The launch cost of a Starlink satellite is so low that the outside world cannot imagine it.
Through repeated launches of Falcon 9, the launch cost of each Starlink satellite can be only 500,000 yuan.
(This time it’s really half a million)
But this does not mean that the cost of Starlink is low.
Fifteen thousand Starlink satellites have manufacturing costs in addition to launch costs.
Another key problem is that due to the low production cost of Starlink satellites, their normal use time is only five years.
And if affected by a magnetic storm, Starlink satellites will be destroyed in batches.
Previously, a G1-level magnetic storm was triggered by an M-level solar flare.
The magnetic storm lasted for more than four hours and was accompanied by coronal mass ejections in the direction of the blue star.
The solar flare outbreak directly caused the scrapping of forty newly launched Starlink satellites.
The comprehensive superposition of various factors has resulted in the high cost of the Starlink satellite matrix.
From a civilian perspective, Starlink is much faster than previous satellite communications, and the rate is also more stable.
Currently, some flights on Blue Star can access the Internet, and most of them are through Starlink satellites.
Except for China flights.
Starlink can render China’s GFW useless.
This is unacceptable to China, so none of the Chinese airlines have purchased Starlink services.
Because the cost of using Starlink is very high and requires the purchase of hardware equipment.
It is easy to intercept Starlink hardware equipment at the customs stage.
Those who are truly capable of obtaining Starlink equipment in China cannot stop them from accessing the Internet scientifically.
Musk is not an ideological fighter. He has interests bound to China to a certain extent.
It is impossible for Musk to offend China for illusory things, and he must let Starlink enter China through private channels.
The cost of Starlink in the civilian field is beyond the reach of most families.
Even families in America would find the cost a bit high, let alone those in China.
Spending more than 10,000 yuan a year on network fees is enough to buy N shadowrocket nodes.
This thing is not as serious as what is said on the Internet. If it is purely from the perspective of restraining GFW, it is not necessary.
People who can really handle the Starlink thing will not lack similar means even in China.
The biggest role of Starlink is in the military, which greatly increases the communication capabilities of any location in the world under extreme circumstances.
Since Starlink is for civilian use, governments, especially China and Russia, cannot use military means to prevent the launch of Starlink satellites.
Even though everyone knows that the purpose of Starlink is not simple, spaASA and the Amerikan military accept a large number of researchers.
Even though SpaceX is losing money, it still has to force the launch of Starlink, with the support of Amerikan behind it.
The reason why Starlink satellites are easily damaged and can only operate in Blue Star orbit for a few years before being scrapped is very important to avoid arousing the vigilance of other countries.
This is just a civilian satellite, but there are a lot of them.
If the satellites used were better and equipped with remote sensing capabilities, this would be absolutely unacceptable to other countries.
The lunar space station occupies the orbit built by Amerikan in its plan to build a lunar base.
The launch of the Starlink satellite group also occupies a large number of satellite orbits and frequency bands.
This has a far more serious impact on China than the so-called restraint of GFW.
Another very important point is the integration of the industrial chain.
The large-scale launch of Starlink has enabled SpaceX to realize the manufacturing capabilities of the entire industry chain in the space field, including launch, satellite manufacturing, satellite operation, and terminal manufacturing.
SpaceX has used this success to create a closed loop of the industry chain, and has achieved breakeven.
Of course, this balance of payments is only a superficial balance of payments. In fact, it is still some distance away from a balance of payments.
On the surface, this means that, backed by the will of the government of American, airlines, firefighting companies, etc., companies and SpaceX within American’s territory pay much higher than the normal price for Starlink Internet.
Being able to use normal ground communication services will also use Starlink to support SpaceX.
Similar administrative support plays a key role in SpaceX’s balance of payments on the Starlink project.
Because Amerikan can influence not only the local people, but also many younger brothers. Among them, Neon and Gaoli, two rich and obedient younger brothers, are typical examples.
China is temporarily ahead of America in the lunar space station and lunar base, but there is still a long way to go in the overall aerospace field.
