The slap fight between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has highlighted the absurdity of keeping so much of our space program and satellite internet infrastructure in the hands of a single oligarch.
Compared to previously SpaceX has been seeing more and more failed launches, Starlink is banned in a number of countries and there are already other low orbit internet satellite providers popping up.
You say “failed”, engineers say “ok what have we learned and what can we improve/fix from this?”. These launches are tests. Every single launch is testing every single part of the hardware and software. Tests failing isn’t a bad thing, as it helps you fix problems and make things better.
They are years behind schedule and obscenely over budget on this testing. They’re not even making new technology here, they are just cheaping out on the builds to funnel money into their own pockets.
Compared to previously SpaceX has been seeing more and more failed launches, Starlink is banned in a number of countries and there are already other low orbit internet satellite providers popping up.
You say “failed”, engineers say “ok what have we learned and what can we improve/fix from this?”. These launches are tests. Every single launch is testing every single part of the hardware and software. Tests failing isn’t a bad thing, as it helps you fix problems and make things better.
They are years behind schedule and obscenely over budget on this testing. They’re not even making new technology here, they are just cheaping out on the builds to funnel money into their own pockets.