Some timing considerations (Starlink Mission)

[ChrisGreaves]

I stumbled upon a video of the June 3rd Starlink mission launch and was struck by two of the syntactically correct but semantically flawed comments, then by a greater sense of awe.

First the timing statements:-

(1) at the 6:49 point in the commentary we hear "... flying for the fifth time today ...", and I thought "Wow! These folks have got these pit stops down to a fine art!".
(2) at the 23:50 mark " ... that first stage booster has landed for the first time for the fifth time ..." but you might want to grab a second coffee before you wrangle that back to earth.

Now for the sense of awe:

(3) On 4th October 1957 my mother rushed up to the church hall on Antares street; hopped from foot to foot while we boy scouts completed The Lord's Prayer, then burst in and dragged my father and the rest of us outside to stare at the sky until a bright star floated across the top of the small war memorial. I recall being puzzled, but my folks had lived through the blitz in Manchester UK and believed that indeed bombs would soon be dropping vertically on Southern Cross (population 1,500) from a point somewhere above the small war memorial. Sixty three years have passed.
(4) At the 30:00 mark deployment takes place. Not the first I have observed, but the clearest, and I marvel at how many of the John Grisham thrillers I have read that mention pin-head cameras, and I wonder how many hundreds of these cameras have been scattered about today's space vehicles.
(5) At the 5:18 mark we hear " the four hundred and twentieth" [Starlink satellite?] to build a WiFi service accessible from anywhere around the globe. To me this represents a true step into space, much more so than an island community in Low Earth Orbit or a weekend cruise to the moon. If I can access WiFi from Gjoa Haven in Nunavut and read the latest news from Adelaide South Australia, then I and the other 8,000,000,000 of us are free from the constraints of our earthly location, and the same is, will be, true for human colonies on any other habitable body in our solar system.
(6) Including robotic mining operations on inhospitable planets.
(7) At the 23:21 mark, for the first time in my life (well, OK, in the latest five years of my life) I have watched the complete landing sequence of a booster without a signal-loss during the last ten seconds. The landing seemed to be off centre by about three metres, but at least no-one used a comma instead of a period in a COBOL program.

I will now celebrate by making a third coffee as a treat and go see if the squash seeds I planted yesterday have produced vegetables of any sighs [sic] ....
Cheers
Chris

[PJ_in_FL]

Another awe inspiring event was the launching of people into space by a COMMERCIAL operation!

Access to space and the benefit to the human condition on the ground has truly turned a corner.

[PaulB]

Looks like the second stage of the launch vehicle passed right over Bonavista before deploying its payload, Chris. Occured at about T+00:13 at an altitude of 220km. Were you outside to witness the passage?

[ChrisGreaves]

Looks like the second stage of the launch vehicle passed right over Bonavista before deploying its payload, Chris. Occured at about T+00:13 at an altitude of 220km. Were you outside to witness the passage?

Hi Paul.
What is it you don't understand about "Periods of rain or drizzle. Fog patches.", "Mainly cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers." and "Cloudy periods. Low 7"?
I have noticed several SpaceX paths going across the Bonavista peninsula. I suspect that is the optimum path for the Florida launch pad and for the ISS as a target.
There again perhaps it varies according to rocket type (Falcon, Heavy etc.)
Or payload?

I have not stood outside in the rain staring at the clouds, and on those days when the sun shines, I am too busy carting my seed trays in or out of the house to stop and stare at the sky!
If you do get a chance to spot a launch that has travelled over Newfoundland, please let me know so that I can be jealous!

Chris

[Graeme]

For those of us that do stop and stare at the sky and attempt to capture images of night time celestial objects, having long streaks spoiling almost every image is not too pleasing. There's currently a few hundred Starlink satellites in orbit, the proposal is to have a constellation of 42,000. There are only about 5,000 visible stars in ideal conditions. This madness will completely change the view of the night time sky for everyone, permanently.

Not good.

Regards

Graeme

[ChrisGreaves]

For those of us that do stop and stare at the sky and attempt to capture images of night time celestial objects, having long streaks spoiling almost every image is not too pleasing. There's currently a few hundred Starlink satellites in orbit, the proposal is to have a constellation of 42,000. There are only about 5,000 visible stars in ideal conditions. This madness will completely change the view of the night time sky for everyone, permanently. Not good. Regards, Graeme

Graeme, I agree that the "streaks" are annoying but more than that.
I have to suppose that automated tracking systems - I'm thinking of time-lapse scanning telescopes that "look" for new stars - have been taught to recognize light sources that follow patterns of aircraft and satellites.
I suppose too that next week (!) there will be an ap that works with a digital camera using a database of known orbits to remove pixels of known objects. That of course can not undo the damage caused by the shadow cast behind such objects. I imagine that the ISS itself can hide quite a few stars.
I wonder how many man-made navigation systems have been confused over stationary satellites; perhaps those systems rely on a few major stars.
Then too perhaps migrating creatures cope pretty well with changing sky conditions (day, night, clouds), so that they use a twice-daily or even a weekly check to keep them heading roughly in the correct direction.

