That was the intro on some radio show when I was a kid).

Musk is  a force of nature.  I am glad that he is not a native born American.  I wouldn't want to see his talents wasted on being president of the United States.  pl

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-50-percent-usa-adoption-survey/

How to make rocket fuel on Mars

"How will future astronauts get back home to Earth from Mars? According to a new study, they could make rocket fuel from the methane that's already on the Red Planet. 

Researchers have devised a new way to create methane-based rocket fuel that they hope could make return trips from Mars far more feasible. This method was previously theorized by Elon Musk and engineers at SpaceX who considered ways to use carbon dioxide and water from ice on Mars to have the necessary carbon and hydrogen necessary to create methane. 

So, in theory, future astronauts could use this technique to turn local Martian materials like ice and carbon dioxide to make rocket fuel for a return trip home. This new method is only a "proof of concept" right now, meaning it has only been tested in labs but not in real-world conditions. 

Still, while "lots of engineering and research is needed before this can be fully implemented," Huolin Xin, a physicist at the University of California, Irvine who led this research, said in a statement. "But the results are very promising.""  Space.com

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Or as they say in New Zealand - "meethane."   Who knew that the stuff of cow flatus would be so useful?  There supposedly is a lot of this material lying around on the bottom of the ocean and when the ocean burps methane in large amounts ships above the burp sink because of the decrease in what- floatability?

The idea of making oxygen and methane on THE RED PLANET is quite inspiring.  It is further evidence of the world beating quality of Musk's leadership.  Take care of yourself man!  C'mon man!   We need you.  pl

https://www.space.com/future-astronauts-methane-rocket-fuel-mars

Starlink will span the globe.

"SpaceX aims to connect rural communities around the globe to reliable satellite internet. The aerospace company is in the process of deploying thousands of Starlink satellites to orbit where each will beam broadband internet connection down to Earth. "With performance that far surpasses that of traditional satellite internet, and a global network unbounded by ground infrastructure limitations, Starlink will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable," the company states. 

SpaceX currently operates approximately 960 Starlink satellites and plans to launch at least 120 satellites per month this year. The company is offering service to select customers living in high-latitudes by invitation only via Starlink.com, however, as more satellites are deployed to orbit SpaceX will increase its capability to provide Starlink internet to more customers worldwide. As of today, SpaceX has customers living in rural communities located in Canada, northern United States, and even the United Kingdom, according to social media users who have purchased the service. The company is also working alongside the U.S. government to provide free Starlink service to school districts and households in rural areas that cannot afford the service. Read more: SpaceX will provide Starlink Internet to Virginia’s Wise County School District and Rural Community.

To receive internet from the satellites in space customers purchase a Starlink Kit that includes a phased-array antenna dish, mounting tripod, and Wi-Fi router device. SpaceX says the technology these devices feature is more advanced than what is currently on fighter jets. SpaceX priced the equipment at $499 USD, with a monthly service fee of $99 USD. Long-term, Starlink customers will be supporting SpaceX’s ultimate mission to develop the Starship fleet that will enable humanity to colonize Mars."  tasmanian

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And now pilgrims, I see that Starlink has applied for licensing to operate in Greece where they would offer universal access at prices more expensive than at present from a patchwork of little internet providers, but at speeds up to 150 MPS.  This is far, far higher than in Greece today where speeds are often down around 10 MPS.

Pilgrims!  If this works on a business basis, you can expect that Starlink will spread across Europe and then the world transforming the internet providers market wherever it goes.  pl

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/starlink-hiring

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Set to Bring Starlink Internet to Greece | GreekReporter.com

"SpaceX performs incredible Starship SN8 test flight in South Texas!" tasmanian

"Today SpaceX is one step closer to Mars! The aerospace company performed an incredible test flight with a prototype of the Starship spacecraft that could one day transform humans into a multiplanet species. This afternoon SpaceX conducted the first high-altitude test flight and achieved many milestones during the launch! The Starship SN8 prototype soared approximately 50,000 feet (15-kilometers) into the sky powered by a trio of Raptor engines."

"During the epic flight test SpaceX tested the vehicles aerodynamic flaps during a ‘belly dive’ maneuver that left everyone in awe. The maneuver is important towards Starship’s development, it is how the spacecraft will move to enter a planet’s rough atmosphere before landing. The test flight lasted around seven minutes in which Starship used its aerodynamic flaps to glide itself down Boca Chica’s sky. SN8 was capable of reorienting itself to a vertical position to prepare for a landing, but upon landing the vehicle exploded."

"However, Starship SN8 performed an excellent flight. SpaceX said SN8 is "designed to test a number of objectives, from how the vehicle’s three Raptor engines perform to the overall aerodynamic entry capabilities of the vehicle (including its body flaps) to how the vehicle manages propellant transition [...]," the company wrote on its website, “With a test such as this, success is not measured by completion of specific objectives but rather how much we can learn, which will inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances development of Starship.” Musk shared the vehicle achieved going through all the testing objectives -“Successful ascent, switchover to header tanks & precise flap control to landing point!” he wrote via Twitter. He also shared that the reason why Starship SN8 exploded upon landing was because the –“Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD [Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly], but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!” Musk stated via Twitter after the successful test flight today. “SN8 did great! Even reaching apogee would’ve been great, so controlling all way to putting the crater in the right spot was epic!!” he said."  tasmanian

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I waited all day to watch this bird fly.  It was absolutely grand.  The nose dive and glide followed by self righting was all that one could hope for in an early test.  This machine is the gateway to the solar system.  pl 

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/sn8-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship

US/Israeli/Alien alliance looms claims Israeli general (retired) - RT

"The former head of the Israeli military’s space division has claimed that Tel Aviv and Washington have contacted a “Galactic Federation” of extraterrestrials, but that mankind is not ready for the “truth” about life in the cosmos.

Retired general Haim Eshed, 87, who headed up the Defense Ministry’s space unit for nearly three decades, alleged the existence of an alien alliance spanning the galaxy in a bewildering interview with Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

“The UFOs asked not to advertise that they are here, [because] humanity is not ready yet,” Eshed told the paper on Saturday, adding that US President Donald Trump “was on the verge of finding out, but the aliens in the Galactic Federation say: wait, let the spirits calm first. They don’t want us to have mass hysteria.”"  RT

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 Aahh ... the Rooshans are making fun of us again.   They must think that any country that would elect the incoming menagerie should be subject to ridicule.  I never met this old gent, and I worked with the world-beating IDF general staff on a daily basis.  Dunno what that means.  

CNN and MSNBC will probably try to pin this on Trump.  NBC - not so much.  pl

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weird-news/former-israeli-space-security-chief-says-extraterrestrials-exist-trump-knows-n1250333

https://www.rt.com/news/508962-israel-space-chief-alien-federation/

"We come in peace." Really?

"Overwhelmingly, everyone The Debrief spoke with said the most striking feature of the recently released UAPTF intelligence position report was the inclusion of new and “extremely clear” photograph of an unidentifiable triangular aircraft.

The photograph, which is said to have also been taken from inside the cockpit of a military fighter jet, depicted an apparent aerospace vehicle described as a large equilateral triangle with rounded or “blunted” edges and large, perfectly spherical white “lights” in each corner. Officials who had seen it said the image was captured in 2019 by an F/A-18 fighter pilot. 

Two officials that received the report said the photo was taken after the triangular craft emerged from the ocean and began to ascend straight upwards at a 90-degree angle. It was indicated that this event occurred off the eastern coast of the United States. Several other sources confirmed the photo’s existence; however, they declined to provide any further specifics of the incident. 

Regarding the overall theme of the recent report, officials who read it say the report primarily focused on “Unidentified Submersible Phenomena,” or unidentified “transmedium” vehicles capable of operating both under water and in the air. "  the debrief

https://youtu.be/gEhgnkQoPqQ

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I am surprised by people who are so intellectually limited that they insist that UFO/UAP cannot be real.  Dana Perino, the cute blonde midget who is a talking head on Foxnews says that she not only "thinks" there is nothing but us in the great, wide universe but that she believes the whole US Space Program has been a waste of time and money from its very inception in the era of the godlike JFK except as it was a useful tool with which to tweak the Soviets.  

