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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 01 2020, @12:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the watching-Elon's-feed dept.

China currently has four launch centers (three inland and one coastal) and is building a floating one.

China is making progress with a spaceport to facilitate sea-based launch activity and development of rockets, satellites and related applications.

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), the country's main space contractor, is developing the spaceport in Haiyang City on the coast of the eastern province of Shandong.

The 'Eastern aerospace port' will add to China's four established space launch centers and be a base for sea launches of light-lift solid rockets.

Use of a sea based launch site could reduce safety risks to civilians and also decrease visibility of launches.

Launches from inland sites often see spent stages threaten inhabited areas, requiring expensive safety and cleanup operations.

China's intention to buildout a 'satellite internet' is one of multiple infrastructure initiatives likely to benefit from the new launch center.


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 01 2020, @02:14AM (7 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday September 01 2020, @02:14AM (#1044802) Journal

    SpaceX, OneWeb (a UK and India collaboration, for now), Amazon, maybe Samsung and some other companies. China definitely, maybe Russia and a few other countries.

    100,000 satellites seem likely, 1 million satellites is probably a longer-term milestone. Add a few gigantic space stations up there for good measure.

    If astronomers can't mitigate the effects, they'll just end up using space telescopes. Which will also add to the satellite count, but not by much.

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  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday September 01 2020, @02:52AM (4 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 01 2020, @02:52AM (#1044810) Journal

    The problem with "Just using space telescopes" gets a little complicated.

    The physical diameter of a focusing mirror, regardless of interference and everything else, is basically the built-in physics-based limit of detail resolution that no amount of noise cancellation, atmospheric cancelation or other algorithmic cleverness can overcome. Sometimes longer exposure can make up for it, but not if your looking for events instead of objects.

    Ground based telescopes, by virtue of not needing to be launched on a giant explosive can be much much larger. Meaning we can examine objects in deep space more clearly. The James Webb telescope, the largest space telescope, as yet to be launched, will have a focusing size of 6.5 meters, whereas on earth there are already several(very expensive) 10 M telescopes, that I promise you don't want rendered worthless.

    Probably what will happen is some algorithm that cancels out the orbiting debris-to-be from captured data.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday September 01 2020, @03:15AM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday September 01 2020, @03:15AM (#1044813) Journal

      Actually, there are physics-based limits to the size of ground (optical) telescopes. They will probably never exceed 100 meters on the ground due to weight, wind, and cost, but in microgravity, kilometer-sized or larger apertures will be possible.

      At 39.3 meters, ESA's Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is a scaled down version of the axed 60/100 meter Overwhelmingly Large Telescope [wikipedia.org] concept. ELT could be the largest telescope of its kind we will ever see (on Earth).

      The rocket problem is easy. Use fully reusable rockets to launch them in modular form, and assemble them in space.

      https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2018_Phase_I_Phase_II/Kilometer_Space_Telescope/ [nasa.gov]
      https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2018_Phase_I_Phase_II/Modular_Active_Self-Assembling_Space_Telescope_Swarms/ [nasa.gov]

      The actual materials used in a gigantic space telescope would be a lot less than an equivalent ground telescope, since it can be in a flattened shape with no gigantic structure supporting it. You also won't get any protests due to putting up yet another telescope on sacred land.

      NASA and other institutions will have to acknowledge the reality of fully reusable rockets when building future telescopes. I suspect that a space telescope far larger than JWST could be made for less than JWST's original $500 million budget, and without the risk of destroying the whole thing during one failed launch or an unfolding mechanism malfunction.

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      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 01 2020, @07:42PM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 01 2020, @07:42PM (#1045054) Journal
        Keck Observatory managed 85 meters. A large monolithic mirror is impossible, but one could construct an interferometer of up to the diameter of Earth and as much of the surface of Earth as one could afford to apply to the project.
        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 02 2020, @12:27AM (1 child)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday September 02 2020, @12:27AM (#1045179) Journal

          An optical interferometer is good to have, and adaptive optics can narrow the gap between ground and space telescopes. But the virtual diameter does not increase the light collecting area/capability that you would get from having larger mirrors. Perhaps you can even start using a modular space telescope, and just keep adding more mirror segments as they are manufactured and launched.

          Maybe it's possible for optical interferometry to do even better in space. You could separate two telescopes by a long distance, have a physical or laser connection, and not have to worry about the vibrations and distortions caused by earthly sources.

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          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 02 2020, @04:58AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 02 2020, @04:58AM (#1045258) Journal

            But the virtual diameter does not increase the light collecting area/capability that you would get from having larger mirrors.

            More mirrors on the other hand does increase the light collecting area. The real advantage of microgravity environments will be that you can make a viable and enormous mirror out of really flimsy material, like metallised plastic film.

            Maybe it's possible for optical interferometry to do even better in space.

            For starters, physical separation of more than 12k km.

  • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday September 01 2020, @10:35AM (1 child)

    by Unixnut (5779) on Tuesday September 01 2020, @10:35AM (#1044871)

    > If astronomers can't mitigate the effects, they'll just end up using space telescopes. Which will also add to the satellite count, but not by much.

    The problem with "Just using space telescopes" is that they are always in high demand. There are hundreds of thousands of observatories in the world, each with their telescope they can all use 100% of the time. They all do useful Astronomy, even if it is not bleeding edge "sexy" stuff. A lot of it is just general observation, or confirmation of something that has been proposed. Stuff that is generally done "in the background", and is relatively cheap. They are also easy to modify, repair and upgrade, as they are right there on earth.

    Space telescopes are expensive. We could not launch hundreds of thousands of them for cheaper than having them built on the earth. What that means is there will be a fewer number of space telescopes available, reducing the amount of astronomy that can be done in parallel, and having more backlog and fights over "telescope time". This is one of the main reasons that Hubble, despite being one of our best telescopes, is of limited use. Time on it is really scarce, so it is only used when there is no alternative and you may wait for ages to get a "slot" on Hubble.

    While SpaceX and co may well be making the sending of space stuff cheaper, it is still really expensive. The "internet satellites" are basically cubesat sized. They are too small for a space telescope, so I suspect launching space telescopes will still cost a lot of money, especially if you want to replicate some of the larger earth based telescopes in space, not to mention that once launched, you can't do corrections, repairs, upgrades or modifications.

    Also, the above completely ignores the amateur astronomers, of which there are millions with their own telescopes, and many of which also contribute to astronomy.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 01 2020, @01:46PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday September 01 2020, @01:46PM (#1044901) Journal

      Well, we already know that not all ground-based astronomy will be ruined, even if we crank the satellite count up to 1 million. We can still have telescopes looking at distant targets, or for transient events, or whatever. The ground telescopes most affected will likely be wide-field surveys like the LSST.

      Hubble is very scientifically productive. On the ground, I believe the Very Large Telescope is its rival. You can say that there are "hundreds of thousands of observatories in the world" but there are probably only thousands that are nearly as useful (some famous observatories are utterly obsolete because of poor weather conditions at their locations, and have been defunded). We could have a hundred Hubble-sized telescopes if we commit to building them assembly-line style, with no particularly new technologies, and launching them on Starships. The 9-meter payload fairing of Starship is gigantic, likely enough for a JWST-sized telescope with no need for a complicated unfolding mechanism (although it needs to be able to withstand the forces experienced by the rocket).

      If a human touch is needed, assemble or repair in low-Earth orbit using astronauts. The telescopes could be tested while attached to a space station, then released, to prevent the original Hubble situation from happening.

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