Posted on 06/05/2026 3:10:21 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
Starlink V3 satellites
Bandwidth per Satellite: • V2: 96 Gbps • V3: 1,024 Gbps
Bandwidth per Launch: V2: 2,600 Gbps V3: 61,000 Gbps
Deployment per Launch: • V2: 27 satellites (on Falcon 9) • V3: 60 (on Starship)
Starlink V3 satellites will begin to be deployed in late 2026 on Starship.Starlink V3 satellites
Bandwidth per Satellite: • V2: 96 Gbps • V3: 1,024 Gbps
Bandwidth per Launch: V2: 2,600 Gbps V3: 61,000 Gbps
Deployment per Launch: • V2: 27 satellites (on Falcon 9) • V3: 60 (on Starship)
Starlink V3 satellites will begin to be deployed in late 2026 on Starship.X
(Excerpt) Read more at x.com ...
Bret Johnson the CFO of SpaceX has an interview out that is 17-18 minutes long, it’s fascinating.
If only half of what SpaceX is attempting comes true SpaceX will be doing some amazing things.
Link please.
Amazing. Thanks for posting.
Each new satellite is capable of 1 Terabit bandwidth. Remarkable.
Elon’s creating a future market for an obsolete sat. disposal device.
Given Musk’s predilections about matters environmental, I hope he’s pondering that. With that many satellites in orbit, one wonders about dispersing that much mass of metals and burned propellant in the atmosphere.
Letting them burn up in reentry does seem wasteful given the rare earths involved. One also wonders if reprocessing them on the moon would save money. Just think of how easy it would be to operate a vacuum furnace!
We’re going to put Star link in our new house on our rural property. If the electric goes out the internet will still work. The only other option is Hughes net which we have hooked up there to our RV and its over $90 monthly.
A small nuclear reactor and an arc furnace should work well.
Getting ingots back to earth might be a challenge.
Why bother?
Sterling unlimited for the RV is 125 a month. Not sure how much the hardware costs. Im getting it soon and hitting the road.
Star link is $120.
“One also wonders if reprocessing them on the moon would save money. “
Ask AI what the Delta V from LEO to even high lunar orbit is. That will be your answer.
Remember it took a Saturn V sized rocket to put a small lunar lander and orbiter around the moon. Only stage 1 and 2 were dropped back to earth the HUGE stage 3 was uses just to toss the CM and lander to barely lunar orbit. From there the CM had it’s own large engine and was mostly fuel itself, same for the lander.
The rocket equation is a bitch of a mistress.
The best place to service them is and will always be slightly higher earth orbits at a space station co-located at its inclination plane angle so high Delta V plane change burns are not needed.
Course Starship is designed to land with payloads you could bring them back into a small cluster and use a robotic arm to grab them and put them back into starships hold. It’s always going to be cheaper to burn them up over the Pacific drop zone. These birds don’t have tonnes pun intended of REE silicon , aluminum are numbers 2 and 3 behind oxygen we will never be short on any of those. The chips have silver and gold but in micrograms for connections, some tin too. Solar panels use micrograms worth of boron and phosphorus for the P&N dopants again we are standing on a silica based world silicon is unlimited. So is aluminum, iron,magnesium, calcium too even titanium is 0.565% of total crustal mass that’s an unimaginably large number of tonnes worth.
Also it’s not like the metals.disappear they settle out into the Ocean singular and reenter the rock cycle as sediments on the seabed. Only hydrogen and helium have escape velocities to leave earth’s gravity well. Everything else falls back eventually to the bottom of said gravity well if in low earth orbit.
“Getting ingots back to earth might be a challenge.”
Nah not worth the fuel costs to even go after aluminum , silicon, and trace amounts of silver and gold, and even less REE in glass lens, and reaction wheel motors which could be replaced at a small mass penalty for indication REE free.machines. Laser lenses have micrograms worth.
Primary Materials Used in ConstructionBy volume and mass, Starlink V2 satellites consist mostly of base and industrial metals:
Aluminum: Accounts for up to 40% of the spacecraft’s mass, used primarily for the primary frame and bus.
Silicon: Makes up the bulk of the solar cell arrays.
Titanium and Copper: Used in structural components, plumbing, and extensive internal wiring.
Argon: Rather than traditional elements, Starlink V2 satellites use customized argon-fueled Hall thrusters for on-orbit maneuvering.
Every one of those main.elements are in the top ten in earth’s crust including titanium.
Humans have Sileach tech. That is silica leaching technology. We can use an acid like sulfuric , HCL or nitric acids and break any silica bond in any crustal materials at will and in bulk. This frees every metal atom in the silica matrix and the silicon itself. Every metal silicate forms soluble ions and also can be with PH adjustment precipitated out of solution at will or better yet using the vastly different electrochemical potentials of those solubles you can selectively plate out target metals in very pure forms. This means aluminum, silicon, iron , titanium, uranium all can be bulk solution mined from crust itself. We have unlimited HCL from ocean salts and nitric acid can be made from thin air the Norwegians did it for half a century using hydro power for explosives and smokeless powders. Huge plasma arcs make copious amounts of NOx which when bubbled into water forms very strong nitric acid. Again we cannot ever run out.
There is no economic need to recover any of the starlink materials zero it costs more to put them up than the materials are worth back on earth.
You are missing my thinking (right or wrong), which was repurposing those materials in space, having paid for refining them and getting them up there, possibly with a remanufacturing facility on the moon for Stalink upgrades. I would think the aluminum frames would still be usable, and perhaps the solar panels. If the wiring was sufficiently modular, much of that could be reused as well (certainly the DC).
Vacuum e-beam welding and casting would be obviously easier in space. I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing people living in high orbit would not do as well as on the moon. Microgravity isn't nice to the body.
Thanks
Thanks
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