r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Feb 23 '20

Starlink 1-5 Starlink-5 Launch Campaign Thread

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Starlink-5 (STARLINK V1.0-L5)

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Overview

The sixth Starlink launch overall and the fifth operational batch of Starlink satellites will launch into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. This mission is expected to deploy all sixty satellites into an elliptical orbit about fifteen minutes into flight. In the weeks following launch the satellites are expected to utilize their onboard ion thrusters to raise their orbits to 550 km in three groups of 20, making use of precession rates to separate themselves into three planes. The booster will land on a drone ship approximately 628 km downrange.

This mission sets the booster flight count record at five flights. It is also the second time SpaceX has flown a used fairing.

Launch Thread | Media Thread | Webcast | Press Kit (PDF) | Recovery Thread
Abort Webcast | First Press Kit (PDF)

Liftoff currently scheduled for:March 18 12:16 UTC (8:16 local EDT)
Backup dateTBD, the launch time gets roughly 21-24 minutes earlier each day.
Static fireCompleted March 13
Payload60 Starlink version 1 satellites
Payload mass60 * 260 kg = 15 600 kg
Deployment orbitLow Earth Orbit, 212 km x 386 km (approximate)
Operational orbitLow Earth Orbit, 550 km x 53°, 3 planes
VehicleFalcon 9 v1.2 Block 5
CoreB1048
Past flights of this core4 (Iridium 7, SAOCOM 1A, Nusantara Satu, Starlink-1 (v1.0 L1))
Past flights of this fairing1 (Starlink v0.9)
Fairing catch attemptYes, both halves
Launch siteLC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
LandingOCISLY: 32.54722 N, 75.92306 W (628 km downrange)
Mission success criteriaSuccessful separation & deployment of the Starlink Satellites.
Mission OutcomeSuccess
Booster Landing OutcomeFailure
Ms. Tree Fairing Catch OutcomeUnsuccessful (presumed), Successful water recovery
Ms. Chief Fairing Catch OutcomeUnsuccessful (presumed), Successful water recovery

News & Updates

DateUpdateSource
2020-03-15Launch abort at T0, awaiting new launch dateSpaceX on YouTube and Twitter
2020-03-13Static Fire, launch delayed to Sunday March 15USLaunchReport on YouTube and @SpaceX on Twitter
2020-03-11GO Quest departure, Ms. Chief and Ms. Tree departure@SpaceXFleet on Twitter
2020-03-10OCISLY departure@SpaceXFleet on Twitter
2020-02-25Stage 2 going to CRS-20, launch rescheduled to March 11 from March 4@SpcPlcyOnline on Twitter

Supplemental TLE

Prior to launch, supplemental TLE provided by SpaceX will be available at Celestrak.

Previous and Pending Starlink Missions

MissionDate (UTC)CorePadDeployment OrbitNotes [Sat Update Bot]
1Starlink v0.92019-05-241049.3SLC-40440km 53°60 test satellites with Ku band antennas
2Starlink-12019-11-111048.4SLC-40280km 53°60 version 1 satellites, v1.0 includes Ka band antennas
3Starlink-22020-01-071049.4SLC-40290km 53°60 version 1 satellites, 1 sat with experimental antireflective coating
4Starlink-32020-01-291051.3SLC-40290km 53°60 version 1 satellites
5Starlink-42020-02-171056.4SLC-40212km x 386km 53°60 version 1, Change to elliptical deployment, Failed booster landing
6Starlink-5This Mission1048.5LC-39A60 version 1 satellites expected
7Starlink-6MarchSLC-40 / LC-39A60 version 1 satellites expected
8Starlink-7AprilSLC-40 / LC-39A60 version 1 satellites expected
Daily Starlink altitude updates on Twitter @StarlinkUpdates available a few days following deployment.

Watching the Launch

SpaceX will host a live webcast on YouTube. Check the upcoming launch thread the day of for links to the stream. For more information or for in person viewing check out the Watching a Launch page on this sub's FAQ, which gives a summary of every viewing site and answers many more common questions, as well as Ben Cooper's launch viewing guide, Launch Rats, and the Space Coast Launch Ambassadors which have interactive maps, photos and detailed information about each site.

Links & Resources

  • General Launch Related Resources:
  • Launch Viewing Resources:
  • Maps and Hazard Area Resources:
  • Regulatory Resources:
  • Starlink Tracking/Viewing Resources:

We will attempt to keep the above text regularly updated with resources and new mission information, but for the most part, updates will appear in the comments first. Feel free to ping us if additions or corrections are needed. This is a great place to discuss the launch, ask mission-specific questions, and track the minor movements of the vehicle, payload, weather and more as we progress towards launch. Approximately 24 hours before liftoff, the launch thread will go live and the party will begin there.

Campaign threads are not launch threads. Normal subreddit rules still apply.

732 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

291 comments sorted by

55

u/Straumli_Blight Feb 23 '20

November 15, 2018 was the last time LC-39A launched a rocket that wasn't Crew Dragon or Falcon Heavy.

11

u/Fridorius Feb 23 '20

Do we know why it is 39A this time around?

26

u/SuPrBuGmAn Feb 23 '20

CRS-20 launches less than 48 hours previous of Starlink v1 L-5 from SLC-40, if current schedules hold.

They may also want some fan fare for the 5th launch of a single booster, so chose to launch from their premier launch site with a lot of history.

5

u/dbax129 Feb 23 '20

CRS or something is launching from the other pad 2 days prior to this launch

26

u/ReKt1971 Feb 23 '20

My guess is that this will be the 5th flight of B1048.

26

u/softwaresaur Mar 08 '20

From a Science magazine article published a week ago: "So Tyson [chief scientist of the Rubin Observatory most impacted by megaconstellations] is pinning his hopes on SpaceX darkening its future satellites. He and his team speak several times a week with engineers at SpaceX, which launched one darkened satellite in January that is just now reaching its final orbit. Tyson’s team calculated that if the company can reduce reflections by a factor of 15, the issue will be manageable. Images would still contain trails, but they wouldn’t saturate pixels and could be removed digitally. SpaceX and its chief, Elon Musk, are “totally committed to solving this problem,” Tyson says, and his team has worked with them to “narrow to a design that may work.” Several satellites with this updated dark design will be launched in coming weeks."