I am sorry to relate that my initial outrage was on account of the sentence construction during the commentary!

Cheers
Chris

[Graeme]

"Landed for the first time for the fifth time" has got quite a ring to it!

The stacking soft ware used to improve image signal to noise ratio already takes care of the odd streak if there are enough images in the stack but when the satellite constellation is at full capacity I hesitate to believe that the software will cope then. And you're right, science will suffer. Already people using telescopes for research are doubting their work can continue if they have to delete the data for every satellite transit of the object they're observing. The scariest is the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) early warning system is hoping a big space rock won't sneak up on us because we won't see it coming!

The worst aspect though is that a private company can change the view of the night sky that the whole world sees to such a degree just to make money to satisfy an aspiration of getting to Mars.

[ChrisGreaves]

Looks like the second stage of the launch vehicle passed right over Bonavista before deploying its payload,...

Untitled.png

Paul, we do get a steady stream of decorators and painters streaming overhead. Most easily spotted on a clear night, the red-eye flights winking and blinking as they cross the cloudless sky.
And as you can see, the occasional bi-plane!
Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

For those of us that do stop and stare at the sky ...

Well, Graeme, you already knew that you were in a minority.
Most people want to watch Monster Truck Rodeos on the internet.

Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

...There's currently a few hundred Starlink satellites in orbit, the proposal is to have a constellation of 42,000. There are only about 5,000 visible stars in ideal conditions. This madness will completely change the view of the night time sky for everyone, permanently.

Hi again Graeme.

Here is, I am afraid, more fodder for your cannon.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-07/ ... 12978?nw=0

Commiserations
Chris

[Graeme]

An entry in the Astronomy photographer of the year (2020)

https://www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/astronom ... /shortlist

Capture.jpg

Regards

Graeme

[ChrisGreaves]

...the proposal is to have a constellation of 42,000. There are only about 5,000 visible stars in ideal conditions. This madness will completely change the view of the night time sky for everyone, permanently.

Starlink review: broadband dreams fall to Earth

This experience with Starlink internet connection slams the idea.
It is, the writer admits, only a one-week trial, and did not include any easy methods of improving signal.
Too the writer hints at other, future, better uses of Starlink.
None of which removes the hassle of 42,000 satellites ...
Cheers
Chris

[Jay Freedman]

For an astronomer's viewpoint, https://astronomy.com/news/2020/11/spac ... r-everyone

[ChrisGreaves]

For an astronomer's viewpoint, https://astronomy.com/news/2020/11/spac ... r-everyone

The Killer question is "Is having another source of internet worth losing access to unobstructed stargazing for yourself and nearly every other person on the planet?", and my neighbour's answer, him sitting at his 72" wide-flat screen TV with his case of 12 beers, will be "Sure!", with a casual wave to indicate that I should grab a beer and join him ...
Jeers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

...There's currently a few hundred Starlink satellites in orbit, the proposal is to have a constellation of 42,000. There are only about 5,000 visible stars in ideal conditions.

https://www.n2yo.com/satellites/?c=52
This morning this link showed me a table of what I assume are active Starlink satellites.
Cheers
chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Were you outside to witness the passage?

Hi Paul.
Had I been in a different place at a different time, I might have witnessed a train of satellites!
(signed) "Graeme's Commiserator" of Bonavista

[ChrisGreaves]

For those of us that do stop and stare at the sky and attempt to capture images of night time celestial objects, having long streaks spoiling almost every image is not too pleasing. There's currently a few hundred Starlink satellites in orbit,

Now at 3,076 and rising:- Terrace Standard
"... launched 54 Starlink satellites on Sept. 18. They will work in tandem with the other 3,076 Starlink satellites that are already in place ..."
”There were over 400,000 Starlink subscribers around the world."

Cheers, Chris

[BobH]

Another awe inspiring event was the launching of people into space by a COMMERCIAL operation!

Access to space and the benefit to the human condition on the ground has truly turned a corner.

So, do you think we can stop funding NASA?

[ChrisGreaves]

So, do you think we can stop funding NASA?

Don't look at me!
I've not put a cent into NASA!
Cheers, Chris

[PJ_in_FL]

Another awe inspiring event was the launching of people into space by a COMMERCIAL operation!

Access to space and the benefit to the human condition on the ground has truly turned a corner.

So, do you think we can stop funding NASA?

Once the commercial viability of space commerce comes of age (e.g. harvesting from asteroids with $100 TRILLION in precious metals), then NASA will be relegated to experiments in cold fusion and EM drives. Cost effective access to space was never their charter.