Now, the generals and admirals, a notably unimaginative lot, are slowly coming to a consensus with regard to UFO/UAP and that consensus points to a conclusion of the reality of these things, whatever they are.  pl 

https://www.thedebrief.org/fast-movers-and-transmedium-vehicles-the-pentagons-uap-task-force/

Actual Starlink costs will be low ...

"Yes indeed, in a tweet heard all around the northern hemisphere, on Nov. 6 Canada's Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Ministry announced that it has granted "regulatory approval for the @SpaceXStarlink low Earth orbit satellite constellation." 

How important is this to Canada, and is $99 for as little as 50 mbps internet speeds really a good deal? With Comcast offering 200 mbps for under $50 in metro locales in the U.S. you might not think so, but here's the thing: Listening in on tweets from elated Canadian (future) customers, and hearing their lamentations about being forced to pay, for example, $46 a month (presumably Canadian) for 6 mbps, $75 for 5 mbps, or even $95 for a measly 2 mbps, it's pretty clear that the service Starlink is offering will be a big improvement for a lot of rural users. 

What's more, in an effort to win a $16 billion rural broadband contract from the FCC, SpaceX is working hard to get its speeds up to 1 gigabyte per second -- as much as a 20x improvement over the initial capabilities of the beta service."

"SpaceX is offering Canadians almost exactly the same service price it's offering in the U.S. -- C$129 (about $98 U.S.) for the service itself, and C$649 ($495 U.S.) for the hardware. And Musk recently tweeted out a promised "big expansion" of the service in Canada "in 6 to 8 weeks." "

Even such relatively small numbers could add up to big business for SpaceX, however, and a big opportunity for investors. As internal SpaceX documents show, the company hopes to reap as much as $4 billion in annual revenue from Starlink subscriptions as early as next year, and grow that revenue haul to $22 billion annually by 2025, at operating profit margins as high as 60%. 

"This implies that within just a few years, Starlink -- which created no revenue as recently as last year -- could grow into a $13 billion profit machine. Oh, and here's the best part: SpaceX plans to IPO Starlink so that you can own a part of it. The COO said so herself."  Motley Fool

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There has been some talk in my space to the effect that Starlink is too expensive and therefore not commercially viable.  ?????  pl

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/11/26/spacex-starlink-just-won-a-huge-customer/

Space Force doings

"The fledgling U.S. Space Force's Space Delta 9 is tasked with performing a mission set that the service describes as orbital warfare. This includes keeping an eye out for potentially hostile activity in space, as well as deterring those threats and even potentially defeating them, according to the unit's official website. Publicly, it provides this support primarily through various space-based surveillance and communications systems, but, interestingly, it is also responsible for overseeing the operations of the experimental X-37B mini space shuttle, the exact mission and capabilities of which remain obscure.

Space Force highlighted the intriguing orbital warfare mission of Space Delta 9, as part of the larger array of capabilities within its new Space Operations Command (SpOC), in a Tweet earlier this week. The unit had first come into existence in July and had previously been known as the Air Force's 750th Operations Group, which had only been activated and assigned to that service's 50th Space Wing the month before. 50th Space Wing, headquartered at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado, was also transferred to the newest branch of America's armed forces that month, at which time it was rebranded as the Peterson-Schriever Garrison."  the war zone

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In re the X37B.  OK.  What the hell does this flying widget actually do?  It is taken up into orbit by one of the launch companies, released and then DOES WHAT?  Some of the people who read here think that the US Government cannot keep secrets.  They are wrong.  I, personally, have participated in the keeping of many, many government secrets that have NEVER leaked over a period of time that matches my ancientness.  Soo ... The flummery that the government has proclaimed over exactly WHAT the X-37B does should not be accepted without examination.

And then there is the major structural reorganization of the Space Force that is reflected in the link "The Peterson-Schriever Garrison" above.  Read the article it leads to.  What we are seeing is the emergence of a new armed force that will be different in many ways from the USAF.  The structure described has little in common with USAF structure and the interesting re-naming of USAF bases as "garrisons" as they are taken over by Space Force is indicative of the desire for separation.  

Space Force and USAF are two separate services within the Department of the Air Force in the same way that USMC and US Navy are separate armed forces within the Department of the Navy.

This process of separation is accelerating.  pl

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37361/space-force-has-a-unit-dedicated-to-orbital-warfare-that-now-operates-the-x-37b-spaceplane

"Streaming 4K with zero buffering" tasmanian.com

 

"SpaceX priced the Starlink Kit at $499 USD. The company states the phased-array dish "is more advanced than what's in fighter jets." The monthly broadband service fee is priced at $99 USD. SpaceX told early customers that they are part of a beta testing phase of the network called "Better Than Nothing Beta" test program. The company sent out an e-mail to potential customers which details what early Starlink users can expect from being part of the program --"As you can see from the title, we are trying to lower your initial expectations," SpaceX wrote, "Expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s [megabits per second] and latency from 20ms to 40ms [milliseconds] over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all," the email reads. SpaceX states that as more satellites are deployed to orbit the network's speed and reliability will increase --"As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our networking software, data speed, latency and uptime will improve dramatically," the company wrote. "For latency, we expect to achieve 16ms to 19ms by summer 2021.""  tasmanian.com

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It is interesting that this report appears on a Tasmanian web news site.  Tasmania is just the sort of place where Starlink will bring high quality internet.  Australia generally in its wilder parts will benefit as well as those far flung islands in the Pacific.

IMO the revenues at Starlink will be prodigious.   The parent SpaceX group needs these to fund their progress toward their stated goal of an autonomous Martian colony.  pl

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/starlink-speed

Spacex "flight proven" rockets cost half as much ...

"SpaceX, the pioneering rocket launch company founded by Elon Musk, famously advertises a launch cost of just $62 million for its Falcon 9 rocket -- a price it has held steady for four and a half years. Of course, for nearly as long, SpaceX has also been saying that a switch to reusable rockets would permit the company to cut its prices even further -- as much as 30%.

So four and a half years since the $62 million price tag was introduced, how much cheaper have SpaceX rocket launches become? Thanks to a series of contract modifications just announced by the U.S. Space Force, we finally know."

"Last week, Space Force announced that it will permit SpaceX to fly reused (or as SpaceX prefers, "flight-proven") Falcon 9 rockets to launch the government's next two government GPS III satellites. The government had previously insisted that such "national security" satellites be launched aboard brand new rockets, but SpaceX has successfully re-flown used rockets for other customers 38 times now.

It seems that that's enough to have finally convinced Space Force that this is a safe way to get to orbit -- and cheaper, to boot.

How much cheaper? Initially, SpaceX had agreed to launch these government GPS satellites for about $97 million each. But in return for being permitted to fly reusable rockets, SpaceX now says it can cut the price it charges Space Force for the next two launches by a total of $52.7 million -- a savings of more than $26 million each -- as BreakingDefense.com reported last week. "  motleyfool

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Half as much ...  Splendid!  Just splendid!  And now SpaceX is mastering the recovery of payload fairings as well.  This will further  reduce costs.  A means of recovering second stages is probably the next goal.  pl

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/05/how-much-cheaper-are-spacex-reusable-rockets-now-w/

Mars has a lot of water. Who knew?

Two years ago, planetary scientists reported the discovery of a large saltwater lake under the ice at Mars’s south pole, a finding that was met with excitement and some scepticism. Now, researchers have confirmed the presence of that lake — and found three more.

The discovery, reported on 28 September in Nature Astronomy¹, was made using radar data from the European Space Agency’s Mars-orbiting spacecraft, called Mars Express. It follows the detection of a single subsurface lake in the same region in 2018 — which, if confirmed, would be the first body of liquid water ever detected on the red planet and a possible habitat for life. But that finding was based on just 29 observations made from 2012 to 2015, and many researchers said they needed more evidence to support the claim. The latest study used a broader data set comprising 134 observations from 2012 to 2019.

“We identified the same body of water, but we also found three other bodies of water around the main one,” says planetary scientist Elena Pettinelli at the University of Rome, who is one of the paper’s co-authors. “It’s a complex system.”

The team used a radar instrument on Mars Express called the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) to probe the planet’s southern polar region. MARSIS sends out radio waves that bounce off layers of material in the planet’s surface and subsurface. The way the signal is reflected back indicates the kind of material that is present at a particular location — rock, ice or water, for example. A similar method is used to identify subsurface glacial lakes on Earth. The team detected some areas of high reflectivity that they say indicate bodies of liquid water trapped under more than one kilometre of Martian ice.