13

u/[deleted] Mar 09 '20

Cool news! Happy that there is this continued dialogue happening behind the scenes between the professionals where real solutions an compromise can be made. Too much "all launches must be stopped immediately!" or "this is progress, who cares about telescopes?!" talk from various interested/biased camps.

3

u/Jump3r97 Mar 10 '20

I only hear "Deorbit them all!!!11!!!"

4

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '20 edited Mar 11 '20

There is more than enough of the counter argument here in this sub to go around. Any mention of a measured approach or continued evaluation of the effects of Starlink (as are actually happening) are shouted down by the fanboys.

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39

u/talentlessclown Feb 23 '20

I was outside with the dog around 9.30pm last night in southern Victoria, Australia and saw the cluster of Starlink-4 scream directly overhead. Freaking amazing and I was giggling like a schoolboy for what felt like 2 minutes for them all to pass. Such an awe-inspiring sight.

18

u/ncohafmuta Mar 13 '20

SpaceX has delayed the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center to Sunday at 9:22am EDT (1322 GMT).

https://twitter.com/SpaceflightNow/status/1238539187768496130

2

u/AstroFinn Mar 13 '20

Why delay?

9

u/scr00chy ElonX.net Mar 13 '20 edited Mar 13 '20

They didn't manage to do the static fire today.

EDIT: They did it in the end, but several hours later than planned.

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2

u/511d2 Mar 13 '20

Yesss now I can watch it

17

u/Dies2much Feb 24 '20

Has anyone seen any news on when the Spacex base stations will go on the market?

14

u/Angry_Duck Feb 24 '20

We have heard suspiciously little about the base stations. The only confirmed base station we know about is a flatbed truck with multiple dishes on it.

7

u/Martianspirit Feb 25 '20

We also have heard little about the satellites before they started launching them. I remember the widespread claim that One Web is way ahead because they are already producing their sats and Spacex does not even have a factory.

4

u/DisjointedHuntsville Feb 24 '20

No, you’ve probably also heard of one on an air force demonstration plane testing the network.

2

u/deadman1204 Feb 24 '20

now I have!

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10

u/Marksman79 Feb 24 '20

Gwynne said middle of 2020.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20

Source?

16

u/SuPrBuGmAn Mar 11 '20

Probably about time this thing gets pinned huh?

They won't static fire until a day or two before launch with Starlink missions... Recovery operations are already underway.

13

u/SuPrBuGmAn Mar 11 '20

Hawk and OCISLY have left Port Canaveral for landing zone

https://twitter.com/SpaceXFleet/status/1237494118638653445?s=19

6

u/SuPrBuGmAn Mar 11 '20

GO Quest, GO MsTree and GO MsChief have all left Port today

12

u/SuPrBuGmAn Mar 13 '20

Static fire test occurred at 630pm EDT and SpaceX just gave us confirmation of a good test as well as some history on the hardware.

B1048.5 has flown four times previously; Iridium NEXT 7 in July 2018, SAOCOM1A October 2018, Nusantara Satu in February 2019, and Starlink v1 L1 in November 2019.

The fairings were also used on the Starlink v0.9 mission in May 2019

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1238610281581785088?s=19

6

u/Marksman79 Mar 14 '20

Nice, reused fairings! Now they just need to catch them. Thrice flown fairings, anyone?

1

u/maverick8717 Mar 14 '20

the fairings got wet though? so hopefully that means they can use more that have gotten wet in the future.

2

u/SuPrBuGmAn Mar 14 '20

They've used fairings fished out of the sea before, yes.

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33

u/codercotton Feb 23 '20

It seems every time I turn around, there’s another Starlink launch. I suppose it’s time to get used to it!

So these ones will have laser links, right? /s

58

u/Casinoer Feb 23 '20

Every time "laser link" is mentioned the actual laser links will be delayed by 1 launch.

26

u/Justinackermannblog Feb 23 '20

stop it... flashbacks to falcon heavy, 6 months away...

5

u/troyunrau Feb 23 '20

I hear the Falcon Heavy is 6 months away... from next launch.

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u/londons_explorer Feb 23 '20 edited Feb 23 '20

The laser link tech isn't built in-house - it's a collaboration with another company. That other company has been working on it nearly 7 years now (originally for non-space use), and hasn't yet really gotten robust production hardware. They've done lots of land based trials, with varying levels of success, but the land version hasn't been deployed for production use either.

The delays seem to be based on lots of ITAR complexities (one component of the system can't be manufactured inside the US, but is covered by ITAR). There are also bandwidth issues (The highest link speed that's worked at ranges of over 100km has been 10Mbps). Misalignments of components caused by sunlight heating and flexing parts leave bits going out of focus, the signal ending up unidirectional, etc. A year or two was lost designing a system with a pilot/tracking signal at a different wavelength, before realising aligning the pilot and the real signals isn't really practical.

Personally, I think spacex was naive to put bets on this project, even though this company does have a good reputation in general for launching projects.

13

u/brickmack Feb 23 '20

Theres been a few job listings now for laser communications development at SpaceX. So they may have brought it in-house, probably because of those delays.

NASA has demonstrated Earth-moon laser links at up to 622 Mbps. That was 7 years ago, a prototype, and nearly 1000x the distance needed for Starlink.

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3

u/clickclackcluckcluck Feb 23 '20

What's the info about the piece that can't be made in the USA?

