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