For example, space fuel and aviation engines, the distance between these two aspects is very intuitive and can be reflected.
It only took Apollo 1 75 hours to get from Blue Star to the moon. Fifty years later, it took the Chang'e 1 probe about 11 days to get from Blue Star to the moon.
“According to the information just disclosed by NASA’s official spokesperson at a press conference, Amerikan will make its first attempt to land on Mars next year.
And it is a real landing on Mars, not a simulated landing. "
"The United States is anxious. Currently, countries that are traditional partners of the International Space Station, such as the Europa Union, Russia, Neon, and Maple Leaf Country, are now talking to us about cooperation on the moon base.
They are used to the aerospace world revolving around them, and they really want to be ahead of us in the aerospace field again.
It is not a technological lead, but a clear lead from the outside world.
It's like we have a moon base now, but Amerikan doesn't. "
The main participants in the International Space Station program are the countries and alliances mentioned above.
However, Russia has already withdrawn from the International Space Station project as early as 2022.
Regarding withdrawing from the International Space Station, Russia mentioned it as early as 2021.
Mainly because of Amerikan's sanctions against Russia's Progress Rocket Space Center and Central Machinery Manufacturing Research Institute, Russia proposed to withdraw from the International Space Station.
Anyway, China's Tiangong series of space stations have been built, and Russia wants to cooperate with China.
The two parties have already launched effective cooperation in the field of biological storage and large-scale quantum accelerators.
Subsequent events developed faster than Russia's own rhetoric.
Russia said it would withdraw from the International Space Station program in 2025. As a result, they withdrew from the International Space Station in 2022, and then reached cooperation with SA at the end of 2022.
After the construction of China's lunar base is completed, not only Russia, but also other countries with astronauts will want to join in the fun.
It would also be good to send someone to the moon to experience it and learn from China’s advanced experience.
For a time, it was no exaggeration to describe SA as crowded.
"Haha I also hope NASA will act so emotionally.
Unfortunately it's unlikely they will be because of us.
In other words, the successful opening of our Laurel Base led Washington to allocate additional funds to NASA in the middle of the year.
With nearly 100 billion yuan in wealth, he can recruit more people to do this.
I guess NASA should have made adequate preparations and feasibility verification work. "
Within SA, two core backbones were discussing NASA's latest press conference.
ASA regards each other as their biggest rival.
NASA will use SA's progress and achievements to motivate the following researchers, and SA will also do similar things.
“Landing on Mars is not that simple, but in terms of time it is almost the same.
The plan originally released by NASA in 2020 showed that the Mars landing would be completed in 2035.
It is reasonable to advance to mid-2027 now.
If the window period next year is missed, NASA will have to wait until about two years later, that is, 2029. "
Because of the limitations of aviation fuel and aviation engine power, if Blue Star currently wants to go to Mars, it is best to choose the time when Blue Star and Mars are closest.
It is difficult to achieve otherwise.
"I just don't know how NASA addresses EDL risks."
EDL is the abbreviation of E, Landing, which is considered to be the most difficult and dangerous stage in the process of human landing on Mars.
"It is estimated to be an ejection seat, a separate parachute and a small thruster."
"The problem lies in the accuracy of Mars landing. Judging from the technical deduction we have previously disclosed to NASA, the other party's optical navigation and guidance can only achieve an accuracy of 5-10 kilometers.
After the Amerikan astronauts landed, they were doomed if they could not find the landing module before they ran out of energy. "
Landing via a separate ejection seat and parachute is the safest way.
It is equivalent to people landing on Mars first with only the minimum equipment, and then detaching the landing module and landing on Mars.
After the astronauts landed on Mars, they went back to find the lunar module.
This plan is the safest plan for landing, but the difficulty lies in whether the landing module can be successfully found later.
Due to the thin atmosphere of Mars, communication is difficult to ensure.
Not to mention positioning.
"So this plan has higher requirements for landing accuracy. If NASA can achieve an accuracy of about one hundred meters, then this plan will definitely be fine."
“It’s too difficult to achieve an accuracy of one hundred meters.