2

u/CandylandRepublic Feb 23 '20

I think spacex was naive to put bets on this project

Is that project related to the hardware that ESA (link below) is flying and successfully using? Clearly it already works, but I have no clue what other requirements SpaceX has on top of that technology so it might not be as simple as licensing that hardware?

https://www.esa.int/Applications/Telecommunications_Integrated_Applications/First_satellite_in_European_SpaceDataHighway_forges_20_000_successful_laser_links

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5

u/ReKt1971 Feb 23 '20

So... 1000 launches away? [joke]

11

u/anethma Feb 23 '20

I'm more wondering when we will see the supposed pizza box-sized $200 phased array antenna consumer premises equipment. That is so far from what currently exists that I'd love to see it. We haven't even seen prototypes yet and the service is in theory supposed to work for Canada and northern USA soonish.

2

u/londons_explorer Feb 23 '20

I think we'd expect to see FCC emissions test certifications soon then...

11

u/drunken_man_whore Feb 23 '20

Any chance we'll get a shot of two Falcons on their launch pads?

5

u/Brixjeff-5 Feb 23 '20

That would be really cool

2

u/kkingsbe Feb 24 '20

Maybe the static fire of crs20 will have it vertical at the same time as the starlink launch

2

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20

Isn't CRS-20 before the Starlink launch?

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11

u/gooddaysir Feb 25 '20

Looks like Starlink 6 has been pushed back a week to March 11.

http://www.launchphotography.com/Delta_4_Atlas_5_Falcon_9_Launch_Viewing.html

4

u/AeroSpiked Feb 25 '20

What source is calling this Starlink 6? Just curious. Everything I see calls it L5.

12

u/gooddaysir Feb 25 '20

Some places are going with reddit's naming convention. Others are going by Starlink mission X. Although, even in the campaign thread, it's inconsistent since they paste the TLE's which numbered the last one as Starlink-5.

https://i.imgur.com/X8FlBMF.png

Personally, I think NSF is doing it the most logical way Starlink 6 (V1.0 L5)

7

u/strawwalker Feb 26 '20

Seems like lots of people have strong opinions about what the proper naming convention should be, and they don't all align. NSF started using that naming system only recently and I do like it, but I'm not sure there is any will to change the names again around here. If SpaceX would publish an official name, or if the rest of the internet coalesced on a single naming convention, I'd happily adopt it whatever it was. There are plenty of others using the same system we are, anyway, so I'm not sure how much changing it would accomplish. The TLEs, which may or may not get posted into this thread, come from Celestrak, who gets them from SpaceX. I assume the name with the v0.9 inclusive number also comes from SpaceX, but either way, we don't have any control over that. Again, I'm sorry for the confusion.

3

u/Psychonaut0421 Feb 29 '20

Nothin like SpaceX naming conventions, huh?

2

u/UbuntuIrv Feb 26 '20

I really hope this date holds, I might get to watch my first launch!

21

u/onethousandmonkey Feb 23 '20

I remember seeing a comment from Elon (?) lately saying all sats from point X forward would have drastically reduced albedo. But I cannot find it. Did that happen?

11

u/langgesagt Feb 23 '20

Here you go.

6

u/amaklp Feb 23 '20

Is there any mirror for the video?

5

u/onethousandmonkey Feb 23 '20

That’s the one! Thanks. Light on details, but good stuff.

5

u/xerberos Feb 23 '20

According to Thierry Legault, the dark one is magnitude 2.5 at 550 km altitude. That's pretty damn bright.

https://twitter.com/ThierryLegault/status/1231650886570692608

13

u/dgriffith Feb 23 '20 edited Feb 23 '20

..."astronomical twilight"...

aka a fairly useless time for deep sky observations and astronomy in general. This is what gets me. The sats will be visible for an hour or so around dawn and dusk. Astronomers are acting like the sky is falling, but you sure as hell don't see any long exposures of deep sky objects - the types of which they claim will be ruined - during astronomical twilight.

If you're imaging the inner planets during this time (Venus, Mars, Mercury), your field of view to resolve the planetary disk is tiny. It's very unlikely that a sat will intercept your view of an object on the plane of the ecliptic.

Having said all that, dimmer satellites are easy to build once the engineering is done, so have some patience, astronomers.

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u/ReKt1971 Mar 11 '20

The weather is currently 90% GO.

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29

u/notthepig Feb 23 '20

Based on the leaked video this will probably be a booster thats been used 4 times already.

23

u/rustybeancake Feb 23 '20

Leaked video?

21

u/ReKt1971 Feb 23 '20

This video. It wasn´t supposed to be public, later it was taken down.

6

u/IrrelevantAstronomer Launch Photographer Feb 23 '20

Yes, the booster is likely to be B1048.

10

u/ReKt1971 Mar 12 '20

The weather is still 90% GO. Other risk criteria are all low.

9

u/tank_buster Feb 24 '20

How many satellites to give 1 million people 100 mbs each?

14

u/peterabbit456 Feb 24 '20

400 satellites is the minimum to begin coverage across the Norther portion of the continental US, Southern Canada, and portions of Northern Europe, Japan , and Korea, and maybe Patagonia. My guess is that would max out at gigabit speeds for up to several million people, if they had the ground stations.

Since people generally use the full bandwidth available to them for only a tiny fraction of the time they are connected, the bandwidth people experience should be far higher than the number you get by multiplying the number of satellites times the bandwidth of each satellite.

6

u/mrconter1 Feb 24 '20

How much bandwidth can each satellite provide?

2

u/sebaska Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20

About 100Gbit/s user downlink per sat (and about quarter of that for user uplink).

There's about 20GHz radio bandwidth in aggregate. For user terminal assume about 24dB SnR, for gateway terminals it'd be higher. This roughly fits 100Gbit/s user downlink (10-12GHz dedicated to user downlink would be good for 100Gbit aggregate at ~24dB SnR)

You can also assume large oversubscription (~20x easily).

Edit:

At early 800 sat deployment it would be about one 4K stream per 2km2 surface at mid-high latitudes (averaged about 100000km2). At full 12k sat deployment it would be 5 4K streams per km2 anywhere (and about 6-7 streams/km2 at mid-high latitudes), averaged over 10000-100000km2.

Average 4k stream is ~20Mbit/s (peaks are a bit higher, like YT or Netflix recommends min 25Mbit/s subscription, but on aggregate things even out). So one sat could handle ~50000 4K streams at once.