The lakes are spread over about 75,000 square kilometres — an area roughly one-fifth the size of Germany. The largest, central lake measures 30 kilometres across, and is surrounded by 3 smaller lakes, each a few kilometres wide.

Salty lakes

On the surface of Mars, the low pressure that results from the planet’s lack of a substantial atmosphere makes liquid water impossible. But scientists have long thought that there could be water trapped under Mars’s surface, perhaps a remnant of when the planet once had seas and lakes billions of years ago. If such reservoirs exist, they could be potential habitats for Martian life. On Earth, life is able to survive in subglacial lakes in places such as Antarctica.

But the amount of salt present could pose problems. It’s thought that any underground lakes on Mars must have a reasonably high salt content for the water to remain liquid. Although this far beneath the surface there might be a small amount of heat from the interior of Mars, this alone would not be enough to melt the ice into water. “From a thermal point of view, it has to be salty,” says Pettinelli.

Lakes with a salt content that is about 5 times that of sea-water can support life, but as the concentration approaches 20 times that of sea-water, life is no longer present, says John Priscu, an environmental scientist at Montana State University in Bozeman.

“There’s not much active life in these briny pools in Antarctica,” says Priscu, whose group studies microbiology in icy environments. “They’re just pickled. And that might be the case [on Mars].”

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Too salty?  Maybe.  The Great Salt Lake is very salty as is the Dead Sea and they both have life in them.   In any event, de-salination for human purposes is possible .  pl

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02751-1

"... 120 satellites per month..."

"SpaceX already initiated a private beta testing phase of the Starlink network that has offered ‘good’ results. – “They show super-low latency and download speeds greater than 100 [megabits] per second [Mbps],” SpaceX Senior Engineer Kate Tice shared during the latest deployment broadcast, “That means our latency is low enough to play the fastest online video games and our download speeds are fast enough to stream multiple HD movies at once.” The network is “very much a work in progress,” she added, stating that as more satellites are deployed it will “unlock the full capability.” The company plans to launch 120 satellites per month in order to speed up service initiation."  tasmanian

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I watch all the launches of the Falcon 9 Starlink missions.  SpaceX does a great job of producing the on-line show.

The astronomers will just have to learn to live with whatever problems he is causing them.  They are working on taking the luster off the satellites.  That will continue.

My  questions have to do with the business model for this.  Are they going to do central billing for the service?  IOW will a customer in northern Ontario pay the company directly for the system and service?  Can you install it yourself or will you need a paid installer?  IMO the money will really, really roll in. 

On to Mars!  pl

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/spacex-fcc-speed

"Next step: 1 gigabit internet speeds." Starlink rising. by Motley Fool

So far, results show that Starlink users can expect internet download speeds of anywhere from 11 megabits per second (Mbps) to 60 Mbps, and upload speeds of 5 Mbps to 18 Mbps. At best, those numbers are just 6% of the 1 gig (1 Gbps) speeds the FCC wants to be able to promise under RDOF. But considering that Starlink is still only 80% of the way to having enough sats for "moderate" capability, it's still impressive. (And as Ars notes, even 60 Mbps is much faster internet than many rural customers are able to access today.)

Perhaps more importantly, SpaceX and Starlink seem to have cleared the FCC's bar for competing in the RDOF contest. If you recall, the FCC was skeptical of SpaceX's ability to provide sub-100 lag speeds from space, and promised to apply "very close scrutiny" to SpaceX's performance. Ars, however, says Starlink is delivering ping rates of anywhere from 94 ms (already below 100) all the way down to just 31 ms.

What comes next

As far as qualifying to compete for RDOF and the FCC's $16 billion, this looks very much like "mission accomplished" for SpaceX. Going forward, the company will be aiming to drive its lag rate down below 20 ms, while boosting its internet download speed toward 1 Gbps. And over time, SpaceX hopes that these levels of performance will win it as many as 5 million broadband satellite internet customers in the U.S. At a rumored monthly service cost of $80, times 12 months in a year, Starlink therefore looks to be building toward a $4.8 billion annual revenue stream for SpaceX. 

What does it all mean for SpaceX?

When you consider that it would take SpaceX launching nearly 80 rockets a year at a launch cost of $62 million apiece to generate similar revenue from space launch, it's easy to see how Starlink could soon become SpaceX's primary revenue driver -- and a great candidate for an IPO. 

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RDOF is the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.  It is a 16 billion dollar slush fund that the FCC has for development of high quality rural internet service.  It looks like Musk is going to make all the check points wanted by the FCC for access to a lot of that money.  

 

4.8 billion annually.  That is the engine with which Musk intends to fund his voyages to Mars.

 

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/08/23/fast-broadband-from-orbit-new-data-says-spacex-can/

 

 

On the one hand ...

1. I watched the launch of the Mars mission this AM.  Flawless, simply flawless.  The big Atlas 5/Centaur blasted into the sky exactly on time from Canaveral.  First Stage burnout and jettison was flawless, Centaur performed its two burns perfectly.  The first to take the bird into an earth orbit and the second to take the payload out of Earth's gravity well and send it on its way to Mars.  As one engineer said on TeeVee, "we have left the building."  Having done its thing, Centaur disconnected from the Perseverance payload and went into a parking orbit out beyond the moon where it will stay until someone may retrieve it, someday. The Mars bound spacecraft will make a few course corrections during the transit to Mars in order to land (or crash) it in Jezro Crater.   A word about the nuclear battery on the rover.  During the trip it will be supplying power to the spacecraft and its functioning life will be at least 15 years.

2.  The GDP of the US contracted (shrank) by a third in the 2nd Quarter.  This hit the markets like a ton of bricks.  Ugly.

3.  Just to make things worse Trumpy tweeted that the November election should be postponed because there is a serious chance that the mail in voting proposed in a number of states will be riddled with fraud.  firstly, the US Constitution makes federal elections the responsibility of the states.  Trump has no authority that I know of with which to postpone an election.  His desire to do so demonstrates the wisdom of the Framers.  This may be the final fatal misstep for him.

4.  Pompous the Great claims that DoJ can postpone an election?  Well, he was "first in his class" at WhooPoo.  pl

 

"Pentagon Has ‘Off-World Vehicles Not Made on This Earth’" PM

"Now, a new report in the New York Times confirms those accounts. The government’s UFO unit currently resides in the Office of Naval Intelligence, where it “deals with classified matters,” per the report, even though the unit itself isn’t classified. The Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force is meant to “standardize collection and reporting” on sightings of UAVs and publicly divulge “at least some of its findings” twice a year, according to the Times."  PM

"Harry Reid, the former Nevada senator who was instrumental in funding the original UFO program, told the Times he believes that “crashes from other worlds had occurred, and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades, often by aerospace companies under government contracts.” From the article."  PM

"The astrophysicist Eric Davis, who consulted with the Pentagon’s original UFO program, told the Times that after he examined certain materials, he came to the conclusion that “we couldn’t make [them] ourselves.” In fact, Davis briefed a Department of Defense (DOD) agency as recently as March about retrieving materials from “off-world vehicles not made on this earth.”"  PM

---------------

So, ONI is now running this.  Interesting.

I find the statement by Eric Davis to be intriguing.  "retrieving materials from “off-world vehicles not made on this earth."  He works for a technical research center in Austin, Texas where the focus is on black holes, their generation and what use might be made of them.  A nutter?  Maybe, but Harry Reid is not a nutter and neither is Senator Rubio.

I have suspected for a long time that the US has been "back engineering" UFO crash wreckage and deriving great advantage from that process.  Lt Col Philip Corso claimed before his death in 1998, that as head of the US Army General Staff's Foreign Technology Division he had been involved in the process of transferring the technical fruits of reverse engineering to various US companies for their use in developing new products.  pl

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a33413777/pentagon-ufo-program-materials-vehicles/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Corso

"China launches ambitious Mars mission" CBS News

"A powerful Long March 5 rocket blasted off Thursday carrying a Chinese orbiter, lander and rover on a seven-month voyage to Mars, the second of three high-stakes missions to the red planet and one that, if successful, will put China on the front lines of interplanetary exploration.

