I hope they manage to get those satellites to orbit without major problems.
Voltae on
That’s going to be an awful lot of launches if they’re just relying of Falcon 9. IIRC they get maybe a couple of dozen starlinks to orbit per launch.
If you say 25 per launch to make the math easier, that’s around 600 F9 launches. I guess Starship could deliver more to orbit, but that thing still has some way to go before being ready to be used in such a way.
AWildDragon on
Well they just got approval from the FCC to start launchesÂ
Decronym on
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[ATA](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyozhut “Last usage”)|Anthropomorphic Test Article (*Ripley*), flown on DM-1|
|CCtCap|[Commercial Crew Transportation Capability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Development#Commercial_Crew_Transportation_Capability_.28CCtCap.29)|
|[DoD](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyq8kde “Last usage”)|US Department of Defense|
|[ELT](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nys56ig “Last usage”)|Extremely Large Telescope, under construction in Chile|
|[EOL](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyq7pb8 “Last usage”)|End Of Life|
|[FAA](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyurqgn “Last usage”)|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[FCC](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyolwrq “Last usage”)|Federal Communications Commission|
| |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure|
|[ITAR](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyq8kde “Last usage”)|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations|
|[JWST](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nys56ig “Last usage”)|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyq3nrs “Last usage”)|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[LIGO](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyp0ldc “Last usage”)|Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory|
|[NG](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyokz0x “Last usage”)|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
Starlink provides a great service that the world desperately needed for a long time and we will continue to have a need for while the world slowly switches fully over to global fiber internet which I suspect could take a century or more at the current rate of adoption.
however, to add 15,000 additional satellites just for cellular communications is complete overkill and quite frankly not anything close to a need. if SpaceX wants to gradually replace the current satellite fleet with new ones that have cell capability with a additional 1,000 or so then go for it. there is a big difference between realistic and over ambitious.
if SpaceX really wants to offer cell service let them build up a customer base and show there is a demand for a larger network and build gradually.
icebergslim3000 on
So they can basically take the sky from the world and no one can do anything about it.
HazySpace420 on
Elon wants to do this simply because he does not want another company, ASTS, to win over valuable market share. In fact, ASTS has claimed they can do this with as few as 110 satellites for global 5G cellular coverage, compared to 15,000. What a waste on SpaceX’s part.
MadeThisAccount4Qs on
random thought reading this, is there like, a theoretical maximum amount of satellites you could have in orbit without risk of them colliding, assuming no malfunctions that could cause a collision? Like a finite number. I imagine it’d be a pretty damn high number.
8 Comments
I hope they manage to get those satellites to orbit without major problems.
That’s going to be an awful lot of launches if they’re just relying of Falcon 9. IIRC they get maybe a couple of dozen starlinks to orbit per launch.
If you say 25 per launch to make the math easier, that’s around 600 F9 launches. I guess Starship could deliver more to orbit, but that thing still has some way to go before being ready to be used in such a way.
Well they just got approval from the FCC to start launchesÂ
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[ATA](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyozhut “Last usage”)|Anthropomorphic Test Article (*Ripley*), flown on DM-1|
|CCtCap|[Commercial Crew Transportation Capability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Development#Commercial_Crew_Transportation_Capability_.28CCtCap.29)|
|[DoD](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyq8kde “Last usage”)|US Department of Defense|
|[ELT](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nys56ig “Last usage”)|Extremely Large Telescope, under construction in Chile|
|[EOL](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyq7pb8 “Last usage”)|End Of Life|
|[FAA](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyurqgn “Last usage”)|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[FCC](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyolwrq “Last usage”)|Federal Communications Commission|
| |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure|
|[ITAR](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyq8kde “Last usage”)|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations|
|[JWST](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nys56ig “Last usage”)|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyq3nrs “Last usage”)|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[LIGO](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyp0ldc “Last usage”)|Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory|
|[NG](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyokz0x “Last usage”)|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1q8leu0/stub/nyurqgn “Last usage”)|SpaceX’s world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|Event|Date|Description|
|——-|———|—|
|DM-1|2019-03-02|SpaceX CCtCap Demo Mission 1|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
—————-
^([Thread #12051 for this sub, first seen 9th Jan 2026, 23:00])
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Starlink provides a great service that the world desperately needed for a long time and we will continue to have a need for while the world slowly switches fully over to global fiber internet which I suspect could take a century or more at the current rate of adoption.
however, to add 15,000 additional satellites just for cellular communications is complete overkill and quite frankly not anything close to a need. if SpaceX wants to gradually replace the current satellite fleet with new ones that have cell capability with a additional 1,000 or so then go for it. there is a big difference between realistic and over ambitious.
if SpaceX really wants to offer cell service let them build up a customer base and show there is a demand for a larger network and build gradually.
So they can basically take the sky from the world and no one can do anything about it.
Elon wants to do this simply because he does not want another company, ASTS, to win over valuable market share. In fact, ASTS has claimed they can do this with as few as 110 satellites for global 5G cellular coverage, compared to 15,000. What a waste on SpaceX’s part.
random thought reading this, is there like, a theoretical maximum amount of satellites you could have in orbit without risk of them colliding, assuming no malfunctions that could cause a collision? Like a finite number. I imagine it’d be a pretty damn high number.