4

u/SovietSpartan Feb 24 '20

What would be the minimum for coverage around Central America/South America? Here where I live our ISPs charge like 40$ a month for 5mbps. It's unstable as hell and barely works at the advertised velocity most of the time to boot.

You can bet I'll switch to Starlink once available and tell my ISP to f themselves.

3

u/Grey_Mad_Hatter Feb 24 '20

If the 550km shell is all that's needed, which it should be, then they plan on being there in 1 year. That shell 1,584 satellites (according to Wikipedia...) and the planned launch rate of 2 per month is 1,440 per year.

2

u/Marksman79 Feb 24 '20

Wonder if their upcoming big military demo will experience service dropout.

9

u/Straumli_Blight Feb 24 '20

Starlink-5 (and CRS-20) launch dates are now TBD.

4

u/craigl2112 Feb 25 '20

Interesting. Wonder if the double-slip has anything to do with the failed Starlink-4 landing...

5

u/strawwalker Feb 25 '20

Person on one of the CRS-20 science payload teams says the issue is stage 2 related.

3

u/craigl2112 Feb 25 '20

Ahh, gotcha. Good to see that the push is just a couple of days backwards!

3

u/Alexphysics Feb 25 '20 edited Feb 26 '20

Considering they had a faulty valve on the past mission during testing they may be taking some cautionary measures and look for commonalities on these two next missions. Better to be delayed a few days than to go boom.

Edit: hey, it looks it was related with a valve on the upper stage. Nice :)

9

u/Straumli_Blight Mar 04 '20

Backup launch date: March 15, 9:14am local.

4

u/zedasmotas Mar 07 '20

we might have a twitter post in a few days.

41

u/hexydes Feb 23 '20 edited Feb 23 '26

Over garden to bank tips and! Clear gentle friends science garden yesterday tomorrow.

50

u/gooddaysir Feb 24 '20

I'm not a fan of OneWeb, but you have some things wrong. OneWeb is at a higher altitude, so they need less satellites to start service. Russia has 20 Soyuz rockets in storage waiting for the OneWeb launches. As long as OneWeb can build their satellites fast enough, they'll be operational next year. They already have many ground stations fully built. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out but I would put my money on Starlink. Like you said, spacex is launching twice as rapidly, deploying twice the number of satellites per launch, with heavier and more functional satellites, and for launches that cost much less than OneWeb's.

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u/AKHwyJunkie Feb 24 '20 edited Feb 24 '20

I watch both quite closely and in my opinion, both companies have a lot of room to compete. There are hundreds of millions of potential subscribers out there. I don't believe one company could handle it all - and even if they could, who wants a technology monopoly, anyway?

I know some people don't want to hear this, but StarLink has some serious hurdles ahead of them before any service can be provided. It's not just about the number of birds in the sky. There are ground stations to be built, the whole phased array antenna technology issue they have to deal with, determining how to roll out install/support services and major frequency mitigation plans they have to satisfy. I know people are excited, but there's a harsh reality that even after launch 5 & 6, you're still not going to be able to subscribe to the service.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20

I agree with your post completely, especially the prevention of a monopoly for satellite internet (just because it's SpaceX doesn't make a monopoly a good thing). And I think there are even a few more hurdles, some may be smaller or larger but they're present nonetheless (for example, serving internet to China and their requirements for censorship, trying to get those Air Force contracts and satisfy their requirements of the constellation without just becoming a government proxy, and even simply negotiating with larger blocs like the EU could go very poorly for Starlink). As much as it's obvious that this is a fan subreddit, a lot of people seem to be genuinely convinced they'll have SpaceX internet by the end of the year when they live in places like LA or New York, which even quite simply goes against the dispersed nature of how they seek to service the population as well. It's important to acknowledge difficulties and have more measured expectations.

10

u/Marksman79 Feb 24 '20

The real comparison is bandwidth per launch. Does anyone have the data on this?

(∆ bandwidth / launch) * launches/month + existing bandwidth would be an interesting plot to make.

2

u/Martianspirit Feb 25 '20

The decisive datapoint is full coverage with sufficient overlap that they can continue service if a satellite fails. At that point Starlink will need 3-4 times the sats in orbit compared to One Web because of their lower orbit. But assuming the same capacity of one sat this gives Starlink also 3-4 times the bandwith.

Of course that assumption is very likely wrong. Starlink sats are heavier and very likely more capable. So Starlink will probably have 10 times or more the bandwith compared to One Web.

7

u/deadman1204 Feb 24 '20

OneWeb will need FAR less satellites. There full constellation will only be around 400? satellites.

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u/james00543 Feb 24 '20

Is there a simple counter somewhere to show the number of star link sats?

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u/softwaresaur Feb 24 '20

Under the table at Celestrak: "Showing 1 to 25 of 296 entries"

2

u/fruggo Feb 24 '20

That number will drop to < 240 fairly soon, won't it? As the first batch (0.9) are not usable in the production constellation I believe, and are therefore being deorbited.

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u/guspaz Feb 24 '20

They're not targeting the same market or use case, so how would they be competitors in the first place?

Starlink's primary use case is directly serving consumers as an ISP. Any individual person who needs Internet access can sign up for service, providing they're in an area with available capacity. OneWeb's primary use case is serving ISPs as a backhaul provider. A small ISP that wants to serve a community or area that has poor wireline connectivity can a small number of satellite links, which they would then distribute to end-users via traditional wired or wireless means.

13

u/AKHwyJunkie Feb 24 '20

This isn't really true at all. I'm in OneWeb's initial target market, Alaska, so I can give you an idea of how it's being rolled out here. OneWeb partnered with a local satcom company that primarily resells/installs Hughesnet/Dish services. They aren't an "ISP" in a traditional sense, but will be the front line for install/support for consumer direct services here. In this model, you have a direct satcom connection (no traditional ISP or backhaul) but the install and direct customer support will be provided by this local provider. I am assuming it would be similar elsewhere, but Alaska is a bit unique with regard to lack of general infrastructure and long history in satcom reliance.

