Starlink keeps passengers connected with high-speed internet from the moment they step onboard their plane.
We’re now on contract to connect more than 1,000 aircraft and counting all around the world!
What’s worse, this story is super misleading!
In one instance it claims, “three years of data collected by the Coastal Bend group near the SpaceX site indicated a 54 percent decline in the threatened piping plover population through 2021.”
This is false. The frequently cited study conducted by Newstead and Hill (2021) is outdated and unreliable for describing potential piping plover population trends over time.
The 2021 study did not consistently perform field visits during the same time of year. In some years, surveys included periods when piping plovers were actively migrating and in other years surveys only included months when winter residents were likely to be present. They also did not always check both kinds of habitat that are present during each survey.
Point being, the piping plover population being sampled was inconsistent across years. This is important because the occurrence of piping plovers at any given location at any given time is highly variable. Presence or absence may be due to a wide variety of factors unrelated to changes to the population size; birds may simply be someplace else. And, the more times they looked for piping plovers in a year, the higher their population estimate was.
It's also important to understand piping plovers do not nest in Texas. With very few exceptions, piping plovers observed in Texas are either migrating to or from wintering areas further south along the Mexico Gulf Coast or in the Caribbean, or reside in the vicinity over winter. Piping plovers tend to return to the same wintering areas year after year, even when conditions at those wintering areas change due to extreme weather or human-caused disturbance.
Now here’s the kicker: In response to questions about the reliability of their study, Newstead and Hill reanalyzed their data and published a follow-up report (2022) which found no significant change in population abundance of piping plovers at Boca Chica over time. A decreasing trend in abundance over the first three years of the study was balanced by an increase in the final year of the study (once data from additional survey visits was added to the analysis).
For our part, we have conducted nine years of monitoring using a protocol developed with US Fish and Wildlife Services, and for the past two years we have ensured consistent sampling throughout the year by surveying monthly. The findings show little to no strong evidence of trends, either increasing or decreasing, for any of the target species, including piping plovers.
As such, the satellites will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise. They do not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety.
https://t.co/96M1qY6Juw
Each pass through perigee removes 5+ km of altitude from the highest point in the satellite orbit. At this level of drag, our maximum available thrust is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites.
During tonight’s Falcon 9 launch of Starlink, the second stage engine did not complete its second burn. As a result, the Starlink satellites were deployed into a lower than intended orbit.
SpaceX has made contact with 5 of the satellites so far and is attempting to have them raise orbit using their ion thrusters.
With 6x more propellant and 4x the power of today’s Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX was selected to design and develop the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle for a precise, controlled deorbit of the @Space_Station