China did not announce the launch date or time in advance, but a notice to mariners warned of an impending flight and sure enough, the Long March 5 roared to life and streaked away from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island southwest of Hong Kong at 12:41 a.m. EDT (12:41 p.m. local time)."  CBS News

"The orbiter is equipped with seven instruments, including high- and medium-resolution cameras; a ground-penetrating radar; a mineralogy spectrometer; a magnetometer; and two charged particle detectors. Its planned orbit around the Martian poles will carry it within about 165 miles of the surface and as far away as 7,450 miles.

After mapping the world below for several months, the orbiter will release a landing craft that will descend to a rocket-powered touchdown on a broad, 2,000-mile-wide plain known as Utopia Planitia, the same general region where NASA's Viking 1 lander touched down in 1976."  CBS News

"The 530-pound six-wheel rover will ride down atop the lander and then roll off extendable ramps to the surface. The rover is equipped with six instruments, including a multi-spectral camera, a terrain camera, a ground-penetrating radar, magnetic field detector, meteorology sensors and others.

The rover is designed to receive commands and beam back data to Earth using the Tianwen-1 orbiter as a relay station.

"A successful landing would put China among elite company," Mason Peck, an aerospace engineer at Cornell University, told the journal Science."  CBS News

---------------

The scale of this mission and its complexity really are a "Long March."  If the Chinese can make all these functions work they will deserve to be thought of as a serious competitor for the US in space exploration.  I wish them luck.   pl

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-tianwen-1-orbiter-unmanned-launch-mars/

" ... IT MAY DEPLOY 240 STARLINK CRAFT."

 

 ""If the cost to launch is 1/4 the price of the [Falcon 9] and can carry 4 times the satellites... how is that anything but the right tool for the job?"

Indeed, the Starship is designed to reduce the price of rocket flights by a large amount. In November 2019, CEO Elon Musk said that the operational costs of flying Starship would be around $2 million per flight.

But one of the main issues could be deploying the satellites in space. SpaceX's website shows how the cargo bay could open up to release satellites."  inverse.com

----------------

Well, pilgrims, they haven't managed to get the thing more than a few feet off the ground yet.  Let's see that happen before we celebrate.  pl 

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/spacex-starship-stunning-image-shows-how-it-may-deploy-240-starlink-craft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship

Chinese booster falls across the US into the Atlantic

"Parts of China’s gigantic Long March 5B rocket finally made their uncontrolled descent back to Earth on Monday, CNN reports. Pieces of debris soared over the continental United States before splashing into the Atlantic Monday afternoon, as confirmed by the US Air Force.

“For a large object like this, dense pieces like parts of the rocket engines could survive reentry and crash to Earth,” Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer Jonathan McDowell told CNN. “Once they reach the lower atmosphere they are traveling relatively slowly, so worst case is they could take out a house.”

The rocket had originally sent an experimental spacecraft into Earth’s orbit earlier this month — but the empty core of the rocket started hurtling back through the Earth’s atmosphere as it made its way down, without any technology to alter its course." Futurism.com

************

"The core stage, measuring around 30 metres long and 5 metres of diameter, has a mass of 20000 kg. The core stage has made an uncontrolled reentry at 15:33 UTC on 11 May 2020 over 20° W 20° N, as it flew over the Atlantic Ocean heading towards Nouakchott, Mauritania. During its last orbit it flew directly over Los Angeles and New York City.^[38] becoming the most massive object in decades to fall out of orbit in an uncontrolled manner. It was in an orbit with an inclination of 41.1°. That makes the core stage the most massive object to make an uncontrolled re-entry since the Soviet Union's Salyut 7 space station in 1991, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who tracks global satellite and launch activity. It is more massive than other notable satellites that have plunged unguided back into Earth's atmosphere in the last decade, such as China's Tiangong-1 space lab, Russia's failed Phobos-Grunt Mars probe, and NASA's UARS atmospheric research satellite. It's about one-quarter of the mass of NASA's Skylab space station, which made headlines when it fell to Earth over Australia in 1979. The rocket body consists mostly of hollow propellant tanks, and much of the structure of the rocket is expected to burn up during re-entry. But some pieces, such as denser parts of the two main engines, YF-77, survive the fall to Earth and hit the ground."    wiki on Long March vehicle mission

--------------

Whoa!  How big?  That would have made a big hole in one of NY City or LA's neighborhoods.  pl

https://futurism.com/oops-china-dropped-huge-rocket-piece

US Navy declassifies a few UFO videos.

 

"In releasing the videos, the U.S. Navy officially acknowledges that its pilots encountered so-called unidentified aerial phenomena, according to the military news website Military.com. 

The three sightings, which took place in November 2004 and in January 2015, were recorded by F/A-18 Hornet fighter pilots during military training exercises in restricted airspace. Unlike fighter jets, the airborne enigmas had "no distinct wing, no distinct tail, no distinct exhaust plume," Navy pilot Lt. Danny Accoin said in the 2019 History Channel documentary series "Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation."

Department of Defense officials decided to release the videos after determining that the footage "does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena," Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough said in a statement.  Space.com

---------------

We discussed this previously on SST, but what has happened now is that the the navy has endorsed the videos as real by posting them on an official navy web site.

The pilots sound more gleeful than fearful, somewhat like children having found new playmates.  But then, they ARE fighter pilots.

Some interesting things are said by the pilots.  At one point it is said that "there are a whole fleet of them."  At another, a pilot asks where the UFO he had been tracking went when it disappeared.  The ship tells him something like  "you won't believe this but it is at your CAP station."  In other words the UFO knew enough about the aircraft operations off the ship to predict where its "playmate" would go next.  This implies something that either is a US activity or something that has a tremendous SIGINT capability and a deep knowledge of navy operations.

pl

https://www.space.com/ufos-videos-declassified-navy-release.html

https://sofrep.com/fightersweep/x-files-edition/

"a spacecraft has returned an aging satellite to service" Ars Technica

"This satellite servicing milestone comes as both low-Earth orbit as well as geostationary space—where large, expensive communications satellites are often placed high above the planet to hold their position over the ground—are becoming more crowded. The availability of a service such as that offered by MEV-1 offers satellite providers both the ability to extend the lifetime of aging assets, but also to potentially remove those they have lost control of from the ground.

These kinds of services are generally seen in the space community as important to keeping orbit as decluttered as possible in the coming decades, so it is good that this demonstration case worked out well."  ars technica

-------------

So, we have the possibility that satellite "repair trucks" can "fix" thingies in orbit, very expensive thingies to extend their working lifespan.  

Well, pilgrims, this is revolutionary technology.  By the time this particular commo satellite is ready for a "graveyard orbit," it may be possible for yet another "repair truck" to upgrade it to yet further extend its usefulness, etc.  Wow.  PL

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/mission-extension-vehicle-succeeds-returns-aging-satellite-into-service/

“The Pentagon will solicit its first mesh network in space May 1” - TTG

The Space Development Agency plans to award contracts for a mesh network in space this August, with the expectation that an initial batch of 20 satellites will be placed on orbit during summer 2022. The agency expects to release a request for proposals for the contracts May 1. The announcement came during an industry day the agency hosted over the phone April 2. The industry day was originally slated to take place during the 36th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs April 2, however, after that event was cancelled due to the circumstances with COVID-19 the agency opted to hold a virtual industry day instead. According to SDA Director Derek Tournear, 580 people called in for the event.

That first batch will include 20 satellites and will comprise what Pentagon leaders are calling Tranche 0 of the SDA’s Transport Layer, a mesh network of satellites operating primarily in low earth orbit and will be able to connect space-based sensors to the war fighter.

According to Tournear, the agency has six goals for its Trache 0 Transport Layer:

1. Demonstrate low latency data transport to the war fighter over the optical crosslink mesh network.
2. Demonstrate the ability to deliver data from a space sensor to the war fighter via the Transport Layer.
3. Demonstrate a limited battle management C2 functionality.
4. Transfer Integrated Broadcast System data across the mesh network to the war fighter
5. Store, relay and transmit Link-16 data over the network in near real time.
6. Operate a timing signature independent of GPS references to the US Naval Observatory.