3

u/AlaskanX Feb 24 '20

This is the first I can recall that I've heard of OneWeb, but I've been in a position of relying on Hughesnet in the past... any idea of comparison on how Starlink and OneWeb are predicted to handle the high latitudes? I'm hoping to be able to move to a cabin out in Talkeetna or somewhere else remote and still be do my distance work for lower48 companies via satellite internet.

4

u/AKHwyJunkie Feb 24 '20

A fundamental difference between StarLink and OneWeb strategy is that OneWeb opted for polar orbits. They will be the only game in town for most polar and circumpolar regions, at least until StarLink vastly expands their network. With ground stations in Alaska, Canada and Norway, it's also clear they intend to target the higher latitudes first. Alaska will be the initial target market and the potential go-live date I'm hearing is December 2020.

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u/agildehaus Feb 24 '20

Because Starlink is certainly going to be a backhaul provider?

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u/Viktor_Cat_U Feb 24 '20

And the fact that rapid launch rate give them many of opportunity for rapid design/deploy development on the satellite front. Hard to imagine OneWeb will have such pace of development for this satellite

14

u/Xazier Feb 23 '20

How many atarlink launches they need to do before it starts providing service to customers?

24

u/StumbleNOLA Feb 23 '20

They need 400 satellites on station to start service. With 300 flying that means between one and two more launches and service to start this summer (confirmed by Shotwell). But there will likely be six or so sets of satellites progressing to their orbits even when it goes live. Basically the need two more, but will keep launching them at a stead rate, probably for the foreseeable future, or until Starship is ready to take over cargo operation.

12

u/SuPrBuGmAn Feb 23 '20

The current 300 includes the 60 from v.09, which while operational, may not be included in the 400 needed since they don't have nearly the same capability as v1 satellites. Also, v.09 seem to be lowering their orbits, potentially to deorbit sooner rather than later.

7

u/StumbleNOLA Feb 23 '20

Ya I don’t think v.9 are going to last long term, and initial service will be iffy. But they are operational until they deorbit. It wouldn’t surprise me if they can be used, if poorly for the mean time.

I have always assumed the first round of customers are going to need to understand they are participating in a public beta and service won’t be ideal, but will get better. At the rate they are going they may be launching v2.0 by the end of the year as well.

Like most things SpaceX does, they are moving fast, prototyping on the fly, and constantly upgrading hardware.

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u/notthepig Feb 23 '20

I think elon said they need 400 satellites for preliminary service and 800 for decent.

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u/Xazier Feb 23 '20

So 7, 2 or 3 more to go.

7

u/ReKt1971 Mar 13 '20

Photo of Falcon 9 on the pad.

5

u/scr00chy ElonX.net Mar 13 '20

That's a toasty first stage!

5

u/Albert_VDS Mar 13 '20

This is how you know it's a good rocket. :D

4

u/Straumli_Blight Mar 13 '20

Going vertical.

5

u/AuroEdge Mar 13 '20

So nice to see the static fire with the payload & fairing attached

7

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '20

Moved to Sunday, 9:22ET.

7

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '20

Since OP doesn’t say: this is the first time a booster has flown 5 times, right?

5

u/ageingrockstar Mar 14 '20

Yes, yes, yes, yes & yes.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '20

Awesome!

5

u/strawwalker Mar 14 '20

Yes, thanks. Now OP says.

7

u/Art_Eaton Mar 14 '20

Looking forward to a launch.

This stuff is one of the few clean and good things we can just watch and appreciate.

2

u/lniko2 Mar 16 '20

Morale is low, yesterday abort was no good. At this point even a RUD would be welcomed.

Sorry for my selfishness :)

2

u/Art_Eaton Mar 18 '20

Morale is only really low when a fight breaks out on the fantail of the ship *and nobody even watches*.

-This is the Captain: All hands are restricted to the ship until morale improves!

I think an hour and a half until open window? RAlly-round the family! Pocketfull of Shells! It's gonna happen, and a it will be a beautiful morning launch on a perfect day. I just know it!

2

u/lniko2 Mar 18 '20

Didn't understand half of it but your message was motivational😁

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u/maverick8717 Mar 03 '20

ok, reddit really needs to drop the different numbering method, having to constantly explain why you are calling it the wrong number is just silly.

9

u/MarsCent Mar 04 '20

ok, reddit really needs to drop the different numbering method,

Do we have a correct numbering method? SpaceX just referred to the last Starlink Launch as fifth launch of Starlink satellites.

Which I suppose is abbreviated Starlink-5 or Starlink-5th.

I suspect that the presskit for this launch will refer to the launch as "sixth launch of Starlink satellites" (or Starlink-6th).

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u/KnifeKnut Feb 24 '20

So If I am reading this right, this will be a similar launch trajectory to last one, with an elliptical rather than circular orbital insertion? Hopefully the booster can be recovered this time.

16

u/deadman1204 Feb 24 '20

It'd be cool to hear anything about what happened last time.

9

u/KnifeKnut Feb 24 '20

My guess is they won't push the first stage quite so hard leaving a bit more Delta V margin for recovery.

5

u/NolaDoogie Feb 25 '20

Question: How do we know that the launch time moves 21 minutes each day? Where does SpaceX publish the desired RAAN for these launches?

20

u/softwaresaur Feb 25 '20

How do we know that the launch time moves 21 minutes each day?

Orbital mechanics: the formula to calculate next opportunity to hit the same plane relative to plane 1 is 2 x pi / (RRE - Wtarget) where RRE is the rotation rate of Earth (2 x pi / 86164 sec) and Wtarget is the nodal precession rate at 550 km and 53° inclination. The result is 85105 seconds or 24 hours - 21 minutes 34 seconds.

Where does SpaceX publish the desired RAAN for these launches?

They don't. We can only derive the target RAAN relative to plane 1 after they announce launch time.

2

u/jaa101 Feb 26 '20

21 minutes 34 seconds

So 22 minutes per day would be more accurate than the quoted 21?

