Unhappy Elon Musk went on firing spree over slow satellite broadband progress
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
> The FCC proposal would require SpaceX to launch 50 percent of these satellites within six years and the rest within an additional three years.
Well, the long term future looks promising.
Unless of course Kessler effect.
With, if I'm not mistaken, other satellites already in that general area.
The Kessler effect doesn't have to persist for years or centuries, a single failure can easily cascade and take out most, if not all, satellites occupying that general space before the debris deorbits.
Unless he's changed the figure, he intends to put 11,925 satellites into orbit for the network in low earth orbit, there are currently about 15,000 cataloged objects in that orbit (including debris).
It isn't a certainty but it's still a risk.
It doesn't matter if they've thought about it. You can think all you want about something but ole Private Murphy operates in the real world not on paper when he sets about mucking stuff up. They're talking about launching 11,925 satellites. That's nearly 10 times the current number of orbiting satellites.
One should note that your opening statement is that "It doesn't matter if they've thought about it." This is not how innovation, manufacturing, maintenance, and risk management work.
Planes don't have flecks of paint, screws, etc flying by them at 28,000 kilometers per hour with the ability for one impact to send debris going dozens of directions.
Musk quickly brought in new managers from SpaceX headquarters in California to replace a number of the managers he fired.
This seems like a good sign to me. It's hard to convince people with experience at your company to move cities to start up a new remote office, but it's an important part of getting the culture right.
But since the technology will also have short lifetime (5 year I assume) Musk might be right to make it cheap and fast.
But a simple ion thruster is fine. Those beasts are incredibly fast up there in low orbit. Something like one earth orbit in 2 hours.
i understand it's stupid hard to get a job there. the kind of interview that is often discussed with disdain, rightly so, here on HN.
On the other hand, hiring managers from Microsoft and Google does not seem to be a good match for the type and pace of innovation Musk wants. Based on my work experience with ex-managers from those companies (not meant to exclude management from other elephantine companies).