[ortusdux]

Absolutely! Things will be really interesting when they can use Starships to launch batches. I've seen estimates that they could launch 600 starlink satellites at a time. They could theatrically also launch fewer, but put them all the way into their final orbit, skipping the few weeks of light pollution.

[grecy]

> They could theatrically also launch fewer, but put them all the way into their final orbit

I wonder if they might choose to do this so the sats keep more of their onboard fuel, and will be able to keep themselves in orbit a bit longer before the inevitable re-entry burn up.

[Dylan16807]

That's a tradeoff that could be made, but the onboard ion thrusters are about 5x as efficient as the rocket. They'd probably be much better off making the onboard tanks a bit larger and launching to the same low orbit.

[thereisnospork]

I'd guess it is more efficient to have them boost themselves, so that they act as an additional rocket stage. (and so not need the delta V to elevate and then de-elevate starship's orbit.)

[colechristensen]

There is certainly someone doing the optimization problem for the orbit insertion and fuel loads and picking the right set of tradeoffs.

[londons_explore]

The optimization problem also includes drag losses at the lower altitudes.

And those drag losses are a lot lower keeping all the satellites inside the rocket rather than having each experience its own drag.

Might be worth putting an ion drive on the f9 2nd stage for that reason...

[trothamel]

Re-entry is a bit of a feature, though - should a satellite be DOA, it will be in a low orbit and burn up faster.

[gpm]

I wonder if they could use another satellite to sweep a DOA satellite. They all start in almost identical orbits, so unlike most orbital degree cleanup plans there aren't huge relative velocities to deal with or anything...

It would mean that 1 DOA satellite means bringing down 2, but that might be worth it if the DOA rate is low.

[grecy]

Absolutely, but for the ones that are not DOA, having more fuel on board means they can re-boot themselves for a longer time, thus staying up for longer and getting a longer service life per sat...

[m4rtink]

Or they could do it theatrically and once in a while make the most sats possible as bright as possible for a pre announced one orbital period with good ground visibility in inhabitted areas. Would be quite a sight! :)

They are getting a bit too good at reducing Starlink visibility lately so I could definitely welcome an event like that. :)

[VortexDream]

They could start doing shapes and messages. Throw in some colors. Maybe provide a service where you can get them to show a message of your choice.

[bruckie]

> They could theatrically also launch fewer

I'd love to see a theatrical launch. :)