Following Tranche 0, the SDA plans to continuously upgrade and add to its on orbit constellation in two year cycles, with Tranche 1 coming online in FY2024, Tranche 2 supplementing the system in FY2026. The SDA will procure two types of satellites for Tranche 0, with one main difference being that one set of satellites will have enough optical inter-satellite links to communicate with other satellites operating in LEO and satellites in medium earth orbit or geosynchronous orbit, while the other will only have enough to communicate with other satellites in LEO.   (C4ISRNET)

————

The SDA is a DoD office established in March 2019 and scheduled to become part of US Space Force in October 2022. This mesh network sounds remarkably similar to Elon Musk’s Starlink in structure. I would be very surprised if young Elon does not get the lion’s share of the government contracts to establish this tranche 0 transport layer.

I’m intrigued by the SDA’s terminology for this mesh network. The transport layer is a term used in the open system interconnection (OSI) responsible for end-to-end communication over a data network. It’s an internet term. Is the SDA’s effort to establish its mesh network an effort to extend the internet into space? Once this mesh network is in place, I’m curious to see how CYBERCOM fits into this. If the internet extends into LEO and beyond, will CYBERCOM see that this DoD mesh net as part of its domain? I sense a coming turf war between CYBERCOM and SPACECOM.

TTG 

https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/04/06/the-pentagon-will-solicit-its-first-mesh-network-in-space-may-1/

OneWeb bites the dust - TTG

LONDON, UK, March 27, 2020 – OneWeb (“OneWeb,” “the Company”), the global communications company with a mission to bring connectivity to everyone everywhere, announced today that the Company and certain of its controlled affiliates have voluntarily filed for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The Company intends to use these proceedings to pursue a sale of its business in order to maximize the value of the company.

To date, the Company has successfully launched 74 satellites as part of its constellation, secured valuable global spectrum, begun development on a range of user terminals for a variety of customer markets, has half of its 44 ground stations completed or in development, and performed successful demonstrations of its system with broadband speeds in excess of 400 Mbps and latency of 32 ms. In addition, OneWeb’s commercial team has seen significant early global demand for OneWeb’s high-speed, low-latency connectivity services from governments and leaders in the automotive, maritime, enterprise, and aviation industries.

Since the beginning of the year, OneWeb had been engaged in advanced negotiations regarding investment that would fully fund the Company through its deployment and commercial launch. While the Company was close to obtaining financing, the process did not progress because of the financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19. (OneWeb)

————

The coronavirus claims another victim. In this announcement, we see what One Web was going to offer and who they saw as their customers…. high speed internet for governments and corporations. They were aiming at Iridium’s market. Musk is aiming at both and the individual consumer market. I think that if the coronavirus didn’t get OneWeb, Musk would have gotten them sooner or later. It’s a shame. They just launched 34 more satellites for their network on 21 March.

Southfront had an interesting, albeit cynical and conspiratorial, take on OneWeb’s failure. Musk can beat competitors because they are fully integrated into the US national security system. Well Musk does have a diversified and successful business that includes government business. He has lots of money to invest in all his grand endeavors. But I wouldn’t call him a cog in the national security machine. If that theory isn’t enough, Southfront thinks OneWeb was a competitor to Huawei’s 5G network and, therefore, became a target of the CCP who released the coronavirus to bankrupt OneWeb. Break out the tinfoil, me buckos!  

TTG

https://www.oneweb.world/media-center/oneweb-files-for-chapter-11-restructuring-to-execute-sale-process

https://southfront.org/fall-of-oneweb-global-conspiracy-or-soaring-ambitions/

“EO on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources” - TTG

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including title IV of the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (Public Law 114-90), it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. Space Policy Directive-1 of December 11, 2017 (Reinvigorating America’s Human Space Exploration Program), provides that commercial partners will participate in an “innovative and sustainable program” headed by the United States to “lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.” Successful long-term exploration and scientific discovery of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies will require partnership with commercial entities to recover and use resources, including water and certain minerals, in outer space.

Uncertainty regarding the right to recover and use space resources, including the extension of the right to commercial recovery and use of lunar resources, however, has discouraged some commercial entities from participating in this enterprise.” (The White House)

————

President Trump signed this executive order on 6 April. I’m glad to see our government is not totally consumed by the coronavirus. This is a far thinking and prudent action. The EO designates the State Department as the US lead in forging an international agreement covering the extraction and use of resources from the Moon, asteroids, Mars and beyond. No one is happy with the existing “Moon Agreement” formulated in 1979 and ratified by just 18 countries. That agreement declares all outer space resources the common inheritance of all humanity, a global commons, sort of a grand national park. Let’s face it. No one is going to invest millions and billions of dollars just for a trip to a galactic park. They want to extract stuff from those celestial bodies and make money. Makes sense, and this was the same motivation for the Age of Exploration. But “I’ll do that for a dollar” just doesn’t have the same ring as “Because it’s there.”

One of the first things this new treaty must address is how does a company or country stake a claim. Do we have first dibs on the Sea of Tranquility since we planted a flag there? Is Jade Rabbit claiming the Von Karman Crater on the far side of the Moon for China? Will we see a lunar version of the French-Spanish rivalry in old Florida when Pedro Menéndez de Aviles killed Jean Ribault and more than 250 French Huguenots at Matanzas Inlet? Maybe it’ll just be a battle of killer robots. Perhaps this will be the first transorbital mission of the US Space Force.

TTG

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-encouraging-international-support-recovery-use-space-resources/

https://www.space.com/trump-moon-mining-space-resources-executive-order.html

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/secrets-spanish-florida-full-episode/3666/  (A fascinating “Secrets of the Dead” PBS documentary on the early history of Florida. I wholeheartedly recommend it. What else do you have to do?)

"SpaceX's Starship Can Lift a Lot More Than We Thought" Yahoo News

"Inverse reported that a Twitter user first noticed the potentially huge payload a Starship can carry into low Earth orbit. A table in the user guide lists 100 tons, but from other math in the table, one can extrapolate that number is more like 150 tons. That means the entire decommissioned Mir space station could be taken up in one launch.

Even for a much higher altitude of orbit, the Starship still purports to carry up to 21 tons. That number is large enough to include virtually all the different satellite models ever launched or the entire Apollo lunar lander unit. And the user guide (seen below) offers a tantalizingly real call to action, like any piece of sales collateral: “For payload specific loads or rideshare loads assessments, contact [email protected].”"  Yahoo News

----------------

And, pilgrims, the thing is re-usable.  Musk is aiming to transport 100 people in a flight.  This "beast" is supposed to be able to haul an immense weight into orbit.  He has in mind to use the Starship for a wide variety of tasks.  He has in mind the Lunar orbit to Mars run eventually.  

In the last trial from the Texas base the hull collapsed but I don't think it would be wise bet against Musk given his record of achievement.  pl  

https://news.yahoo.com/spacexs-starship-lift-lot-more-184100582.html

"SpaceX wins contract to supply NASA's planned lunar space station" CBS News

""Returning to the moon and supporting future space exploration requires affordable delivery of significant amounts of cargo," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in the NASA statement. "SpaceX has been delivering scientific research and critical supplies to the (space station) since 2012, and we are honored to continue the work beyond Earth's orbit."

The Artemis program is aimed at returning astronauts to the lunar surface by the end of 2024, a target date set by the Trump administration. Astronaut crews will make the trip aboard Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsules launched to the moon by gargantuan Space Launch System — SLS — rockets being built by Boeing.

The first Artemis lunar landings are targeted for the moon's south polar region, where ice may be present in permanently shadowed craters. If found, ice could be used to generate water, air and oxygen-hydrogen rocket propellants, saving the cost of transportation from Earth. NASA bills the Artemis program as a stepping stone for eventual flights to Mars.

The 2024 moon landing target is considered an extreme challenge given the program's cost, technical demands and work slowdowns or stoppages caused by coronavirus, but NASA managers said they are pressing ahead and remain hopeful."  CBS News

--------------

How many projects like this will survive the economic catastrophe shaping up is anyone's guess.  Trump is right.  We have to save lives but those lives may not be very pleasant for a while if we don't get the economy functioning again.  pl

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-wins-contract-to-supply-nasas-planned-lunar-space-station/

"... Top Secret US Air Force Craft Used For ‘Testing Hardware’ In Space"

"“As far as I know the actual engine has not been revealed, but it’s probably a pressure fed system that gets 700 to 900 Newtons of thrust,” he continued. “There is no cockpit, or windows, or anything like that for people inside, but there is a payload bay door that is a couple of meters long.”

