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drivebyhooting | on: Starfall – Affordable, routine access to microgravity
It sounds like a super villain weapon.

If you manufacture there how do you recover it?

Polizeiposaune | parent | next
The Starfall capsule has enough deltaV to deorbit, a heat shield, and parachutes.

So you tell them where to deliver it (anywhere on the planet that its orbit goes over..), they tell you when it will be arriving, and it reenters and lands there.

Article about a recent test (launched on a Falcon 9):

https://www.afrl.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4629122...

mrheosuper | root | parent
Do they offer same day delivery ?
temp123477 | root | parent
If you are not home to sign, it blasts off again onto orbit.
ceejayoz | parent | next
> If you manufacture there how do you recover it?

The graphic shows it reentering the atmosphere.

Bluebird803 | parent | next
Presumably the same way we have always recovered payloads from space. Heat-shield + parachute. I'm assuming there would be some capability to do a retrograde maneuver so that the re-entey can be done when and where desired, rather than leaving it to the whims of pure drag.
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itishappy | parent | next
You're not wrong! It looks that way because it's a reentry vehicle. You put this thing in a low orbit which decays over the course of a few weeks until it eventually falls from space, then you go find it.
Tuna-Fish | root | parent | next
They have thrusters and do controlled re-entry, at a location of their choosing.

The uppermost parts of the atmosphere are very dynamic, with changes in solar activity causing them to contract and expand on a scale of hours. And this is very significant for the amount of drag felt by re-entering objects. Because of this, if you slowly deorbit something naturally through drag, you are not going to be able to pick the destination, or even know where it ends up until very close to it falling down. So instead you intentionally lower the perigee so that it deorbits in a controlled manner.

itishappy | root | parent
Didn't know that, shouldn't have assumed. Wish I could fix my third sentence...

Thanks for the correction!

bamboozled | root | parent
Doesn't sound dangerous at all.
itishappy | root | parent | next
Dropping stuff from space is inherently dangerous. Huge amounts of effort go into making it safe.
bamboozled | root | parent
So you think these things will be delivered to new york ?
itishappy | root | parent
Not intentionally, of course, but they will be flying directly overhead a few times every day!
Pedro_Ribeiro | root | parent
You realize they know how to land these things right? Are you aware?
bamboozled | root | parent
I trust government agencies who are doing these things for science and research to do it safely, private companies owned by conmen who are probably operating under presidential pardons, not really.
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