SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
[20200818_144907 UTC: Update 1: Launch successful, Booster landing successful, Deployment of all 3 of Planet's SkySats successful. Starlink deployment due in about 10 minutes at approximately T+26:00.]
[20200818_150438 UTC: Starlink satellites deployment due shortly (had bad info on deployment time).]
[20200818_151940 UTC: Starlink satellite deployment successful at T+46:00. One fairing was successfully caught by "Ms Tree"; the other fairing made a soft landing in the water and is being retrieved by "Ms Chief".]
[Note: this story is in addition to our usually-scheduled stories; ignore it if you are not interested. --martyb]
Tuesday's SpaceX Starlink satellite ride share will set a new record:
"Some big milestones coming up," Musk said on Twitter, referring to the sixth flight of the booster (serial number B-1049) and the 100th mission for SpaceX over the company's history.
Obviously, the Falcon 9 first stage could actually set two new records on the same day, by first launching for the sixth time and then landing for the sixth time, which it will attempt on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic Ocean.
The launch is set for Tuesday morning at 7:31 a.m. PT [10:31 a.m. EDT; 14:31 UTC] from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. As of Monday morning, the weather forecast had an 80 percent chance of being favorable for launch.
In addition to attempting a historic launch and landing, SpaceX will try to catch both halves of the nose cone that will protect 58 Starlink satellites and three belonging to Earth-imagery company Planet as they blast through the atmosphere. SpaceX has just recently perfected its method for retrieving these components, and we'll see if it can make a habit of it and continue to expand its recycling program.
Also at Ars Technica.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 19 2020, @12:47AM (2 children)
Even if they get the reliability way up there, the fallout from a failure would be bad enough to likely make nuclear rockets unattractive for launch services - just as nuclear airplanes are unlikely to become attractive for passenger liners. (Though on the other hand it could be a heck of a deterrent for shooting down a military plane)
Where nuclear rockets could really shine is interplanetary travel, where there's basically no risk of contamination in an accident. Particularly for passenger liners and other perishable payloads for which ion drives are too slow. And then of course there are nuclear powered ion drives - just have to figure out how to radiate all the waste heat. Perhaps that's an application where p-B fusion could really shine - by converting the He4 kinetic energy directly to electricity you can generate enormous amounts of power while only having to dissipate incidental waste heat.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 19 2020, @01:46AM (1 child)
Well, I'm thinking 2040 or beyond for SpaceX *possibly* thinking about nuclear rocket engines. It's just my speculation, and nothing they should be concerned about for a long time.
2030 for wider, larger Starships, because there could be some challenges with scaling up the thrust and they might want to stick to their 9-meter-focused assembly line for the foreseeable future. Also, it should be a sufficient size for most customers, although there is an "if you build it" aspect to it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 19 2020, @02:42AM
I would actually be surprised if there were much if any demand for a "Jumbo Starship" by 2030. Quite likely by 2040, but 2030 is a paltry 10 years away, and the projects that will really take advantage of Starship v1's capacity will probably take 5-10 years to get off the drawing board, and won't even get on it until the proven capacity exists.
Of course, assuming they nail the reusability, and can bring launch costs _way_ down, it'll open the door for a lot of new enterprising startups to start getting into space technologies. And having the mass and volume capacity to burn will allow for a much cruder "brute force" approach which could advance much faster. So once the Starship starts seeing frequent payloads that _need_ its capacity, it probably won't be long before a market starts opening for something larger.
I'm sure it'd be more comfortable for Mars colonists at least - but heady dreams aside, I suspect we're actually several decades away from any sort of mass immigration. Colonization will be _expensive_, and so far there's no promise of any economic return - which is what has always driven colonization in the past. It's likely to be a long time before Mars promises anything other than a bleak, dangerous, and expensive existence that you'll have to pay for up front. No doubt plenty of demand for a research outpost or ten, but an outpost is a very different beast from a colony. On the other hand, with a bit of radiation shielding that could be made locally, gutted Starships could make extremely convenient habitats, in which case the extra space would no doubt be even more appreciated than during the voyage there.