Manley states that “so far, there have been five flights with this vehicle, and we know that there are two separate vehicles that have been identified due to subtle differences in their hardware.”

He also says in the video that he believes “what they are doing is testing hardware for future satellites.”"  brobible

---------------

A mysterious object to be sure.  I would expect USSF to take this project from USAF as it "stands up."  pl

https://brobible.com/culture/article/astrophysicist-top-secret-air-force-spacecraft-x-37b/

Starlink licensed for 1,000,000 back yard antennas

"SpaceX got a key government license last week, federal filings reveal, as the company clears a regulatory hurdle that moves it closer to offering a new high-speed internet service from space.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has authorized SpaceX to begin rolling out as many as 1 million of the ground antenna the company will need to connect users to its Starlink satellite internet network. Starlink is SpaceX’s plan to build an interconnected network, or “constellation,” of about 12,000 small satellites, to provide high-speed internet to anywhere in the world. The company has launched 360 Starlink satellites in the past year.

The license details that each ground antenna is 0.48 meters in diameter, or just under 19 inches across."  CNBC

----------------

Just another piece of the process through which Musk is assembling his empire in the sky.  Starlink now has plus or minus 360  five hundred lb. communication satellites in orbit.  They are solar powered with ion thruster engines with which they adjust their orbits up and down.  The internet dark places of the world will be illuminated by this project. 

Elon Musk plans to use the income from the provision of this service to fund his Mars projects.  Good for him!

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/20/fcc-approves-spacex-to-deploy-1-million-antennas-for-starlink-internet.html

This Falcon 9 booster is going up for the fifth time.

"SpaceX is preparing its Falcon 9 to launch the Starlink V1.0 L5 mission, although the launch date has been moved to Sunday. This mission will be the first Starlink launch from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, and the first from the pad since the Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test in January 2020. The first stage is B1048.5 – marking the first time a Falcon 9 core flies for the fifth time. The launch is now scheduled for 9:22 AM Eastern on March 15.

Starlink launch:

This mission will launch the 5th batch of 60 fully-operational Starlink satellites – the sixth batch overall – to a Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This will also be the first Starlink launch from the historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center. Previous Starlink missions launched from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), just over three miles south of LC-39A.
Now, as SpaceX starts ramping up the Starlink launch frequency, there may be a new bottleneck – launch pad availability.
LC-39A has been the sole starting point for Falcon Heavy and Crew Dragon missions. Those two capabilities make it unique among SpaceX’s launch pads, as the other two can only support uncrewed Falcon 9 rockets.

However, SpaceX is now starting to use LC-39A for commercial launches during downtime between Falcon Heavy and Crew Dragon launches. This will help relieve the new strain on SLC-40 from the increased Starlink launches, allowing for more time for refurbishment and launch preparations.  NASA

---------------

I know.  The astronomers are unhappy.  But life is tough all over and Space X is trying hard to make itself harmless for them.  

Download speeds from Musk's orbiting circus are said to approach one gigabyte.  Service will begin to be offered in Canada and the Northern US this year.  The issue of price will be critical to success.  Universal high speed internet access!  Is this not a marvelous prospect for mankind?  pl

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/03/spacex-sixth-starlink-fifth-booster-reflight/

Ours, theirs, or something else's

https://brobible.com/culture/article/ufo-international-space-station-nasa-live-cam-ufo-video/

US Space Force update 1

1.  A selection process is underway for a headquarters base for USSF.  I suggest Vandenberg AFB in coastal California.  There are lots of facilities there and it would be convenient to have the use and management of the guided missile range.

2.  The USAF Academy will from this year on send some of its new graduates into the US Space Force just as Annapolis sends some of its graduates into the USMC.  Can ROTC for the USSF be far behind?  I would have been willing to be a STEMmer for the chance.

3.  26,000 USAF personnel will be transferred to the USSF in 2020.  I hope they will be volunteers.  The creation of this new service of the armed forces is probably a great opportunity for people who join early just as the creation of the USAF was in 1947.

4.  Legislation is being submitted for the creation of a reserve component for USSF.

5.  They are still working on the ancillary stuff; uniforms, rank titles, etc.   I suggest black for the Class A uniform and a clean break on the rank titles to make them more like the US Navy and the RAF.  pl  

" ... first SpaceX launch with NASA astronauts likely between April and June"

"Elon Musk expects his space company’s inaugural launch of dNASA astronauts is only a few months away."The SpaceX CEO said on Sunday that the company’s first crewed mission will probably be in the second quarter of this year, between the months of April and June. Known as Demo-2, this mission would see two NASA astronauts visit the International Space Station for at least a few days. Musk noted that the rocket and spacecraft needed for the mission are already coming together in Florida.

“We’re highly confident the hardware will be ready in Q1, most likely in February but no later than March,” Musk said.

Musk made the comments at a press conference after the company completed the in-flight abort test of its Crew Dragon capsule. Musk spoke alongside NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who added that the agency and SpaceX are considering making Demo-2 a longer mission than previously expected."  cnbc

----------------

I watched the Space X recovery launch this AM.  It was truly flawless.  They used a several times fired Falcon 9 first stage and turned the engines off up high so that the onboard computers would initiate a Dragon escape routine.  At that point the Falcon 9 first stage dropped off and then blew up due to turbulence as it fell away.  The freed Dragon space taxi then dumped its unpressurized cargo section and descended to the Atlantic Ocean and waiting boats using onboard rocket engine thrust, drogue parachutes and then four big cargo parachutes pulled out of storage by the drogues.  Splash at 20 MPH.  An individual parachutist lands at more than 30 MPH.  They recovered the Dragon AND the parachutes. 

Why go to Disney World?  I would ride this this thing  to glory.  Hell.  When I was a kid Lt. in the SF Course I volunteered to be the guest of honor for a demonstration of the Fulton surface to air recovery system.  This was at Ft. Bragg in 1964.  I didn't tell SWMBO about this until it was done.  pl

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/19/elon-musk-spacex-first-launch-with-nasa-astronauts-in-second-quarter.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery_system

 

Starlink consumer services - TTG

I found an interview with SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell done last October in which she revealed much about Starlink as a consumer business. SpaceX has been testing Starlink on an Air Force contract for the last year and has demonstrated a data throughput of 610 megabits per second (Mbps). That’s easily fast enough for streaming movies. For comparison, Verizon FIOS offers three levels of throughput: 100 Mbps, 300 Mbps and 1 gigabit per second. The 100 Mbps is plenty for the average household. Shotwell said the average household pays $80 per month for crappy service. The FIOS 300 Mbps service costs $60 per month. This gives an idea of what Starlink will cost.

SpaceX will be hiring a new workforce to handle sales, tech support and production engineering. It will be modeled on Tesla. In addition to the consumer facing part of the business, Starlink will be supported by a network of ground stations. 

You sign up for service online, be it on a monthly or yearly contract much like purchasing current internet services or purchasing a Tesla. You will then receive your “UFO on a stick” by mail, Fedex or UPS to mount at home probably much like current SAT TV antennas. Perhaps online sales will be augmented by kiosks or small storefronts where you can take your UFO on a stick home with you. I can also see SpaceX installers or independent contractor installers to keep old people like me from having to climb out on our roofs while SWMBO yells at us about falling and killing ourselves. How this all works overseas will depend on what SpaceX negotiates with national telecommunication ministries.

If Starlink can maintain a competitive price, cable companies, SAT TV companies and even Verizon FIOS could be in for a world of hurt. The increased worldwide bandwidth will only help content providers by broadening the market for their content. In that interview from last October, Shotwell talked about beginning consumer subscription services by the end of 2020.

If Musk can develop and market a smartphone like device that doesn’t require the UFO on a stick base station, he could capture a large part of the worldwide consumer telecommunications market. That could possibly be done through the existing partnership between SpaceX and Iridium. Iridium uses SpaceX exclusively to launch its satellites and already offers direct internet service through its current satellite phones. I think it would be a smart move for both SpaceX and Iridium. This could all happen relatively quickly.

