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Skylon

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I was outside for this. Amazing to watch. I live roughly 100 miles from the coast but the launch is still crystal clear, and the turn around burn is like watching a northern light bloom up above you. Totally worth staying up for. Good job SpaceX. Great work Falcon. Good luck Dragon. And thank the kraken the weather allowed me to see this for a change.

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That infrared shot was awesome--you could see the top portion of the booster was noticeable hotter than the middle section from (presumably) re-entry heating.

I wish SpaceX would send a second boat out alongside OCISLY, so we could get more consistent video of the barge landings.

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  On 5/4/2019 at 3:28 PM, zolotiyeruki said:

you could see the top portion of the booster was noticeable hotter than the middle section

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Was it actually hotter? Or did it simply radiate more IR because it was the black composite interstage instead of painted white aluminum alloy tankage?

Edited by StrandedonEarth
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  On 5/4/2019 at 5:48 PM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Starlink. I’m betting one of the first “official” uses will be more reliable drone ship footage. 

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The drone ship is already relaying its video feed via satellite.  The issue is that the landing burn shakes the drone ship hard enough to temporarily knock the antenna out of alignment.  With a second craft around half a kilometer away, that shouldn't be as big of an issue.

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  On 5/4/2019 at 6:10 PM, zolotiyeruki said:

The drone ship is already relaying its video feed via satellite.  The issue is that the landing burn shakes the drone ship hard enough to temporarily knock the antenna out of alignment.  With a second craft around half a kilometer away, that shouldn't be as big of an issue.

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The drone ship uses an old-school dish antenna that can't adjust itself quickly enough to track the satellite when getting shaken around by the exhaust. Starlink will use a modern phased-array antenna with no moving parts that should be far more resistant to shaking. And will be cheaper and safer to operate, even in the test phase, vs an entire boat and crew. 

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  On 5/4/2019 at 6:14 PM, CatastrophicFailure said:

The drone ship uses an old-school dish antenna that can't adjust itself quickly enough to track the satellite when getting shaken around by the exhaust. Starlink will use a modern phased-array antenna with no moving parts that should be far more resistant to shaking. And will be cheaper and safer to operate, even in the test phase, vs an entire boat and crew. 

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Is it phased array on the droneship as well? I didn't know that!

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  On 5/4/2019 at 8:05 PM, zolotiyeruki said:

Is it phased array on the droneship as well? I didn't know that!

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Starlink will be phased array entirely, that's the only way it can work with LEO sats. So it's perfect for moving things like ships, planes, cars, RV's... and people in the middle of nowhere.

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