Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Aerospace

Starlink Mini Performance Report

We live in sort of a low hollow area in our semi-rural desert home with rising terrain to the north and a couple of places towards the southwest. Even under conditions of placing the Starlink Mini dish on the roof of the house, we would have a limited view of the sky. That being said, I did not want to climb up on the roof to put the dish up there, so I placed it on the spa in the Arizona Room (screened-in patio) by the RV Drive behind the house. Due to the limited sky view from the patio, the Starlink App reports the following 3-D graphic of the obstructions the unit “sees.”

The “dish,” in reality, is a planar phased array antenna which scans the sky for satellite signals and plots the areas blocked by obstructions. The App admonishes that the map of obstructions is collected over several hours and should be stable-ish after a while. The map shown has been integrated over the last day or so with the current antenna placement. Blue equals clear sky shot and red is obstructed. The white square is the antenna. I estimate clear sky to be no more than 35-40 percent of the dome. Regardless of the overwhelming obstructions, the system can deliver the performance seen in the OOKLA download rate seen below.

That rate is sufficient to do most internet streaming services, but may not perform as well for interactive gaming or other similar stuff for which we have no need. There is a caveat on the megabit performance shown; the satellite constellation is on the move and the performance (rate) may suffer as things go in and out of range, so some buffering (delays) may be possible.

Another note of interest: during the past few weeks, our Cox Internet Cable has gone down for several hours at a time. With the (approximate) setup shown in the top image, we continued internet service in spite of the outages on the cable.

We should do OK on the road with all of our internet needs as we take off for a nice long RV excursion in a few weeks.

This is not a paid plug, but I notice that the Starlink Mini is on sale for 40 percent off or so ($299 vs $499).

17 May 2025 by Aerospace Cyberspace Notions Rocket Science Technobabble 0

Retirement Milestone Fifteen

Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of my official retirement. I say “official” because I had already retired ten years prior, but returned to the workforce at another company to continue my career in aerospace. This turned out to be an important step in building up our “nest egg” savings in the new company’s 401K program. I believe we were able to put away about a quarter of our income during those final ten years, with much of the savings “sheltered” from the IRS. That was a good thing.

So, in the coming year, we are contemplating more travel in the big RV. We both have ancestors in many states and we would like to travel to our places of origin – at least on this continent, since many ancestors further up the family trees were from European nations which we would like to visit but are unable at this time. First things first – we will visit the places we can by motorhome. As for the motorhome, we have several maintenance items and improvements to accomplish beforehand.

As we prepare for more years of retirement, we are placing our efforts in God’s Hands to provide for us as He has in the past. We anticipate that this coming year will be as blessed as our first fifteen years of retirement.

p.s. Register to vote and then vote. Bring ten other voters with you. This could be the most important election in the history of the Republic (NOT a democracy, but a REPUBLIC, if we can keep it).

01 Oct 2024 by Aerospace Ancestors Retirement Travel Wanderlust

Watching the ISS Fly Over

One of our activities is, and has been for quite a while (since living in California) watching the International Space Station fly over when visible. Last Sunday night’s pass was quite a treat in that it had nearly everything going for it: cloudless skies, convenient timing and an almost direct overhead pass.

In the image above, you can see the ground track of the ISS as it passed over the Southwestern US. The maximum predicted elevation for this particular pass was 88° which barely missed our exact location to the southeast, but watching the fly-over, one could not perceive any difference from a direct overhead pass. Image credit Heavens Above.

Another attribute that is not always the case during a pass is that the ISS remained sunlit during the entire pass. We live in a slight hollow below surrounding terrain and saw the ISS rise in the southwest above some local hills and it few over us and set in the northeast behind some other terrain. We always enjoy watching the ISS and other satellites flying over, but this one was unusually spectacular.

16 May 2023 by Aerospace Arizona Notions Something Shiny

Orville and Wilbur Day 2018

Wright Flyer

The 115th Anniversary of Powered Flight is today, December 17, 2018. This marks one of, if not the most, important technological achievements of the 20th Century. Aviation spawned an age of unprecedented achievements not only in aircraft-related, but in myriad support technologies. I am thankful to God that I was born in an age where emerging technology, my aptitude and education were responsible for a long and happy career in aerospace.

Co-incidentally, today is the 80th anniversary of my parents’ wedding. They were married on this day in 1938 in Long Beach, CA, where I was raised. They were present for the booming aviation industry in Southern California, another reason I was born into the right place at the right time. It’s too bad that I can no longer say that about what Kalifornistan has become.

