SpaceX has made radical and innovative choices to make the Starlink satellites lower cost and more reliable.
SpaceX deployed all sixty satellites with the launching system. The Starlink satellites will use Krypton ion engines to move into their correct positions.
The Starlink satellites were packed flat like Ikea furniture. The flat configuration enabled about two to three times as many satellites to be launched at the same time.
Starlink's flat-panel design allows for a dense launch stack to take full advantage of Falcon 9’s launch capabilities pic.twitter.com/ntnJInEfno
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 24, 2019
Krypton thrusters operative, satellites initiating orbit raise every 90 mins
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 25, 2019
Krypton ion thrusters activate in about 3 hours to raise orbit
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2019
Starlink satellites are equipped with one solar array instead of two, minimizing potential points of failure pic.twitter.com/bJirVr67fF
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 24, 2019
* SpaceX uses krypton instead of xenon as fuel for their ion drives. This will cut the cost of electric Starlink thrusters by up to 10 times. This will save $50,000 or more per satellite.
* They built four large phased-array antennas directly into the body of each satellite in order to remove a failure mode where antennas do not deploy.
Successful deployment of 60 Starlink satellites confirmed! pic.twitter.com/eYrLocCiws
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 24, 2019
SOURCES- Twitter Elon Musk and SpaceX, Teslarati
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com