> That should clear the next flight to go to orbit and deploy operational satellites!
Mid-stream they said they were deploying 20 real V3 Starlink satellites.
At the end of the stream the said all 20 had checked out as well.
Mid-stream they said they were deploying 20 real V3 Starlink satellites.
At the end of the stream the said all 20 had checked out as well.
The goal was to get about 20 minutes of testing the new satellites in space, not for them to have any chance of becoming operational.
Starship hasn't been entering a full orbit so far because it would be really bad if the relight burn did fail - chunks of ship would rain down a few days/weeks later on some random area anywhere within 27° of the equator. On a much smaller scale this has been an internationally embarrassing problem for China's LM-5.
Around 20 minutes into the flight, they deploy 20x v3 sats. Google search tells me those cost more than 1M USD each. Yikes... they burned up 20M USD for a "few tests". Damn, space is expensive! The official video says that SpaceX only had twenty minutes to test the deployed sats before they fall back to the atmosphere.