Hm, I don't think SpaceX would have interest in separating out antennas per carrier - apparently the PCS/Cellular antenna for Starlink 2 is planned as a ~25 square meter phased array.
The SpaceX Thread
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Hm, I don't think SpaceX would have interest in separating out antennas per carrier - apparently the PCS/Cellular antenna for Starlink 2 is planned as a ~25 square meter phased array.
Asking here because this seems to have become the catch-all Space thread. Any idea when actual launch schedules for Cape Canaveral for end of November will be available? I'm going to be on a cruise then that stops there for a day and really hoping I'll be able to see a launch even if just from the ship. I keep checking https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/ and they are just TBD after like end of October or 4th quarter
I strongly suspect the antennas aren't going to be specific to the Tmobile frequency ranges, and instead will cover as big of a spread as physics allow. They are going to want to be able to partner with cell carriers all over the world, and everyone has different frequencies. I'm sure eventually someone else will put up another internet constellation, but man, ATT and Verizon just got a big gut punch. I'm sure SpaceX will be happy to send up a competing constellation, but it's going to be half a decade behind at least.
If you meant "SpaceX", then yes. General space talk, no. There is an aerospace industry thread a little bit down the page.
This is a better source for upcoming launches. The owner keeps it quite current.
The SpaceX Starship static fire test on Thursday turned into a real dumpster fire.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-head ... -seriously
Heh, Bill Nelson finally realized that the winds have shifted and he remains the consummate politician.
Heh, Bill Nelson finally realized that the winds have shifted and he remains the consummate politician.
Is that a flip flop; or merely representing those he's paid to represent.
Not to mention the actual dumpster which burned for hours according to the article. It sounds like SpaceX has a lot of work to do on taking adequate precautions before their tests.
SpaceX was not allowed to clear the brush prior to testing. I don't see how a literal dumpster fire is a real issue unless it somehow accelerated where the fire spread.
They could possibly have constructed a pad that wasn't itself a friable tinderbox near a wildlife sanctuary.
Empty coastal sites near the equator inside the US borders with the ocean to the east aren't exactly plentiful. If SpaceX had the option to buy a huge chunk of suitable land somewhere that nobody cared about, like they did in McGregor, they would have. Realistically, Boca Chica is pretty much the least disruptive place they could do this kind of development. Long term Starships are going to launch almost exclusively from ocean platforms, but that's not reasonable for R&D or manufacture.
The vegetation that burned was opportunistic, not native. The native habitat was destroyed by flooding by hurricane decades ago, the same storm that effectively halted development of BC Village. Now it's scrub and cactus blown in or brought by birds. SX doesn't own it so they can't prophylactically remove it.
When the Hopper flew, it caused a similar fire that was actually more extensive. Shit just grows back.
When the Hopper flew, it caused a similar fire that was actually more extensive. Shit just grows back.
I'd go a little further and say that Boca Chica's unique in the mainland US-- it's the furthest south that you can get unless you want to build in metro Miami or the Everglades.
That low latitude gives Boca Chica a level of versatility that they won't be able to match until they start launching from sea platforms (if that ever actually happens)-- it can easily hit lower-inclination orbits than the Cape can, and they should be able to fairly easily launch into polar orbits going both north and south without overflying the US or Mexico while still at low altitude.
What location in the contiguous USA would you consider a better choice? Note that the entire KSC/CCAFS complex is in a wildlife sanctuary. Most of Vandenberg (including offshore) is considered a wildlife reserve or outright sanctuary.
I think he was commenting primarily on the pad construction materials and techniques, not the location
At a minimum. According to both Gizmodo and Teslarati, they still haven't implemented a serious water deluge system and they know they've had problems with the pad disintegrating and starting fires.
There are ways to be better about this.
Maybe you should read up a bit about why it's a wildlife refuge before you get dismissive. Because of all the rare and endangered species that live in the area and are under state and federal management, this isn't only about burning some burning invasive grasses.
Frankly, I couldn't give a shit if some turtles or whatever are inconvenienced for a few years. Getting humanity to space is far more important. No matter where this development and testing occurs it's going to be extremely disruptive, that's just how it has to be.
That sounds like extravagant hyperbole ... but, yeah, kinda.
SpaceX is changing what the years 2100, 2200, and 2500 will look like.
Seriously?
This is ridiculous. There's a whole planet of places to launch 'the human race' from, and thousands of years to do it in. Elon Musk is not setting up planet B on Mars anytime in the next century or four. Developing Starship can be done without being a dick about it.
I'll give you the same (currently unanswered) challenge I have given others: What currently-unused potential launch site in the contiguous USA do you propose as better overall than Boca Chica?
I didn't propose an alternative site. I was responding to Xavin's thesis that biodiversity doesn't matter. That was in the context of lack of fire suppression systems at Bica Chica.
But to address your question in general terms, in 10 years of environmental consulting one thing has become clear: developers, of any kind, rarely if ever include environmental considerations in their initial optimisation parameters when searching for a suitable site for their project. They first find the location that meets their needs best, and only then do the environmental studies, and only because its required by law.
Any competent environmental scientist working with a developer can help them screen suitable properties beforehand. That means that the final selection may be a compromise for the developer but less of a compromise for the environment. So for all I know there's a suitable property a couple of miles away. Or maybe they do their Starship development in the desert somewhere and the actual launches from the launchpad they're building in Florida. Or some other selection.
You can't say there are no other suitable sites just because Spacex chose that particular one. You'd have to run the screening process to look for alternatives.
I never said it was arbitrary, quite the opposite.