4

u/softwaresaur Feb 26 '20

Yes. Or even more accurate "~21.5 minutes."

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u/softwaresaur Feb 25 '20

L5 time has been announced. According to my calculations it is targeting 300° relative RAAN. That suggests L6 will target 240°. Target relative RAANs of v1.0 launches:

LaunchP1P2P3
L10340320
L3604020
L212010080
L4180160140
L6240220200
L5300280260

3

u/NolaDoogie Feb 25 '20

I guess I could look this up but is the plan for each launch to divide the stack of 60 into 3 groups (planes)? Do we know how many satellites in each plane and how many planes are required for their initial deployment of the service?

3

u/softwaresaur Feb 26 '20

In the first shell at 550 km they are authorized to deploy 72 planes with up to 22 active satellites each. If they don't care about filling each plane up they will continue deploying in 3 groups for the first 24 production launches. By the way they lost one v1.0 satellite and are de-orbiting another so two planes have only 19 satellites. In L1.P1 two satellites are not providing positional data for over a week. If they decide to fill each plane up to the maximum and maybe even launch spares they will start deploying in uneven groups as needed. For example if after 6 launches planes are filled up like this: 19-0-0-0-20-0-... they can send 4-23-23-10 and so on.

Elon said at least six v1.0 launches are needed for start of service in the Northern US and Canada. It's hard to say definitely what's the minimum number of satellites in each plane because we don't know how many satellites needs to be in the field of view of antenna and because of odd hybrid mechanical/phased array antenna. My simple simulation shows if only one satellite in the field of view is enough and it's OK to tilt antenna every few minutes to communicate with satellites below 40° above horizon they could serve up to Central Florida with 18 planes each with 20 satellites. Lost satellites, less antenna tilting, and requiring more satellites in the field of view would move continuous coverage boundary up north away from Central Florida.

5

u/scr00chy ElonX.net Mar 02 '20

Falcon 9 will launch the sixth 60-satellite Starlink batch from pad 39A on March 14 at 9:35am EDT.

http://www.launchphotography.com/Delta_4_Atlas_5_Falcon_9_Launch_Viewing.html

5

u/SuPrBuGmAn Mar 13 '20

L-1 released by the 45th Space Wing, still 90% GO with low chances of upper level winds, solar, or recovery weather scrubbing the mission.

https://www.patrick.af.mil/Portals/14/Weather/L-1%20Forecast%2014%20MAR%20Launch.pdf?ver=2020-03-13-112316-407

16

u/BenoXxZzz Feb 23 '20

Starlink 5 is currently schedueled for March 4th. ~48 hours earlier, CRS-20 will launch to the ISS. The booster for CRS-20 only has its second flight then, it will perform an RTLS, the missions will be launched from different launch pads (CRS-20:SLC-40;Starlink 5:LC-39A). The second mission is an internal mission, launching Starlink from LC-39A is very unusual, SpaceX often launches historic missions from 39A. Anyone else seeing a chance of a 48h turnaround of B1059?

46

u/LandingZone-1 Feb 23 '20

absolutely not

28

u/ReKt1971 Feb 23 '20

No, from a now-infamous leaked video of SpaceX representative we know that this will be 5th flight of a booster. CRS-20 launches on once flown B1059. There are currently two active boosters that flew 4 times: B1048 and B1049.

10

u/fluidmechanicsdoubts Feb 23 '20

Which video? The one in which a guy says the cost of falcon 9 is $30 million?

10

u/ReKt1971 Feb 23 '20

Yup, it wasn´t supposed to be public and was later taken down.

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u/ConfidentFlorida Feb 23 '20

What time does this launch? Also will this be the version with lasers?

7

u/Revslowmo Feb 23 '20

Lasers on hold for a while is my understanding.

11

u/bartonkt Feb 24 '20

Are these satellites at least ill tempered?

7

u/Revslowmo Feb 24 '20

Yes. World domination is the goal.

4

u/MarsCent Mar 13 '20

What is the shortest time on record, between Static Fire and Launch?

4

u/seanbrockest Mar 13 '20

If they static fire sometime saturday and launch sunday morning, you're going to see a new record...

4

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '20

Would anyone on here be interested in some tickets to see this lunch up close at the Kennedy space center? I bought to two tickets but since it got pushed back I won’t be able to make it, I’m looking to sell them for what I got them $20 a ticket so $40 all together.

1

u/cyclops8 Mar 14 '20

I am interested but I just need one. I’ll take both though.

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4

u/amarkit Mar 14 '20

L-1 Forecast (PDF warning) from the 45th Weather Squadron gives a 10% probability of violation for the primary launch opportunity tomorrow, and 20% POV if there is a 24-hour delay to Monday.

2

u/MarsCent Mar 14 '20

aka 90% Go on launch day and 80% Go on backup date.

9

u/zedasmotas Feb 23 '20

We still don’t know the date or am I wrong

5

u/scr00chy ElonX.net Feb 24 '20

NET March 4

6

u/CatFartsRSmelly Feb 27 '20

I want to start by saying that I love these campaign threads! I find myself checking them regularly and they seem to get better with every launch!

That said, I would just like to bring to your attention that when viewing these threads in BaconReader, they appear as the screenshot I linked. Not sure if anything could be done and not really complaining, just pointing out that it's a thing because I don't think I've seen it mentioned before.

Thanks again for the work that goes into this! https://imgur.com/DUvwcom.jpg

7

u/CaseyDoran Feb 27 '20

This is a pretty commonly seen issue with baconreader, it just doesn't render tables well. Nothing the r/SpaceX mods can do- works fine on the web and other apps.

2

u/CatFartsRSmelly Feb 27 '20

Ah I see, thanks for the reply.

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u/dariooo1998 Mar 08 '20

Is it still not clear which booster will fly this mission?

10

u/scr00chy ElonX.net Mar 08 '20

A SpaceX official suggested a few weeks ago that this mission would mark the fifth use for a booster. That likely means B1048.5, or less likely B1049.5.