At present, our integrated navigation solutions can only achieve an accuracy of about two kilometers.
It is still a laboratory theoretical accuracy that has not been verified in the real environment. "
In response to the problems of unknown disturbances and measurement anomalies during the Mars landing phase, they mainly developed three integrated navigation solutions that conform to the divided differential filter.
The best among them is the combined navigation scheme based on Huber's first-order division differential filter. Adaptive Huber first-order dedifferentiation filter and adaptive Huber second-order dedifferentiation filter.
The cost function of the standard Kalman filter is modified using functions of the predicted state estimate error covariance and the measurement noise covariance Huber case.
Specifically, the first-order divided difference filter is obtained by embedding the latest error covariance and measurement noise covariance into a general first-order divided difference filter.
To more specifically improve the filter performance under significant deviations, an adaptive forgetting factor is introduced in the first-order divided difference filter.
On this basis, a first-order dedifference filter is derived. Likewise, an adaptive Huber second-order dedifferentiation filter is produced.
(The above plan comes from the "Iional Journal of Adaptive d Signal Prog", which was published in February this year. I forgot the specific issue, but I read it several months ago.)
"If Amerikan broadcasts the entire event live, we can get some clues from their live broadcast process."
SA does not shy away from learning from NASA’s good experience.
Follow the path others have taken and avoid stepping into pitfalls.
"If we follow the current progress, it is possible for us to catch up with the next window between Blue Star and Mars."
That is, landing on Mars in 2029.
"There is still not enough time. If you are not in a hurry and take your time, build the moon base first.
In the future, it would be great to launch rockets directly from the moon to Mars. "
"There is no way even Boss Ouyang can resist the will from above."
The idea of going from the moon to Mars has been around for a long time.
In a public interview from SA, academician Ouyang Ziyuan was among the big guys who thought this plan was very good.
He is not only an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but also the chief scientist of the Chinese lunar exploration project, the boss Ouyang just mentioned.
This is the advice of the most professional academician.
When he was interviewed, he roughly meant that the moon's gravity is small, and the energy required to launch a rocket from the moon to Mars is only one-sixth of that of the Blue Star. At the same time, the distance between the moon and Blue Star is close, making it convenient to transport supplies.
This is what he said in an interview in 2022.
In 2026, after China has its own lunar space station and lunar base, it has internal plans to build a rocket launch base on the moon.
The voice of going directly from the moon to Mars has never stopped.
Everyone thinks this plan is feasible. The only problem is that it will take a long time to build.
From the preliminary project demonstration to construction and launch, it is optimistically estimated to be more than five years and less than ten years.
However, the advantage of going from the moon to Mars is that there is no need to worry about the window period. It only requires one-sixth of the energy of Blue Star, so the window period becomes not so important.
"I personally think that going from the moon to Mars is the best solution. Blindly pursuing comparisons with NASA in landing on Mars actually doesn't make much practical sense."
As middle-level members of the R&D team, the two of them have not yet had access to the Magic Brain.
Therefore, they do not fully understand the urgency of landing on Mars.
"Okay, that's about it. There are considerations above.
And it didn’t say it wouldn’t build a lunar rocket launch base.
Aren't the two legs running parallel now?
While preparing for the Mars landing and launch in the next window period, we are also preparing for the construction of the lunar rocket launch base. "
"A lunar rocket launch base? We are currently doing a feasibility report and formulating a plan. There is still a long way to go before we actually do it."
“Actually, it might not take as long as you think, and we can directly use the resources of the moon.
Chemical propulsion using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. "
Regarding the issue of fuel shortage, Musk has mentioned his ideas a long time ago.
It relies on SpaceX's ultra-low launch cost to launch reusable spacecraft to designated orbits.
There is excess fuel in the spacecraft to dock and refuel spacecraft passing through orbit.
It is equivalent to the concept of a gas station in space.
When the spacecraft runs out of fuel, it will return to Blue Star, refuel and return to its designated orbit.
This can only be achieved with ultra-low-cost launches and reusable spacecraft.
Of course, there are still many problems to overcome before achieving this.
