Starlink Ilona Mask suffered first losses

4
There are lees to every wine. As it turned out, mistakes and failures are not only our long-suffering "Roskosmos." "Genius PR" American billionaire Ilon Musk lost three satellites at once during their launch by SpaceX as part of the ambitious Starlink project.





Starlink, as conceived by Mask, should provide the people of the Earth with affordable, reliable and cheap satellite Internet. To do this, about 12 thousand satellites should be launched into orbit. Each device weighs 227 kilograms, and consists of an antenna and a solar battery, which should provide it with power. Also, the Ilon Mask satellites are equipped with a special Hall engine designed to maintain a given orbit, as well as to arch from it at the end of its life. This is extremely important so as not to “clog” the orbit with inoperative space debris.

At the initial stage, SpaceX was supposed to bring four hundred telecommunication satellites to the given trajectories. The creation of the group is estimated at least $ 10 billion, but its cost may increase. The businessman said that Starlink is a step towards the exploration of Mars, since with his help he plans to earn money for this even more ambitious project. However, this may cause some problems.

Presumably, the billionaire hardly plans to launch all 12 thousand devices at his own expense. It is likely that Starlink will develop with funds raised from investors. For this, an entrepreneur needs to demonstrate his viability in matters of delivering satellites into orbit and ensuring their operability. But not everything is going smoothly. 3 lost out of 60 is a lot.

Explicitly assuming the inevitability of problems, Elon Musk had laid straws in advance:

There are many new of technologiesTherefore, I do not exclude that some satellites may not work.


Having lost satellites, he is always active on social networks and a cheerful billionaire is silent.

In the meantime, the scientific community has expressed concern that the thousands-strong group of Elon Musk may interfere with the study of the starry sky, since the radiation reflected by the satellites turned out to be stronger than expected. In addition, the frequencies at which telecommunication satellites operate can adversely affect projects exploring deep space.

The big question is what will happen when the OneWeb project, also competing with Starlink, completes the deployment of the satellite constellation.
Our news channels

Subscribe and stay up to date with the latest news and the most important events of the day.

4 comments
Information
Dear reader, to leave comments on the publication, you must sign in.
  1. 0
    1 July 2019 19: 05
    But he does launch ... 3 out of 60, hmm ...
  2. -1
    2 July 2019 07: 59
    Well now you can at least gloat ...
  3. +1
    3 July 2019 09: 37
    The working process. There are failures for everyone, even an egg in crumple is not always possible to cook
  4. +1
    23 July 2019 09: 23
    All the attention of snobs - only to Ukraine and the USA - and what they have there ... bad.