SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - Starlink L03 - Launching January 29, 2020
Screenshot from SpaceX Webcast of the launch of Starlink L03
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 B5 - Starlink L03
Written: July 19, 2021
You will of course need a power cord
SpaceX is targeting Wednesday, January 29 at 09:07 EST, or 14:07 UTC, for its fourth launch of Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
SpaceX will be launching 60 satellites on top of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Launch Complex (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
This will be the 4th operational launch of SpaceX’s near-global satellite constellation – Starlink, which aims to deliver a fast, low-latency broadband internet service to locations where access has previously been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable.
After boosting the second stage along with its payload towards orbit, the first stage will perform an entry burn to slow the vehicle down in preparation for atmospheric reentry. The booster will then land 600km downrange aboard SpaceX’s autonomous spaceport drone ship ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’ SpaceX will also attempt to recover both fairing halves with their humorously named fairing catcher vessels: ‘GO Ms. Tree‘ and ‘GO Ms. Chief.’
B1051 first flew the first Crew Dragon for SpaceX’s uncrewed DM-1 mission on March 2, 2019. B1051 launching Starlink V1.0 L03 will change its flight number to B1051-3. Everyday Astronaut Tim Dodd’s links got lost in the January move.
The Payload
SpaceX plans to offer service in North America by the end of 2020 and estimates that once complete, its venture will make $30-50 billion annually. The funds from which will, in turn, be used to finance its ambitious Mars program.
To achieve initial coverage, SpaceX plans to form a net of 12,000 satellites, which will operate in conjunction with ground stations, akin to a mesh network.
Furthermore, the company recently filed for FCC permission on an additional 30,000 spacecraft, which, if granted, could see the constellation amount to a lucrative 42,000. This would octuple the number of operational satellites in earth orbit, further raising concerns about the constellations' effect on the night sky and earth-based astronomy. Such mega-constellations have only recently been made possible with the advent of reusable rocketry, pioneered by SpaceX.
For more information on Starlink, watch the Real Engineering video listed below.
The need for a Power Cord
There is something everybody forgets about, when they talk about Starlink, which aims to deliver a fast, low-latency broadband internet service to locations where access has previously been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable.
The Google search - rural areas electricity problems - gives you 62.6 million hits on this particular problem, which SpaceX or any other large Corporation should address along with providing the World with internet access via a near-global satellite constellation.
With 62.6 million hits it’s given that the answer is out there. You just have to sift through them all to find your particular solution to your unique problem.
Relevant solution to finding power - The first many Google hits talks about the problem and they don't deliver solutions to it. So good luck with that sifting.
Source of power - Solar Cells are already used in the Space Industry, but are they any good on the ground? Are they weather resistant? Wind and Water Power is an old tried and tested solution. Tidal and Sea power is still hardly ready to deliver power, but some can. Sunshine reflectors have been built in large scale, but not so much in small affordable power units - I’m thinking a 3-5 meter parabolic dish with a small steam engine in the focal point driving a small steam generator producing electric power.
Delivery of power - Power Cords are needed from the power source to the ‘end user’ with a laptop and a Starlink Antenna close by. Trouble is that cobber cords are expensive, they are prone to theft or they lack capacity to carry electricity. Other metals might have other issues and exotic carbon fiber solution will be too expensive.
Storage of power - Lithium battery packs are currently reserved for the electric cars filling the roads of the world. Left for rural areas are mechanical solutions such as pumping water from low ground reservoirs to high ground reservoirs. It has been done, but with a world in drought with water shortage it won't be viable.
Unless you pump water from your low reservoir to your neighbor's high reservoirs thus creating a water supply chain. A - B - C - D etc. as long as it rains on the first link A. This could work both ways if C is flooded and needs to pump water to B and D. This will need a larger power grid and a larger interlinked supply of reliable power sources.
Either way they will need digging in power cords and water pipes between rural villages.
What else needs power - Water pumps for starters, streetlamps, schools, churches, public buildings, private homes, electric fences for livestock. You name it - It will need it.
Lack of power - All of them could suck out the power source capability to supply all that power - No sunshine on solar panels - No wind on turbine blades - No water in turbine pumps like in Hoover Dam - Or no power cord between B and C due to…
Threats to the power - Nature is a threat as well as a blessing. Storms of all sorts from Tornadoes to Typhoons, Floods from desert flash floods to New Orleans sized floods, Winter storms with icing of power cords tearing them down and Earthquakes ripping through the very foundation we stand on. Even volcanoes blasting everything in its way and everybody is left powerless and thrown back into the stone age.
Mankind is also a threat in time of War and Lawlessness - Random acts or even deliberate acts of destruction can send a civilized group or a nation of people back in the stone age, if an evil source of military power wishes to do so. If no law is upheld in this country or area, then civilization as we know it will seize to exist. We must have order.
Export of power - If all goes well, the power grid will expand to such a point that your neighbor can reap some of your benefits - for a price. This is how the modern world came about in the beginning of the industrial revolution. As long as you will pay, we will deliver.
That put a brake on rural development of power, telefones, television and internet. In fact everything that costs too much money to get any of it to your neck of the woods.
We Danes had this problem too. Too few and too far between us, so we formed small companies to deal with all of these modern supply issues, a watermill got rebuilt as a water turbine, power cords were laid down or hung on telegraph poles. One nil return cord, three phase power cords and one lightning rod safety cord to each house with a need for 360 volt power. Same goes for telefone cords, water pipes, gas pipes, sewage pipes.
We paid our common good bills for everything - paid out our debts - keepth paying to keep it going and to expand the power grid, so that new customers could get and have access.
135 years later we have it all - Almost - Starlink is missing
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