Some True Innovation

SpaceX is Making History

Well, SpaceX launched Superheavy/Starship a 3rd time and boy was it glorious.

Consider for a moment measuring this space system against any non-SpaceX system. Starship’s 1st and 2nd stages burned full duration meaning if they had wanted to insert it into orbit, they could have. They lost both stages but that’s generally what happens with every other non-SpaceX rocket. Except this one can carry 120 tons.

So by any means, this launch was a huge success and it’s practically ready for prime time. The only reason it is not is because SpaceX wants to make the system fully reusable which has never been done before. Bravo.

But I want to talk about something unique on this flight that was truly awe inspiring. See, spacecraft have long relied upon ground stations and a small, low bandwidth, expensive network of satellites to communicate back to the ground. These are incredibly complex systems because maintaining communications between two systems while both of them are moving at 10,000km/hr is one of the most difficult feats in technology.

For instance, if you take the train between Boston and NYC, at high speeds, your cell phone becomes very unstable. This is because 5G systems are only rated for reliability up to about 100mph. Then switching between towers becomes too computationally expensive and complex. I even had issues with 4G constantly on Caltrain south of San Francisco moving at much slower speeds.

Yet communication for this launch was provided by Starlink. That is to say, a spacecraft moving in one direction at incredible speeds maintained constant communication with other spacecraft moving in different directions also at incredible rates of speed.

WOW.

Now, Starlink is still relatively new having started service in 2020. I was always curious if it would be able to communicate with moving objects since this is inherently difficult in digital radio communication. I was a little surprised at how quickly Starlink launched its ability to communicate with planes. Almost every other major internet provider with any respectable bandwidth requires a fixed antenna (planes actually generally connect to the internet via a terrestrial network of towers although they use very slow satellites over water).

None of that prepared me to consider that Startlink could be operational at orbital speeds! That’s absolutely insane. That ability alone is a huge game changer. Other satellites and space stations may soon have significantly more bandwidth if they can connect to Starlink.

Of the many accomplishments of SpaceX this week, utilizing the Starlink constellation to maintain communication with an orbital spacecraft all the way through re-entry is actually the one that I am most astonished by.