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SpaceX Launches 60 More Starlink Internet Satellites from Cape Canaveral

posted by Fnord666 on Monday October 26 2020, @03:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-inconceivable-has-become-commonplace dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink internet satellites from Cape Canaveral:

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 60 more Starlink internet relay satellites on Saturday, boosting the total number launched to date to 895 as the company builds out a planned constellation of thousands designed to provide global high-speed broadband service.

Running two days late because of an on-board camera issue, the Falcon 9's twice-flown first stage thundered to life at 11:31 a.m. EDT, pushing the 229-foot-tall rocket away from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It was the California rocket builder's 19th launch so far this year and its 15th Starlink flight.

[...] With Saturday's launch, SpaceX has put 895 Starlinks into orbit, 180 of them — more satellites than any other company owns — in less than three weeks.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Freeman on Monday October 26 2020, @05:45PM (5 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Monday October 26 2020, @05:45PM (#1068991) Journal

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty [wikipedia.org]

    The Outer Space Treaty, formally the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, is a treaty that forms the basis of international space law. The treaty was opened for signature in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union on 27 January 1967, and entered into force on 10 October 1967. As of June 2020, 110 countries are parties to the treaty, while another 23 have signed the treaty but have not completed ratification.[1] In addition, Taiwan, which is currently recognized by 14 UN member states, ratified the treaty prior to the United Nations General Assembly's vote to transfer China's seat to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1971.[5]

    Among the Outer Space Treaty's main points are that it prohibits the placing of nuclear weapons in space, it limits the use of the Moon and all other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes only, and establishes that space shall be free for exploration and use by all nations, but that no nation may claim sovereignty of outer space or any celestial body. The Outer Space Treaty does not ban military activities within space, military space forces, or the weaponization of space, with the exception of the placement of weapons of mass destruction in space.[6][7] It is mostly a non-armament treaty and offers limited and ambiguous regulations to newer space activities such as lunar and asteroid mining.[8][9][10]

    Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law [wikipedia.org]

    Five international treaties have been negotiated and drafted in the COPUOS:

            The 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (the "Outer Space Treaty").
            The 1968 Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (the "Rescue Agreement").
            The 1972 Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (the "Liability Convention").
            The 1975 Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (the "Registration Convention").
            The 1979 Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (the "Moon Treaty").

    Now, if you shot down a satellite, that would be some feat, which a select few countries even have the capability of doing. In the event, some "redneck" shot down a satellite, it would be highly dependent on their countries' view of space law, international treaties, etc., for as to what would happen to them.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @07:07PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @07:07PM (#1069015)

    > Now, if you shot down a satellite, that would be some feat, which a select few countries even have the capability of doing.

    So far, only a select few countries have demonstrated being able to do so, and doing it publicly was kind of the point.

    Sounding rockets are relatively small and cheap and are able to reach suborbital tracjectories. Only as payload goes up does become building a carrier rocket become a major feat. You wouldn't need any payload to kill a satellite, just hitting it would suffice. I'd wager building a rocket able to reach Starlink orbits would not be far out of the abilities of many rocket hobbyists.

    Now, tracking a satellite? As astronomy photos have shown us, they tend to glow quite brightly in the night sky. Optically tracking them is proably not too hard of a problem to solve. Add some commercial drone avionics and you're good to go?

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 26 2020, @08:39PM (2 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Monday October 26 2020, @08:39PM (#1069051) Journal

      Yeah, rocket science is still hard. It's one thing to shoot a rocket up high enough to theoretically hit something zipping around the earth. It's much harder to put that rocket where you want it at just the the right time to actually damage something. Now, if all you wanted was chaos, you might could do some sort of splintered shot that cluttered up the roadway so to speak, like tire spikes. Still, Space is Big and you'd be more likely to have just made a giant rocket that goes up, makes a mess and that's it.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @09:22PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @09:22PM (#1069069)

        I agree it's not trivial. Since a satellite's orbital place and velocity are pretty much constant, its exact position at any point in time is known before launch though. If you have a recorded velocity profile of your rocket, you can calculate where to exactly aim it at before launch. Your flight computer just needs to make some minor course corrections due to atmospheric conditions, which should become negligible by the time of burnout.

        A modern commercial drone seems to be able to cope fine with wind throwing it off course. Would it work well enough for a rocket going much faster and effectively moving in 3D space instead of just the XY needed for keeping a drone in position over ground? I don't know, but GPS should work all the way up.

        I have not played Kerbal Space Program but I hear it's not *terribly* hard, so not sure if "rocket science" carries the same connotation as it used to in the days of Apollo :)

        I for one would welcome some nightly fireworks as a compensation for having all my night sky pics ruined.

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by PiMuNu on Tuesday October 27 2020, @07:25AM

          by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday October 27 2020, @07:25AM (#1069214)

          > I have not played Kerbal Space Program but I hear it's not *terribly* hard

          LOL. Thanks for the informed comment.

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 27 2020, @03:17PM

      by Freeman (732) on Tuesday October 27 2020, @03:17PM (#1069301) Journal

      Assuming you're smart enough to design a rocket and launch it, I would concede the point. Though, if all you're doing is putting together someone else's engine onto a giant tube, and lighting the fire. Yeah, no, you've still got a long way to go.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"