It was new to me but it does seem to be a thing:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/geomagnetic-storms
During storms, the currents in the ionosphere, as well as the energetic particles that precipitate into the ionosphere add energy in the form of heat that can increase the density and distribution of density in the upper atmosphere, causing extra drag on satellites in low-earth orbit.
I’m waiting for Scott Manley to make a YouTube video explaining it this week!
I would have thought they would have factored the potential for increased drag into their launch plans.
I guess they underestimate the height margin they would need.
An expensive mistake.
Love Scott Manley!
Hey, I called it:
Argon is cheaper than Krypton, which is cheaper than Xenon (the usual choice). It’s about 1% of Earth’s atmosphere, and basically a byproduct of O2/N2 liquification (it has other uses, but not so much to drive up the cost).
Good to see them constantly reevaluating previous mass/cost trades. Cheaper launch, cheaper solar, etc. all affect the right choice.
Though interestingly, they’re claiming 50% efficiency, which is pretty much in the same ballpark as Xenon thrusters. They must have made improvements in other areas to keep the efficiency flat.
Only 21 of these per Falcon 9 launch (compared to 50+ for V1). But they have 4x the capacity, so it’s an overall win. Still, clearly they’re depending on Starship in the long run.
Reviving this old thread. It has now been over a thousand days since the winners of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund were chosen. Zero customers have been connected to the internet from the $42B in funding:
What does this have to do with Starlink? Well, they won an $886M grant originally:
But it was taken away for opaque reasons:
The argument was absurd then, but even more so now. No customers have been connected via traditional means in nearly three years. How long does it take to dig a damn trench? But Starlink now serves millions across the globe and over a million in the US alone. Rural customers can still get great service since LEO internet is geographical in nature, and the lower the density the better bandwidth you get.
All they ever had to do–and what they could do today, if they wanted–is to spend a tiny portion of that $42B on subsidizing dishes and monthly fees. Rural customers would have fast, multi-hundred-megabit broadband within minutes of receiving the dish.
It’s amazing how many times we have to play the same damn game with the same result. Traditional telcos promise they’ll connect everybody, they get a ton of subsidies, and virtually nothing happens. We went through the same thing in the 90s.
I hope the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has been more successful in other areas.
Incredible:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/fcc-chair-wants-more-competition-spacexs-starlink-unit-2024-09-11/
Rosenworcel said at a conference Wednesday that Starlink has “almost two-thirds of the satellites that are in space right now and has a very high portion of internet traffic… Our economy doesn’t benefit from monopolies. So we’ve got to invite many more space actors in, many more companies that can develop constellations and innovations in space.”
As noted earlier, in 2023 the FCC refused to reinstate the rural subsidy on the basis that they didn’t believe SpaceX could actually serve those customers.
A year later, Starlink is so successful that the FCC is calling them a monopoly.
The FCC should of course foster competition. The issue is only their hypocrisy in denying the grant and then making noise that they are too successful. And their utter incompetence in actually connecting those rural customers despite having tens of billions in funding.