TTG

https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlink-broadband-services-in-2020/

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/u-s-air-force-is-already-testing-spacex-starlink-internet-on-military-planes

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180241122A1/en  (a patent related to the UFO on a stick?)

In re Starlink

"Dear colonel,

 

1. Will Starlink handle traffic other than e-mail?
   2.  Will Starlink have a giant business office to deal directly with customers?
   3.  If Starlink handles all the kinds of traffic that the present internet transmits, who will be the content providers for TeeVee transmitted via Starlink?
   4.  Am I correct in thinking that Starlink will drive present ISPs from the market?  pl
   
   
   I'll try to answer without becoming too technical & I'll skip some parts. Internet can best be viewed as different layers that interact to move content from point A to point B.
   
   The foundation-layer is the physical layer which is hardware. Starlink offers a mesh of satellites that are users can connect to using the 'UFO on a stick". They can (should!) also connect to other appliances on the Internet. The physical layer is the road-network.
   
   The layer above that physical layer is the IP (Internet Protocol) layer that provides the adress of sender and receiver. IP doesn't care about the the routing used (IP was designed by RAND to survive a nuclear war and uses the Shortest Path First / Dijkstra algoritm to decide that path) and doesn't care about the data it carries.
   
   The top layer interacts with the user and puts the different datapackets together (the required data is cut in parts with sender/receiver adress attached). There a number of standard services (such as e-mail) but sender/receiver can decide what to do. Another commonly used service is building an encrypted tunnel through which to send not-encrypted data between connecting computers at different locations. This top-layer is what the end-users usually use as 'Internet'
   
   1. Yes. The Starlink physical layer doesn't care about the contents of the datapacket. It just provides the road from sender to receiver
   2. Probably, but I quess this is limited to connection- and throughput-issues (connecting to Starlink and sending data). There will probably also be limits to the amount of data that can be transferred. Customers can decide what content/services the
   3. I presume TV content will not change. IMO it would be a mistake to create content (unless in a joint-venture with a partner such as Amazon)
   4. Unlikely. The amount of data on the Internet is huge, so fiber-optic cables will remain an important part of the Internet. The throughput capacity is not big enough. When the prices are not that high I would guess that rural users will get a piece of the pie.
   
   Starlink is not the only one that is working on Worldwide coverage using satellites. Airbus/OneWeb will start providing services next year and are working on this since 2015"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra's_algorithm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol
https://www.oneweb.world/  

 

It doesn't seem to me that this answered my question about customer accounts and billing.  pl

Starlink 1 and the future of communications - TTG’s take

In 1989, while assigned to an Army SMU, I used a small satellite radio, the size of a mobile phone of that era, with a small dish antenna pointed at the assigned satellite in geosynchronous orbit. Some satellites were good enough to only require the antenna pointed in the general direction rather than being carefully aimed with compass and protractor. During one exercise, I cruised along the Tamiami Trail with the antenna, radio and Toshiba 1100 laptop on the passenger seat. I held secure conversations and transmitted data while cruising down the highway. I know. Distracted driving is a no no, but I didn’t run over any gators.

DIA equipped all DAOs and operating bases with Iridium phones in preparation for Y2K. Much like in 1989, we had voice and data communications. Iridium has an entirely new satellite constellation from what was available for Y2K, consisting of 66 cross-linked low Earth orbit satellites. Iridium also maintains an extensive ground infrastructure for control, maintenance, redundancy and customer support. One of the Iridium antennas I’ve seen resembles a UFO on a stick.

Unfortunately, the above two systems are only practical for the military, well funded businesses and organizations or the filthy rich. Today there are several hand held satellite communication services publicly available for a reasonable price. One is the Spot X two way satellite messenger. The device is $200, cheaper than most smart phones. The unlimited messaging service is $30 per month, again cheaper than a lot of smart phone services. But the Spot X is not a replacement for smartphones. The messaging service is similar to an IM service like Jabber or qq, limited to 140 characters. The Spot X is best suited for coastal and back country navigation since they work off the GPS satellite system. The messaging service is good for those who break the heart of kith and kin and roam the world at will. It’s a way to tell your loved ones you haven’t been eaten by a shark or bear… yet.

I seriously doubt Musk is aiming for “the men that don’t fit in” as the market for Starlink. Starlink has to be able to please the Starbucks bound masses with their noses glued to their smartphones watching cute kitten videos or their friends incessant selfies to be a successful business model. Those UFO on a stick terminals will probably be the satellite antennas with WiFi capability that will enable users to keep their smartphones and tablets and stream the same content they are accustomed to streaming. Eventually Musk will be selling handheld devices that connect directly to Starlink capable of handling streaming data.

I’m sure Starlink will have a ground infrastructure for control, maintenance and customer support at least as large as Iridium. ISPs will change their business structure. They will consolidate and be largely subsumed by data centers where they're mostly located anyway. The data centers will all sprout massive golf balls on their roofs housing satellite transmission antennas for all that streaming content. Cable providers will feel the pinch as they already do from internet streaming services. Starlink will be a boon for people like my brother living in Center Sandwich, New Hampshire. His present internet service uses a radio antenna line of sight shot to a mountain top repeater station connected by cable to a provider’s ground station. He’s too far from a telephone switch to use DSL and cable just doesn’t go there. There is no TV in my brother's house. Starlink will be a life changer to all those throughout the world far more isolated than my brother. 

Of course, I’m not Elon Musk. I may be way off on how Starlink will fit into future communications. A lot will depend on how affordable Starlink will be to us normal Earthlings.

TTG

https://www.iridium.com

https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/products-services/spot-x

Starlink 1 - the future of communications

"In 2020, SpaceX plans to launch 60 Starlink satellites every two weeks, ostensibly to create a functional global internet service by the end of the year.

• Customers would connect to Starlink using what Musk described on Tuesday as a device that looks like a "UFO on a stick" and only needs to be plugged in and pointed skyward.
• Computer scientist Mark Handley previously calculated that Starlink can beat fiber-optic cables, in terms of round trip travel time for user data. However, that was before SpaceX said a key satellite-to-satellite laser technology wouldn't be ready to launch until the end of 2020.
• But Handley thinks SpaceX will use the "UFO" terminals as ground stations — a scheme that could be nearly as fast as laser links, and even faster than lasers alone when used in combination.
• This suggests Starlink subscribers could become critical parts of a global, high-speed, and resilient mesh network instead of just end users.  Business Insider
  

--------------

I have a few business oriented questions about Starlink.

1.  Will Starlink handle traffic other than e-mail?

2.  Will Starlink have a giant business office to deal directly with customers?

3.  If Starlink handles all the kinds of traffic that the present internet transmits, who will be the content providers for TeeVee transmitted via Starlink?

4.  Am I correct in thinking that Starlink will drive present ISPs from the market?  pl

https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-ufo-terminals-how-network-works-2020-1

The Space News We're Excited About in 2020 - Gizmodo

(Artemis return booster)

"It’s time to look ahead to the coming year and all things that will be happening in space exploration. With new missions to Mars, a probe returning to Earth with samples taken from an asteroid, and even more batches of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites going into orbit, it’s going to be another fascinating year.

We’ll learn if NASA is returning to the Moon in 2024

Earlier this year, the Trump Administration accelerated the timeline for returning Americans to the Moon. The space agency was told, in rather blunt terms, that the Artemis lunar mission has to be done by 2024, but Congress raised serious concerns about this rather aggressive deadline."  Gizmodo

--------------

Looks like a great year in space.  This compendium of the year's prospective activities should be helpful.  What role the new Space Force will play in all this is yet to be known.  Trump is not a visionary.  I suspect that his willingness to create a new US armed service implies the possession by the US of a lot of hardware and capability that has not yet been revealed to the public.  pl

https://gizmodo.com/the-space-news-were-excited-about-in-2020-1840538237

"SpaceX to cap transitional year with launch, poised for big things in 2020"

"Monday's launch

Weather conditions appear to be favorable for Monday's launch attempt of the JCSAT-18/Kacific1 commercial satellite from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. The launch window opens at 7:10pm ET (00:10 UTC Tuesday), and closes at 8:38pm ET (01:38 UTC). A backup launch window is available on Tuesday, opening at the same time.

