If so, can Starship hit polar orbits from the Cape
Dumb question, not sure if it's been answered before (I tend not to follow SpaceX threads too closely): for the Starlink 2 satellites to be launched on Starship, are they planning any near-polar inclination satellites to go with their mostly mid-inclination satellites? If so, can Starship hit polar orbits from the Cape, or will they need to do a Starship launch facility in Vandenberg? Is that something that's in the works? Someone was just asking me about Starship being able to deliver payloads to SSO, and I wasn't sure if they were actively planning to do a facility that could enable SSO/polar launches.~Jon
Do you really need 3600 to 97.6 degrees? The actual population density (research bases and transcon aircraft) is quite low. They only planned 520 satellies to 97.6 for Phase 1.3600 to the 70 degrees, with larger populations in Alaska, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden makes more sense.
Getting back to the polar plane, the user density is a small number research stations and maybe weather stations above 70 degrees and the few hundred transcon flights transiting the pole at any given point in time? While transcon is lucrative, and most likely high bandwidth, 3600 might be a bit overkill.
Starlink’s Fair Use Policy is now pushed back to NET April 2023
Interesting. It seems, at least judging by user reviews on FB & Reddit, that they got some of their speed issues in North America under control. May simply not be as urgent as it was before?
Could be! Perhaps just technically challenging to implement as well
SpaceX president & COO Gwynne Shotwell, at #CST2023: "This year Starlink will make money. We actually had a cash flow positive quarter last year."
While Musk said in October that Starlink was losing money, Shotwell offered a more upbeat assessment. “This year Starlink will make money,” she said, noting that the company’s Falcon launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft, and other unspecified work, already makes money.“We actually had a cashflow positive quarter last year, excluding launch. This year, they’re paying for their own launches, and they will still make money,” she said.
More accurate Shotwell quote: https://spacenews.com/shotwell-ukraine-weaponized-starlink-in-war-against-russia/QuoteWhile Musk said in October that Starlink was losing money, Shotwell offered a more upbeat assessment. “This year Starlink will make money,” she said, noting that the company’s Falcon launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft, and other unspecified work, already makes money.“We actually had a cashflow positive quarter last year, excluding launch. This year, they’re paying for their own launches, and they will still make money,” she said.
Do we know, how many Starship launches are needed, and how fast, to deploy the Starlink constellation and satisfy FCC requirement? I asking this, because of the news about selling Phobos & Deimos. Shotwell said also that 100-200 launches are needed before human flight. Probably, they are Starlink flights.
Quote from: geza on 02/14/2023 05:25 amDo we know, how many Starship launches are needed, and how fast, to deploy the Starlink constellation and satisfy FCC requirement? I asking this, because of the news about selling Phobos & Deimos. Shotwell said also that 100-200 launches are needed before human flight. Probably, they are Starlink flights.While the FCC's arbitrary partial grant is ridiculous, it makes that problem a lot easier for SpaceX in the interim. For 7500 full-size V2 satellites and assuming ~60 sats per launch, SpaceX only needs about 12 Starship launches per year between H2 2022 and Dec 2028 to hit the 50% milestone. The 50-100% milestone would then require 24/year.Assuming the FCC actually does grant permission for more Gen2 satellites, you can then simply 4X the above figures to get a worst-case idea of the cadence required. In practice, the staggered grants would take the edge off and require fewer Starship launches per year to hit deployment milestones than if the whole constellation had been approved at once.Edit: Should add that the situation will become even more favorable if SpaceX quickly develops a proper payload bay (or stretched fairing) and can use most of Starship's performance. Perhaps 80-125 V2.0 satellites per launch if/when that happens.
A value of 60 to 90 launches in 5 year period is 12 or 18 launches a year average.I do not see that Starship will be a steady state launch rate. Starting at less than 12 and then ending significantly well above 36 per year at the 5 year point (2028). Hence by 2028 total launches should reach above 100 easily. Unless there are a lot of "engineering issues" encountered that requiers multiple years to solve before the launch rate growth occurs.