Russia’s answer to Starlink just lost its first satellite (defence-blog.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Oh no! Whoopsie

The absence of any official government statement about the launch points to the sensitivity surrounding the program, which sits at the intersection of Russia’s commercial space ambitions, its military communications requirements, and the broader contest over satellite-based internet infrastructure that Starlink has made a strategic priority for governments worldwide.

Darn, maybe bullshitting absolutely everything including rocket design doesn't work out in the end?

Maybe shithead oligarchs are too incompetent to be trusted to competently run space programs?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 6 hours ago

Rassvet is slated to eventually have as many as 900 satellites. Currently it has just 16. Well, 15.

Starlink currently has 10575 active Starlink satellites in orbit out of a planned constellation of 42000.

Losing 14 satellites to failures is indeed "normal business operations" for Starlink. Hardware fails sometimes, it's accounted for in the business plan.

If Russia lost 14 they wouldn't have a constellation at all any more.

[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

SpaceX is famous for failing constantly. Musk was always tweeting before he bought Twitter about how the latest rocket failure was another learning opportunity.

Again it's not that Starlink doesn't work. It's how the news is framed that makes it jingoism. Starlink lost dozens of satellites when they were first starting in 2019.

[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 6 hours ago

SpaceX is famous for failing constantly.

SpaceX is the largest space launch company in the world. Out of hundreds of Falcon 9 launches since 2010 only three have failed. I don't know where this fame for "constant failure" is coming from but it seems more likely motivated by dislike of Musk than by actual statistics.

Again it's not that Starlink doesn't work.

Something's inconsistent here.

[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

I don’t know where this fame for “constant failure

The early days of SpaceX was constant failure. 3 of the 5 Falcon 1's failed.

Something’s inconsistent here.

Russia starts program for Starlink type program and loses 1. "Hur dur, stupid Russians." SpaceX loses 25 in the first year of launches back in 2020 and it's the cost of doing business, nothing to see.

[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 5 hours ago

It's not the "early days" of SpaceX any more. It hasn't been for over a decade. Nobody using SpaceX's services today cares about Falcon 1.

I pointed out the rather significant difference between Russia's communication satellite constellation and SpaceX's already.

[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Yes it's not the early days of Space X but it is the early days of Russia's Starlink (googling says it's planned for 2035). During Starlink's early days it was "we are learning" and "cost of business". Russia loses one in a test and it's, "they're idiots". That's jingoism.