magnemoe Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 15 hours ago, wumpus said: Reminds me how Sirius (and the competing brand at the time) suddenly added a lot of country stations after starting. Turns out that if there's one customer interested in radio stations that aren't geographically limited it is truckers. So along with the truckers came a lot of country stations (marketing didn't expect country listeners to be early adopters). Don't forget oceanic drilling platforms. I remember a player from my MMO-addicted time that one of the best players was a geologist living on an oil platform. Tons of downtime and an internet connection. But really, any place too far to run fiber (or even coax) is a candidate for starlink. And far more people live in the sticks than on the ocean. Yes main customers will be people living to far from cable. Another large user is actually cell phone towers in remote locations to cover roads. With solar panels, batteries and an small backup generator they don't even need power. Now using it to fly an long range drone would be awesome because the low lag. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 10 hours ago, kerbiloid said: Or they hope to have a KerbNet for 5G devices like the crewless oceanic ship, and to let a fridge in Morocco talk to a coffee machine in Canada. A crew less ship would make piracy more popular, you could even hack the ship and have it go to another port. The reason an cargo ship has an crew of more than 10 is that they do maintenance, just controlling the ship is an one man job, doing the maintenance in an port would be more expensive as the ship would not sail. And if something go wrong like the engine stops for some stupid reason you need to send out another ship if far out at sea Now you have some coastal caro ships who move rather short distances and could be remote controlled as they also often tend to have more dead time as the ship is often too large for its role. , but have luck flying that transporting oil or something more dangerous. Amusingly you could make the bridge unmanned, you would still have an crew who could could take over the bridge is needed. Oil platforms is going in the direction of moving the control room on shore as offshore crew is very expensive. You still need the maintenance crew and its an concern that an catastrophe could cut connection and now you can not flare the gas leak. So its probably be an mixed option, you have enough control to handle emergencies but not enough to fine tune, and you scramble the other shift. Control room is in the living quarter anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 (edited) But the idea of the crewless ships is on rails and unlikely will stop. https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16018652/first-autonomous-ship-launch-2018 https://www.automotivelogistics.media/digital-technology/autonomy-ahoy-shipping-industry-moves-toward-crewless-vessels/38453.article Also the crew is hostages, and the pirates can hack any ship control system. And when there are no hostages, a SWAT may just kill'em all. Also, more 5G - fewer unexpected encounters. Edited May 30, 2020 by kerbiloid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 32 minutes ago, kerbiloid said: But the idea of the crewless ships is on rails and unlikely will stop. https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16018652/first-autonomous-ship-launch-2018 https://www.automotivelogistics.media/digital-technology/autonomy-ahoy-shipping-industry-moves-toward-crewless-vessels/38453.article Also the crew is hostages, and the pirates can hack any ship control system. And when there are no hostages, a SWAT may just kill'em all. Also, more 5G - fewer unexpected encounters. Not to mention that an autonomous ship could have a remote kill switch separate from a potentially hacked control system. Proper system security/encryption would reduce the chance of hacking, or prevent unauthorized boarders from taking control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 Helluva Starlink pass from the fresh launch just now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubinator Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 It was too cloudy in MN. I'll try again tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brotoro Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 I watched the Starlink swarm from the most recent launch pass over (at about 9:08 PM), and it was difficult to see well naked eye because of the nearly-full Moon lighting up the sky (which was not all that dark to begin with). It looked more like a streak of tiny sparkly debris about 40 degrees long, rather than easily distinguishable satellites. But in the binoculars, the satellites were individually visible, closely packed, and many of them glinted quite a bit as they caught the light just right. I hadn't seen a previous pass that looked quite like this one before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 21 minutes ago, Brotoro said: I hadn't seen a previous pass that looked quite like this one before. Me, either. Even in ABQ, though, we tracked them naked eye (forgot to bring out the binos). Course we're above most of the crud in town. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brotoro Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 (edited) I watched the swarm of Starlink satellites from the most recent launch again as it came over at 5:00 AM. The sky was getting lighter by the minute as I waited, but I was able to spot the swarm in binoculars when it rose above the trees to the northwest. Since they were moving slower that low, I was able to try counting them, and got something close to 60... but it was difficult again because the satellites were not overly bright (not the predicted magnitude 2.0). They got as high as 65 degrees altitude (last night they were only 40-something), and as they passed through the Summer Triangle they began lighting up at a couple points along their path as the sunlight apparently glinted off each of them in rapid succession as they went through the spots between Vega and Altair. So they didn't so much look like a string of pearls (like I normally see), but more like a gold chain that flares at certain points as it is dragged along. Impressive. It was hard to estimate the size of the swarm, since it was only easy to see the chain at the flare spots...but it seemed closer to 20 degrees rather than the 40 degrees I estimated last night. I think the satellites must be all in about the same orientation in order to flare like that at certain spots on the path, and they may be dimmer than previous satellites when they aren't flaring. Definitely this swarm has a different appearance than what I've seen with previous batches of Starlink satellites. Edited June 7, 2020 by Brotoro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCgothic Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 These are all darksats, right? Except one visorsat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 31 minutes ago, RCgothic said: These are all darksats, right? Except one visorsat. Not sure. They are in open book mode to boost, though, so no mitigation would be doing much yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 (edited) I still haven’t been able to catch a Starlink train. This morning was my best chance with a peak at 3:55 am, as I’m getting ready to leave for work. But the sky was a bit hazy, with predawn on one side and a setting Moon on the other. So all I could see was Jupiter. I was wondering how some of you folks were seeing the passes so early, until I remembered that sunset is later the farther north one goes. When I lived even farther north a June sunset was at like 10pm, with predawn always visible somewhere on the horizon E: of course, go even farther north and it’s like “What sunset?” Edited June 5, 2020 by StrandedonEarth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubinator Posted June 6, 2020 Share Posted June 6, 2020 I did see the Starlinks tonight! They were later than Satflare said they would be, and lower by a few degrees. They were indeed darker than before for the most part, but a few were glinting brightly, no doubt as different bits and bobs pointed the Sun back at us. I also saw some fireflies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K^2 Posted June 8, 2020 Share Posted June 8, 2020 Some of the earlier trains, ones that dispersed a little, are still quite a wild sight to watch. I accidentally caught one on the way from work earlier in the year, and I've stood and watched for at least ten minutes (checked the time) and there were two of three of them visible as they passed the terminator at any given time for the entire duration. The night sky is going to be different when the entire constellation is up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinimumSky5 Posted June 15, 2020 Share Posted June 15, 2020 Given that even current internet isn't that easy, I'll believe that when I see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 15, 2020 Share Posted June 15, 2020 Knowing the current trends in UI design, it'd be a three-step process: plug in, point at the sky, pray the default settings work for you. Modern devices seldom bother to let you do anything else with them (not without jumping through a lot of hoops, at least). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 https://aas.org/satellite-constellations-1-workshop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 1. Plug. 2. Point. 3. Run from room to room (and maybe across the roof or the yard), waving, tilting, and rotating. A backup mode. Spreading of reentry USB minicapsules with archived internet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 20, 2020 Share Posted June 20, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silavite Posted June 20, 2020 Share Posted June 20, 2020 5 hours ago, tater said: Are the ground stations planning to use mechanically steered antennas now? I was under the impression that phased arrays would be used. (Though I'm a bit relieved if they are dropping the phased array idea. Even with SpaceX's price dropping wizardry, I don't think that they could make phased arrays cheaply enough.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 If that steers at all, it's only a tiny amount on one tilt axis from the looks of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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