This particular first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket has flown twice, in May 2019 and July 2019, on supply missions for the International Space Station. SpaceX will attempt to recover the stage after the launch of the heavy, geostationary-orbit-bound satellite on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship in the Atlantic Ocean. The company will also attempt to catch both fairing halves in separate recovery ships."  arstechnica

---------------

Up! Up! and Away!  Looks like a banner year coming for SpaceX.  IMO Musk's competitors in the space business are going to have a tough time catching up to him.  pl

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/spacex-to-cap-transitional-year-with-launch-poised-for-big-things-in-2020/

Starlink phase 2

"With SpaceX’s Starlink-1 launch, the second 60-satellite mission, the company debuted Starlink ‘v1.0’ satellites with a range of changes and upgrades that fall under two main categories: structures and communications.

Prior to the November 11th webcast, SpaceX’s official pre-launch press kit was far less revealing than Starlink v0.9’s but did note that v1.0 satellites have been upgraded to be “100% demisable”. This means that when each spacecraft reenters Earth’s atmosphere, everything down to the last shred of mylar is now expected to burn up before reaching the ground, reducing the (already miniscule) risk of debris harming people or property. Similarly, SpaceX implied several months before launch that v1.0 spacecraft would include tweaks to limit their reflectiveness after the astronomy community stoked fears about potential impacts."  teslerati

---------

"100% demisable"  IOW the whole thing burns up on re-entry.

" tweaks to limit their reflectiveness"  IOW  these satellites have been modified  so that they will reflect much light.  pl

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-upgrade-more-bandwidth-more-beams/

" ... we are close to finding life on Mars."

" Green argues that finding the faint traces of Martian life, past or present, will unleash countless new questions that we’re not prepared to answer.

There is, of course, a religious angle to all of this. The origins of life on Earth are still the subject of debate today and science has always had to compete with stories for mindshare.

I mean, we live in a time where a not-insignificant chunk of people still claim to believe that the Earth is flat, so finding alien life on another world is sure to come with its own host of conspiracy theories and true believers spouting… whatever it is they truly believe.

Green may be right and mankind may not be ready to deal with the implications of finding life outside of Earth. But science waits for no one and if there’s life to be found on Mars, those discoveries aren’t going to wait until we’re ready to deal with them. Brace yourselves."  NY Post

------------

One of the old timers on SST wrote me recently to admonish me to abandon my "frivolous" interest in humanity's coming migration from Terra.  He suggested that I should embrace climate change as the focus of SST.  I declined to do so since I think the leftist theme song of impending doom is yet another manifestation of the result of allowing teachers  who are the spiritual offspring of the nutty sixties and seventies to indoctrinate our children for decades.

People are causing climate change?  What an amusing thought!  I will try to live long enough to dance on the grave of this stupidity.  pl

https://nypost.com/2019/10/02/nasa-chief-says-we-are-close-to-finding-life-on-mars-but-the-world-wont-be-ready-for-it/

How about a Moon Elevator?

" ... the Columbia study differs from previous proposal in an important way: instead of building the elevator from the Earth’s surface (which is impossible with today’s technology), it would be anchored on the moon and stretch some 200,000 miles toward Earth until hitting the geostationary orbit height (about 22,236 miles above sea level), at which objects move around Earth in lockstep with the planet’s own rotation.

Dangling the space elevator at this height would eliminate the need to place a large counterweight near Earth’s orbit to balance out the planet’s massive gravitational pull if the elevator were to be built from ground up. This method would also prevent any relative motion between Earth’s surface and space below the geostationary orbit area from bending or twisting the elevator.

These won’t be problems for the moon because the lunar gravitational pull is significantly smaller and the moon’s orbit is tidally locked, meaning that the moon keeps the same face turned toward Earth during its orbit, therefore no relative motion of the anchor point."

"After doing the math, the researchers estimated that the simplest version of the lunar elevator would be a cable thinner than a pencil and weigh about 88,000 pounds, which is within the payload capacity of the next-generation NASA or SpaceX rocket.

The whole project may cost a few billion dollars, which is “within the whim of one particularly motivated billionaire,” said Penoyre.

Future moon travelers will still have to ride a rocket, though, to fly up to the elevator’s dangling point, and then transfer to a robotic vehicle, which would climb up the cable all the way up to the moon."  Observer

---------------

Incredibly great idea.  I have long favored the idea of space elevators but the tensile strength of carbon fiber cable has not been up to the task for earth to orbit elevators.

I would like to sign up for one of the first tickets to the South Pole Lunar Base.  pl

https://observer.com/2019/09/moon-space-elevator-lunar-exploration-columbia-study/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator

 

Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Spacers

"The United States must be prepared to meet the emerging threats in space, which the actions of our global competitors have forced us to consider space as a warfighting domain. The United States Space Force appears to be America’s solution/ This Space Force will need to project power in secure America’s interests beyond the Earth

But what will we call the members of this new service with such a proud and vital mission?

Considering the nicknames of members of the armed services, soldier (Army), marine (Marine Corps), sailor (Navy), airman (Air Force) and guardsman (Coast Guard), there are three categories determining the nicknames: domain, function, or motive power.

Soldier and guardsman are based on the service’s function, that is, what members do. Marine and airman are both based on the domain in which they operate — the sea (naval infantry) and the air, respectively. Sailor is based on sail power, the means by which humans have travelled the sea for most of recorded history.

Nicknames such as “orbiter” or “rocketeer” are examples for names based off of motive power for space. Rocketry and orbits will not be overthrown by any other type of motive power for space in the foreseeable future, but mid- to long-term technological trends may someday yield significantly different forms of motive power. Extensive use of solar or light sails might lead to a new generation of “sailors.”"  The Hill

---------------

Since last week we have "United States Space Command" as part of USAF and as a Unified Command under the Unified Command Plan, but it seems clear to me that this will be followed within a year or so with creation of a fifth separate service as the equivalent of ; the army, the navy, airforce and USMC.  The US Coast Guard is actually a law enforcement agency that is uniformed  and armed.  the US Space Force would be a separate service within the civilian Department of the Air Force in the same way that USMC is a separate service within the civilian run Department of the Navy.

The Space Force will be altogether focused on developing US assets in outer space and preparation for support of a warfighting command on earth if this regrettable necessity arises.

Soo, as "The Hill" semi seriously suggests, what will we call the people of the Space Force.

I vote for "spacer."

As Trenchard decided when creating the Royal Air Force (RAF)  during WW1 from the materials of the British Army Flying Corps, a clean break (unfortunate reference) should be made to indicate a radically different point of view.

Yes, "Spacer" would be the thing.  Enlisted ranks could be derived from that.  "Spacer First Class," "Master Spacer," etc.  I suppose there will have to be commissioned officers.  If there are, then once again, the example of the RAF might guide; "Pilot Officer," "Flight Lieutenant," Squadron Leader," etc., as examples rather than the usual thing. 

Uniforms for wear on earth?  I have already suggested black on black as the color scheme to mimic the outer darkness, but for god's sake, no damned neckties.  Some sort of pullover under jackets or tunics would suffice.

I thank "The Hill" for inspiring this conversation,  pl

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/459790-what-will-we-call-the-men-and-women-of-the-space-force

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_combatant_command

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Royal_Air_Force

"... could save Americans $30B a year." Podium

 

"Our projections show that that low-latency, LEO satellite internet is likely to have a similar impact on average regional prices as wired, low-latency wired providers. Extrapolating this additional competitor across all US households, the introduction of LEO satellite internet could save Americans over $30 billion.

If we assume that just Elon Musk’s Starlink launches, then the 263 million Americans with three or fewer wired broadband providers in their area could collectively save over $14 billion through reduced monthly prices. The remainder of Americans with four or more providers could save an additional $4 billion, pushing the savings to $18 billion.

If both Starlink and Project Kuiper launch, the savings is likely to be even more dramatic, which we estimate to be more than $30 billion as Americans have two additional choices."  Podium

--------------

It appears to me that Starlink and Kuiper would bill customers directly, not through middlemen.  Is that correct?  If so, vast swathes of present business entities would simply disappear as unnecessary. pl

 

https://thenextweb.com/podium/2019/08/24/bezos-and-musks-satellite-internet-could-save-americans-30b-a-year/