From the National Air and Space Museum:

The Wright brothers inaugurated the aerial age with the world’s first successful flights of a powered heavier-than-air flying machine. The Wright Flyer was the product of a sophisticated four-year program of research and development conducted by Wilbur and Orville Wright beginning in 1899. After building and testing three full-sized gliders, the Wrights’ first powered airplane flew at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, making a 12-second flight, traveling 36 m (120 ft), with Orville piloting. The best flight of the day, with Wilbur at the controls, covered 255.6 m (852 ft) in 59 seconds.

The Wrights pioneered many of the basic tenets and techniques of modern aeronautical engineering, such as the use of a wind tunnel and flight testing as design tools. Their seminal accomplishment encompassed not only the breakthrough first flight of an airplane, but also the equally important achievement of establishing the foundation of aeronautical engineering.

Image and text borrowed from this Smithsonian Link.

17 Dec 2018 by Aerospace Aviation California Technobabble

SpaceX Satellite Launch

SpaceX Satellite Launch

As Damsel and I were relaxing last evening, we were startled by a knocking at the back porch. It was the UPS delivery guy with a package we ordered from Amazon. But the package drop-off wasn’t the end of it. The driver said “Come out here and look at this!”

We walked down the driveway looking west and we pretty much saw the image depicted above, although we’re in a darker location than the Phoenix area where the photo was taken.

The phenomenon was attributed to a SpaceX Iridium Satellite launch:

At 5:30 pm on Dec. 22nd, SpaceX launched a 2-stage rocket from Vandenburg Air Force Base near the California coast.

The rocket launched 10 communications satellites to low-Earth orbit, adding to the growing Iridium NEXT constellation. This is the fourth such mission that SpaceX has flown for Iridium. Moreover, the rocket used for this mission had been used before. The Falcon 9 previously flew in June for the second Iridium mission.

It was quite spectacular as we watched the rocket move across the sky with its trail of gas lit up by sunlight high in the atmosphere. We’re glad that the UPS guy alerted us to this unusual event.

23 Dec 2017 by Aerospace Rocket Science

Cassini: The Grand Finalé

Cassini Spacecraft

Early yesterday, I awoke to news that the 20-plus year mission of the Cassini Saturn-probe spacecraft has come to an end. The durable spacecraft, launched in 1997, had more than tripled its four-year scientific mission’s original timeline plan. Early on September 15, 2017, the spacecraft executed it last command to dive into the atmosphere of Saturn and disintegrate.

Since Cassini arrived on station thirteen years ago, we watched the marvelous discoveries and monitored the experiments performed with eager anticipation to see what new facts about the Saturnian system of moons, rings and the planet itself might be revealed. We were not disappointed.

So, adios to Cassini. We look forward to seeing the next explorations planned not only by NASA/JPL, but also by other commercial space exploration entities.

There is considerable information about the now completed mission at the Cassini Grand Finalé toolkit page.

16 Sep 2017 by Aerospace Astronomy Rocket Science

ISS and SpaceX Dragon Sighting

SpaceX Dragon

One of our regular activities in retirement in our desert place is to watch for overflights of The International Space Station when they are visible. Tonight’s flyover was the last in the current series of visible passes in our area and included a special treat of which we were unaware until after the pass.

As the ISS soared across the sky, Damsel noticed a fainter speck of light following in trail of the brighter space station. We both saw it and wondered what it could be. I suggested that it might be a cargo resupply or something of the sort. We continued to watch the pair as they swooped out of sight towards the southern horizon.

I came back in the house and got on the computer to see if I could find out what we were seeing. It turns out that the fainter dot of light was a SpaceX Dragon CRS-12 resupply ship with 6400 pounds of “stuff” on board to deliver to the ISS on Wednesday morning.

This is from the NASA blog about the SpaceX Dragon Launch:

Crew members aboard the International Space Station can expect a special delivery Wednesday morning. A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft loaded with more than 6,400 pounds of supplies, equipment and science materials is heading their way after the successful liftoff of SpaceX CRS-12 at 12:31 p.m. EDT from NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A.

The on-time liftoff marked a spectacular conclusion to a countdown that proceeded like clockwork throughout the morning, aided by cooperative weather conditions across the launch site. With a sonic boom sounding across Florida’s Space Coast, the first stage returned to SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station while the rocket’s second stage finished the task of propelling Dragon to orbit.

Read more at the link above the quote. Damsel and I feel very fortunate to have witnessed this extraordinary extra-terrestrial event.

Damsel remarked earlier this evening regarding that she’s glad to see SpaceX, rather than Russians, supplying the ISS these days. I wholeheartedly agree with that.

15 Aug 2017 by Aerospace Rocket Science Something Shiny

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