SpaceX Starlink's 4th mission

The launch is a go in a little less than an hour at 3:30pm EDT. Live coverage begins 15 minutes prior to launch.

The booster has flown 3 times and expected to land on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) about 500 miles nottheast of Cape Caneveral which will also be streamed live(if the connection is not lost).

(Coverage begins 15 minute before launch)


More info about the launch:
spaceflightnow.com...

The stream is up. T minus 5 minutes...

Liftoff!

W00t!

Good seperation, 2nd stage ignition, and fairing seperation. It is neat to watch the speed drop after main engine cutoff, then go back to accelerating when the 2nd stage ignites.

In a few minutes the booster will attemp to land on OCISLY.

The ocean is a bit rough,it may make the landing more difficult.

No....the booster feed is down.

It landed! The OCISLY feed came through!

4th landing for that booster. Amazing!

They will deploy the satellite around 3:43pm EDT.

The satellites were deployed. The mission was a sucess. We will know in a day or two if they were able to recover the fairing halves.

It was great to watch a mission go nominally, especially leading up to the manned flight next month. The previous mission had an engine failure right before MECO but the other 8 were able to compensate and the mission was a success. That failure may have led to the booster failing to land on the drone ship.

I've already seen a few strings of starlinks going overhead in Wales UK-3 times so far.
Its strange to see them follow one another through the night sky,and still a bit of a novelty.
I expect that will soon wear off though,as if they get them all up there we will see them all the time.

There are 60 satellites in this launch-I think they will seperate into 3 strings of 20.
The first time I saw them I only saw 5,but last time I counted 18(must have missed the first two).

Oh no I was wrong,I just looked it up and apparently they do go in strings of 60.

a reply to: jrod

Well damn. I missed the entire thing.

Whoops, it was Starlink 7, not 4....but who is counting anymore? 7x60 is 420, though not all of them are operational. He hopes to have 1584 satellites in 'phase 1' of the project and be operational as soon as next year.

I am curious to see how well the network work's when they become fully operational. I know Elon wants it to be revolutionary and be make affordable high speed internet available for everyone outside the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. Once operational the network is supposed to help fund SpaceX's quest for Mars.

The US alone has about 100 million internet subscribers in the market(just a quick guess), since this will be world wide it is not unreasonable to say Starlink will have 100 million are more potential customers. At $20 a month for the service, this project would take in $2 billion a month in sales.(not to mention commercial and DoD contracts)This is this a quick assessment and numbers maybe way off, but it does give us an idea of how valiable from a business perspective that Starlink has the potential to be. Elon Musk has a lot vested in this, I think it will be great success. As someone who has lived on a boat, the potential of having high speed internet available in the middle of the ocean for a reasonable price is something I want.

Been having a lot of fun with this all week trying to catch them and photo them. Naturally the best pass was when the camera was in the cupboard but here are a few shots that did manage to work:

This is a stack of 9 images from last night's launch as it passed over the UK, 20 minutes after launch:

This site is pretty useful for tracking satellites:

www.satflare.com...

Once you you get your eye in it's amazing how many you can spot!

a reply to: jrod

There are a lot of areas in the US which don't have broadband access do to long distances and low population density
which makes if unfeasible to run the lines

Starlink probably be a solution for these people

a reply to: firerescue

The same goes for rural Ausrailia too, and many other places such as the Caribbean and Tahitian islands.

I am unsure who it will work in foul weather, which is direct Tv's biggest problem. My understanding is the receiver will be inside, so Im guessing if the frequency will be one that can penetrate clouds and 'lightc structures.

a reply to: jrod

What is starlink satellites going to be used for exactly?

Can I pay a monthly fee and get internet access in the deep deep woods?

a reply to: scraedtosleep

Always been kind of vague but they are working with the military so will YOU ever get to use them???

would be nice to have anything in Michigans UP

a reply to: scraedtosleep

A global high speed internet provider.

Yes, people in rural areas are one of their target customers.

There are also important DoD uses since the network is already being used in 'live fire' drills.

a reply to: mikell

There are some clues about the network.

Starlink's official website

What we know about Starlink

I have no idea what the cost will be(I know I said $20/month but that is on the low end, and an easy figure to crunch), I saw a site that estimates it at $80/month with the reciever costing $100-$300 but in my opinion that is on the higj end.

a reply to: jrod

I pay $60 a month for what I have now.
I work from home and being able to do that from anywhere would be a game changer for me.

I'm a little crazy and would work from the woods.