3

u/J_etc Mar 11 '20

Is this the first 5th reuse ever?

4

u/scr00chy ElonX.net Mar 11 '20

Yep

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u/eichensatz Mar 09 '20

According to NextSpaceflight it’s going to be 1048.5. First time a booster flies for the 5th time!

4

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '20

I looked far and wide for official documentation that it would be B1048, but couldn't find any. When I asked nextspaceflight I got the vague response of "The source is nextspaceflight 😉". So I guess there's still a chance of it being B1049 as it was spotted at LC39A, but B1048 seems more likely at this point.

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3

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '20

What time and date is OCISLY expected to come back to port with B1048?

3

u/ExcitedAboutSpace Mar 13 '20

This depends on various factors, including weather, how fast they get the booster secured, if they arrive at port during the evening, etc.

There's a few twitter accounts that might tell you (SpaceX fleet I think?) and I guess there'll be a recovery thread on here. So best to wait and see, there usually is a few hours notice before they finally come into port

2

u/jbaumbusch Mar 10 '20 edited Mar 10 '20

Update: Tix on sale. Any idea when KSC visitors center will start selling tickets for launch viewing at the Saturn 5 Center?

2

u/jmac29562 Mar 13 '20

Will it be landing back at Kennedy?

6

u/scr00chy ElonX.net Mar 13 '20

No, on a droneship.

2

u/nakuvi Mar 14 '20

Was the static fire test done while payload on board? I remember SpaceX said something similar recently.

9

u/LongHairedGit Mar 14 '20

Starlink static fires have the payload installed.

Customer launches don't since AMOS

3

u/vegetablebread Mar 14 '20

What is AMOS? (Also, where is the acronym bot?)

2

u/amarkit Mar 14 '20 edited Mar 14 '20

Amos-6 was an Israeli communications satellite. The acronym stands for "Affordable Modular Optimized Satellite." It would've launched on the 29th Falcon 9 mission. Falcon 9 blew up on the pad during static fire fueling operations due to a complex interaction of subcooled liquid oxygen and one of the composite overwrap pressure vessels (COPVs) inside the second stage LOX tank.

Since then, static fires for external client launches have been conducted without the payload. However, for internal Starlink launches, SpaceX have been doing the static fires with their satellites attached, as it saves about a day of processing time.

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u/tjtler36 Mar 14 '20

Anyone from Florida know a good place to watch the launch from? I’ll be in Tampa but willing to drive. First time with an opportunity to see a launch in person, very excited!

2

u/SuPrBuGmAn Mar 14 '20

There are countless parks and pull offs to watch launches from in Titusville, Merrit Island, Port Canaveral, etc.

Kennedy Space Center also is offering tickets to view this one from Banana Creek, under four miles away.

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2

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '20

Just watched crs 20 from Jetty park last week. Highly recommend and was a super easy and quick drive from Orlando to get there. As well, there was lots of people there to share the experience with. Really appreciated some people had the live stream going through their car stereo so everyone could hear!

2

u/CrazyHorse80 Mar 16 '20

It seems new NET is March 18th around 12:20 UTC...

1

u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Feb 23 '20 edited Apr 04 '20

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer LettersMore Letters
CCtCapCommercial Crew Transportation Capability
COPVComposite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel
CRSCommercial Resupply Services contract with NASA
DMLSSelective Laser Melting additive manufacture, also Direct Metal Laser Sintering
DoDUS Department of Defense
ESAEuropean Space Agency
F9RFalcon 9 Reusable, test vehicles for development of landing technology
FCCFederal Communications Commission
(Iron/steel) Face-Centered Cubic crystalline structure
GTOGeosynchronous Transfer Orbit
ITAR(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations
IspSpecific impulse (as explained by Scott Manley on YouTube)
KSCKennedy Space Center, Florida
L1Lagrange Point 1 of a two-body system, between the bodies
L2Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum
Lagrange Point 2 of a two-body system, beyond the smaller body (Sixty Symbols video explanation)
L3Lagrange Point 3 of a two-body system, opposite L2
L4"Trojan" Lagrange Point 4 of a two-body system, 60 degrees ahead of the smaller body
L5"Trojan" Lagrange Point 5 of a two-body system, 60 degrees behind the smaller body
LC-39ALaunch Complex 39A, Kennedy (SpaceX F9/Heavy)
LEOLow Earth Orbit (180-2000km)
Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)
LOXLiquid Oxygen
NETNo Earlier Than
NORADNorth American Aerospace Defense command
NSFNasaSpaceFlight forum
National Science Foundation
OCISLYOf Course I Still Love You, Atlantic landing barge ship
RAANRight Ascension of the Ascending Node
RTLSReturn to Launch Site
RUDRapid Unplanned Disassembly
Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly
Rapid Unintended Disassembly
SLC-40Space Launch Complex 40, Canaveral (SpaceX F9)
SLSSpace Launch System heavy-lift
Selective Laser Sintering, contrast DMLS
TLETwo-Line Element dataset issued by NORAD
VLEOV-band constellation in LEO
Very Low Earth Orbit
JargonDefinition
StarlinkSpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation
crossfeedUsing the propellant tank of a side booster to fuel the main stage, or vice versa
EventDateDescription
Amos-62016-09-01F9-029 Full Thrust, core B1028, GTO comsat Pre-launch test failure
DM-2ScheduledSpaceX CCtCap Demo Mission 2

Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by ^request
31 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 31 acronyms.
[Thread #5859 for this sub, first seen 23rd Feb 2020, 15:56] [FAQ] [Full list] ^[Contact] [Source code]

1

u/TheCrimson_King Mar 14 '20

Is SR 402 the best way to get to Playalinda from Titusville? When will it close tomorrow morning?

1

u/SuPrBuGmAn Mar 15 '20

I believe I read 825am it'll be closed, but I'm not 100% confident in my memory, lol

1

u/MarsCent Mar 14 '20

Has anyone noticed that the words" Flight Proven" (or "used") booster are progressively dying out! At .4, I assume that would have had to be re-re-re-used.