And yes, by definition a greenfield development threatens biodiversity. You're transforming the footprint of the development, plus whatever impacts occur on the surrounding land from your activities. The EIS provides the impacts and mitigation criteria, but the lowest impacts is not to build there in the first place. That would mean an alternative site that may be more of a compromise for the company but less of an environmental impact. That doesn't factor into most company's calculations until after they've already selected their sites, purchased or leased it, and start doing the legally-required EIAs.
But that wasn't the issue that I responded to. It was the idea that some factory is going to save the human race and is more important than biodiversity.
Spacex also is building a launch pad and factory in Florida and is planning to build offshore platforms. So the factory and testing site didn't necessarily have to be in that location. They chose it for a variety of reasons not least of which include business reasons like tax laws and incentives and cheap land.
And yes, by definition a greenfield development threatens biodiversity. You're transforming the footprint of the development, plus whatever impacts occur on the surrounding land from your activities. The EIS provides the impacts and mitigation criteria, but the lowest impacts is not to build there in the first place. That would mean an alternative site that may be more of a compromise for the company but less of an environmental impact. That doesn't factor into most company's calculations until after they've already selected their sites, purchased or leased it, and start doing the legally-required EIAs.
But that wasn't the issue that I responded to. It was the idea that some factory is going to save the human race and is more important than biodiversity.
Spacex also is building a launch pad and factory in Florida and is planning to build offshore platforms. So the factory and testing site didn't necessarily have to be in that location. They chose it for a variety of reasons not least of which include business reasons like tax laws and incentives and cheap land.
You didn't answer anything about the pad construction and fire suppression systems so why don't you start there before straw-manning people?
"We have to get to thing-I-like right now, even if we have to trash the planet" is how we got where we are with a planet sweating under global warming, rivers no longer reaching the ocean and filling up with enough sediment to choke fish, slash-and-burning turning the Amazon into a wasteland instead of a carbon sponge and oxygen fountain, anoxic deadzones near coasts, 14% of the world's coral reefs skeletonized, and enough leaded gasoline to contaminate this layer of the geological stratum forever.
Maybe don't let yourself believe that thing-I-like is more important than having a livable planet going forward? I definitely do not share your priorities and unlike you I believe humanity will be Earthbound in the lifetime of myself and our successor generation because there's no way for us to live on other worlds yet regardless of how many we can heft on Starship. I happen to think that biodiversity is more important than Musk's race to Mars because the pace of that can slow down without threatening humanity, but once biodiversity is lost it's not coming back.
It almost certainly will/would on a long enough time-scale. Large scale extinctions happened before us, have happened because of us, and will happen again after we're long gone. At the very least, *some* of us will try to slow our impact. And some are taking pains to preserve it, at the flora level.
Taking it back a step. This started because of a conversation around some brush fires. The factory and launchpad has already been approved and built, so it's pointless to talk about alternative sites. It just means that Spacex should be good stewards of their environment. Not starting unintended fires is a fairly straightforward requirement that they apparently still haven't adequately managed. Considering that massive combustion is their whole reason for existing, it seems like something they should improve.
A single manufacturing facility and launch site is not affecting having a livable planet one way or the other. Even if they reach the numbers of launches Musk dreams about, Starship launches still won't be happening on anywhere close to a big enough scale to affect the environment in a meaningful way.
They don't own the land where the fire started and don't have permission to clear it. I have a strong suspicion this whole thing was partly malicious compliance, to prod whatever government agency is in charge of that land to get their shit in order.
Is it the state's responsibility to clear their land, or is it SpaceX's responsibility to not catch property they don't own on fire?
Not keeping their shit contained on the land that they do control isn't malicious compliance; it's just incompetence. Or negligence. Or arson.
Two words come to mind: "Go fever."
But as I pointed out, this isn't just a single company. Your attitude about this is the same mentality that allowed ecological disasters to unfold over the last hundred and fifty years. "We have to rush into this right now, consequences be damned! The local effects won't matter in the big picture!" Scale that up to everybody everywhere and obviously it IS a problem because that's exactly what happened. This is why we have rules and processes to which all companies must adhere regardless of whether or not what they're doing is "for the future of mankind." If rebuilding the facility to not holocaust the wildlife sanctuary and state parks sets SpaceX back, say five years, what does that matter in the grand scheme of things?
When a camper starts a wildfire that burns huge swaths of a state do we just shrug and say "oh well?"
By that same logic it won't effect our spacefaring future either.
But as I pointed out, this isn't just a single company. Your attitude about this is the same mentality that allowed ecological disasters to unfold over the last hundred and fifty years. "We have to rush into this right now, consequences be damned! The local effects won't matter in the big picture!" Scale that up to everybody everywhere and obviously it IS a problem because that's exactly what happened. This is why we have rules and processes to which all companies must adhere regardless of whether or not what they're doing is "for the future of mankind." If rebuilding the facility to not holocaust the wildlife sanctuary and state parks sets SpaceX back, say five years, what does that matter in the grand scheme of things?
Then they won't meaningfully contribute to our spacefaring future, either.
They don't have permission to set it on fire either.
When a camper starts a wildfire that burns huge swaths of a state do we just shrug and say "oh well?"
So let me get this straight. You are starting to believe that this brushfire was started semi-deliberately by SpaceX to achieve some good end? That's not healthy.
The acale of a factory's impact is local. No single factory or facility anywhere in the world is large enough to impact the planet. The discussion is about this factory's impact on the local environment. Biodiversity and ecosystems aren't fungible.
Your hypothetical paints Spacex in a very bad light, by the way. I'll say that Spacex probably isn't deliberately breaking their agreements and causing fires on purpose. If they can't clear the land (a fairly normal condition in a coastal wetland protected area) then they need to protect their boundary from fire by other means.