this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
99 points (98.1% liked)

Technology

59374 readers
7033 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The delay was only 4 seconds. This time. But with 30,000 trackable objects in orbit and more every day, this is going to become commonplace and the delays are going to be worse.

all 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I understand the sentiment but a 4 second delay is hardly a story.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

It’s four seconds this time. With more and more debris building up over time, this problem is only going to get worse.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A 4 second delay can mean losing a launch window.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

4 seconds? Usually launch windows are in hours and days right? Unless you have barely any fuel margin and you're trying to hit a very very specific orbit I can't imagine 4 seconds being a huge issue. But I'm no orbital dynamicist

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It's not a huge deal, and if it were then the mission is already balanced on a knife's edge and shouldn't have been designed that way in the first place. There are plenty of technical problems that could cause a 4-second delay.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

"30000 trackable objects in orbit" is nothing. Somebody doesn't quite understand the scale.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why is it "going to get worse"? A 4-second delay might need to be done for launches more frequently, but I don't see why the delays would get longer than that - debris moves out of the way at the same speed regardless of how much of it there is. This doesn't seem like a big deal. If a 4-second delay risks killing your mission then you probably should have designed the mission with more leeway in its launch window to begin with. There are a huge number of technical issues that could easily cause a 4-second delay.

Of course, that doesn't result in a headline that draws clicks.

Edit: I just read the article. "It's going to get worse" doesn't appear anywhere in it. You just made that up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you think there will be less things in orbit in the future or more? Because it's less 'made that up' and more 'inferred based on what happens in reality.'

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As I said, "more things in orbit" does not imply longer delays. It would mean that launches would have to delay 4 seconds more frequently, not that they would need to delay longer than 4 seconds.

If a 4 second delay is a problem then your mission is badly designed from the start since there are very many reasons you might encounter a 4 second delay.