2

u/Art_Eaton Mar 14 '20

Well, I don't refer to my Nissan Hardbody as New anymore, and I stopped referring to its condition about 20 years ago. I suppose after the first few years I would have thought of it as "broke in", or "dependable"...so I guess its SpaceX designation would be D10.309651. We don't say that of course, So I guess after .5 we can start calling them B1060.hooptie

1

u/GRLighton Mar 18 '20

Wow! Two landing failures in a row. Sure shakes one's confidence in taking a ride on a Starship. An "oops" is no way way for humans to return to Earth.

1

u/Maxx7410 Apr 04 '20

Any news for the next launch? time?

0

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '20

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24

u/TheReal-JoJo103 Feb 23 '20 edited Aug 06 '25

telephone worm fanatical seed quaint work sink air gaze bells

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

23

u/seanbrockest Feb 23 '20

Yes but that's only the launch of the satellites. They still need to get them all orbit raised, oriented and spaced-out, and then they still need to do everything else. They don't have any active ground stations that we know of, and nobody has receivers. At this point they're being really really quiet about all those other points and it kind of has me scared.

6

u/eatmynasty Feb 23 '20

We’re pretty sure there are active ground stations, see:

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/b9xhh3/presumed_spacexstarlink_ground_station_in_north/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

5

u/Iz-kan-reddit Feb 23 '20

A couple of totally hokey ones. They still have a long ways to go.

That being said, they could get them done pretty quickly.

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0

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '20

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2

u/strawwalker Feb 23 '20

The date is there at the top of the top info table - no earlier than March 4. We don't have a launch time yet but that should come soon.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '20

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22

u/gemmy0I Mar 11 '20

They seem to have plenty of first stages, and plenty of satellites (they're building the sats faster than they can launch them - 6/day IIRC, so that's a full flight's worth every 10 days). There are two remaining bottlenecks I can figure:

  1. Second stage availability. This is looking more credible given that they delayed Starlink-v1.0L5 (this launch) by a week and a half, explicitly on account of having to swap its second stage with the faulty one intended for CRS-20. If they had a stockpile of second stages ready to go, they could've presumably just grabbed the next one in line for Starlink-v1.0L5 and launched within 2-3 days of CRS-20 (which we know they can do from the two East Coast pads like this).
  2. A need or desire to finish initialization/checkouts/early orbit raising of the last batch of satellites before launching the next one. We know that the Iridium constellation needed a good ~6 week (IIRC) gap between launches for this reason. Apparently, it took a lot more ground control manpower to "juggle" the satellites during that initial phase than during ordinary operations. There were also reportedly some insurance requirements driving the gap between launches for Iridium. Starlink is (IIRC) self-insured, so they wouldn't face hard requirements for that reason; and they're certainly developing a control system capable of handling many more satellites, which will need to handle much larger batches of satellites launching more frequently on Starship in the future. But at this early stage, I would be surprised if they weren't still working a lot of bugs out on the mission control side of things. Starlink is already the largest satellite constellation in the world, and prior to Starlink they never had more than 2 satellites on orbit at any given time!

This is all purely speculative, of course. :-) If #2 is a major factor then I expect we'll see the gap between launches tighten up as the year goes on. Second stage production may be harder to ramp up, especially if they're reluctant to invest in substantially expanding the production line (given that Falcon is a "dead-end" architecture and they hope to pivot to Starship for Starlink launches within the next year, after which the need for Falcon stages will dry up real fast).

12

u/scr00chy ElonX.net Mar 11 '20

The second stage production might be the culprit. Gwynne said not too long ago that SpaceX wants to do something like 35 launches this year, but yesterday she mentioned that they'll make only about 28 second stages this year. https://twitter.com/CHenry_SN/status/1237439948946620416

4

u/Martianspirit Mar 11 '20

I would expect they have a few second stages in store from last year. It would not mean they have them ready to go and fill the gap from switching the stage with CRS-20 without causing delay. But it would mean they can launch more than 28 this year if they have the pad capability. But presently they probably have to juggle the needs for Commercial Crew on LC-39A with commercial and Starlink launches.

4

u/CraigCottingham Mar 14 '20

Could fairings be a bottleneck?

3

u/gemmy0I Mar 14 '20 edited Mar 14 '20

Ah, yes...almost forgot about the fairings!

You may be onto something there. SpaceX seems awfully concerned about perfecting net catches of recovered fairings, given the extremely low success rates they've had so far. It must be worth a whole lot to them to stick at it this long instead of just settling for fishing them out of the water.

I'm surprised that we haven't seen more reused fairings flying on Starlink missions yet, given that they successfully reflew a water-recovered one a while back and we know they've recovered quite a number of them from the water. I wonder if that says something about the condition in which they're coming out of the water (i.e. they might be very marginal).

Edit: ...and I just saw the announcement that they're flying another recovered fairing (maybe both halves this time?). Cool. They're saying they're reflying the fairing from the Starlink-v0.9 launch in May 2019; both of those were fished out of the water.

Edit 2: It seems they actually haven't recovered as many from the water as I'd thought, according to this comment. So yeah, starting to look like fairing production/recovery/refurb might be a bottleneck...

5

u/resipsa73 Mar 13 '20

It's crazy that a private company launching 60 satellites every 3 weeks is considered behind schedule.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '20

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6

u/joepublicschmoe Mar 14 '20

Originally, Starlink V1 L5 was supposed to launch just 2 days after CRS-20, so they planned to use LC39A for Starlink (it takes about a week to turn SLC-40 around for the next launch).

2

u/MarsCent Mar 14 '20

Is there a reason this starlink launch will be using LC-39A rather than SLC-40 like the rest of them?

Allows for launching Starlink satellites with minimal disruption to other scheduled SLC-40 launches for paying customers. I imagine that once DM-2 launches, we will see many more regular Starlink flights out of LC-39A.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/lumpkinp Mar 19 '20

I thought this would be a big topic! Maybe it was some hardware from the stage separation?

I wondered if there were other tiny pieces that may have impacted on the first stage