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- Jun 12, 2018
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I launched a post about the scheduled launch earlier this week of 60 satellites by SpaceX but it disappeared into the Ether, or I just can't see it, which seems more likely. The idea was to fill the "cargo hold" of a Falcon 9 rocket with 60 satellites that are going to provide internet service for someone. The satellites are pretty small, they are all stacked up, looks like a pine cone. After being ejected all at one time the individual satellites will make their own way to their respective locations.
They were originally scheduled to fly at an altitude of 710 miles but that was changed to 340 miles in order to avoid the regulations for what can be put into space in order to keep space a cleaner place. The number of satellites that will be used ranges from 800 to a million depending on which article one reads. They have a permit for a million, the break even number is 1,000 and supposedly the satellite net would have 12,000 satellites in it, The launch was postponed due to windy conditions. Then the launch was postponed again so the software could be triple checked. That probably happened because earlier this week the flight simulator program for commercial jet pilots was found to not be set up for some situations a plane might run into. I wouldn't be surprised if the satellite software was being checked out for any kind of unforeseeable event.
The maintenance program is simple, when the satellite comes down to Earth, it is replaced by another launched satellite. Once they get enough up there, ironically forming a physical cloud, they will probably have spares ready to fly into place while the bad one falls out of space back to Earth, providing it can still follow instructions. Maybe they will have drones that can knock nonrepsonding ones out of the sky. With a million mini satellites buzzing around a new hobby could be collecting enough parts from low altitude fallen satellites to make your own communications satellite.
They were originally scheduled to fly at an altitude of 710 miles but that was changed to 340 miles in order to avoid the regulations for what can be put into space in order to keep space a cleaner place. The number of satellites that will be used ranges from 800 to a million depending on which article one reads. They have a permit for a million, the break even number is 1,000 and supposedly the satellite net would have 12,000 satellites in it, The launch was postponed due to windy conditions. Then the launch was postponed again so the software could be triple checked. That probably happened because earlier this week the flight simulator program for commercial jet pilots was found to not be set up for some situations a plane might run into. I wouldn't be surprised if the satellite software was being checked out for any kind of unforeseeable event.
The maintenance program is simple, when the satellite comes down to Earth, it is replaced by another launched satellite. Once they get enough up there, ironically forming a physical cloud, they will probably have spares ready to fly into place while the bad one falls out of space back to Earth, providing it can still follow instructions. Maybe they will have drones that can knock nonrepsonding ones out of the sky. With a million mini satellites buzzing around a new hobby could be collecting enough parts from low altitude fallen satellites to make your own communications satellite.
