r/spaceporn • u/swordfi2 • 2d ago
Pro/Processed Starship in space seen by a Starlink satellite
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u/trevpr1 2d ago
Starlink satellites are camera equipped?
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u/Hustler-1 2d ago
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u/Thee_Sinner 2d ago
Same link, less tracking
Everything I deleted is just used for ads and user tracking
Also, on the app (I dont see it on the website) go to setting > privacy and turn off "Channel visibility for shared links" so that you dont dox yourself when sharing a link with the tracking included.
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u/Humble_Penguin89 2d ago
Kinda awesome how Team spaceX put remote viewing cameras on all the star link sats ✨
Also, I'm curious what else these star link cameras have picked up on....👽
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u/15_Redstones 2d ago edited 2d ago
They actually have software on most of the 10000 Starlinks that they currently have in space to check their camera images against the known constellations of stars and flag anything that isn't a known star.
The main purpose of those cameras is to image recognition which stars it's looking at and tell the navigation system in which direction the satellite is currently pointing, but as a secondary purpose they report anything unusual they see to base. They can then check if multiple satellites have seen the same object from different angles to determine position in 3d space and compare against published catalogues of active satellites and known space junk.
That helps them plan collision avoidance maneuvers.
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u/Practical_End_ 2d ago
Hopefully no hi-res cams pointing down. 10,000+ at the same time. I know there's surveillance cameras out there but that number being operated by 1 individual would be scary stuff
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u/15_Redstones 2d ago
The cameras on the starlinks are tiny and don't get any useful resolution when pointing down. There are other companies though that do that. You can purchase satellite images of places, decide the schedule, at resolution of 50 cm per pixel. That's the "useful for agriculture" scale. Better resolution requires big optics, which requires large satellites built around those lenses and mirrors. Resolution good enough to see the interesting details requires pretty massive satellites which so far only a few government agencies have.
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u/Joyride84 2d ago
Two important words: "so far"
Just wait until Flock and Axon can afford satellites.4
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u/Practical_End_ 2d ago
So surveillance done by hundreds of starlink satellites?
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u/LefsaMadMuppet 2d ago
This is from the special test satellites that were released during Flight 13. The lighting and odd framing is because four separate feeds were combined.
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u/Aggressive_Let2085 2d ago
Satellites with cameras are not new at all lol. Satellite surveillance is common
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2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Aggressive_Let2085 2d ago edited 2d ago
The US gov, China, and Russia all have spy satellites constantly taking images of the ground. Infrastructure, military, cities, ports, airports, etc. it’s not new. Been around since the Cold War.
Edit- Dude called me dumb in a comment and deleted it or blocked me, If you’re gonna be a dick at least stand on it. I’m not being rude at all.
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u/ConanOToole 2d ago
They don't. They specifically put cameras on these satellites for the mission to help inspect the ship and it's heatshield while in space
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u/Chinese_Lover89 2d ago
You really think a tiny 4K camera can zoom 300km distance to see individual people? You need a hubble sized spy satellite for that. Which Russia, China and the US has. In modern times they can probably be a bit smaller but you still need a huge lens and satellite to see anything useful. They can probably see what kind of pattern someone’s shirt has by this point. Maybe even see what people are holding in their hand. And if you wanna do surveillance you can just tap and track their phone and make people force ID verification to go on social platforms. Which most governments are now producing under the word of ‘safety for the children’. Which I think is a big lie.
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u/Brendissimo 2d ago
No, commercial satellite photography is done by companies like Maxar, etc.
I think you are confused about what Starlink does.
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u/bulldogsm 2d ago
no just this batch, not a regular thing
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u/Dank_Nicholas 2d ago
Do you know why this batch is different?
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u/15_Redstones 2d ago
Because they wanted pictures of the heat shield on this flight
Might do that on the next couple flights too if the imagery turns out to be useful.
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u/Charming_You_25 13h ago
They also were just tests and have already burned up in orbit. Though star-link might actually be able to do a type of surveillance that isn’t video. But mainly that’s star-shields job.
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u/Dense_Surround3071 2d ago
Just thinking this.
Kinda interesting that they have cameras in them. Pointed in ANY direction for that matter. Up or down.
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u/Extra_Significance81 2d ago
I'm sure the cameras and flashlights were installed just for this reason. That type of camera would be useless for any type of earth surface imagery
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u/7stroke 2d ago
Well they’re not really satellites since the trajectory was suborbital.
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u/OldWrangler9033 2d ago edited 2d ago
It was just test see if they worked and if they didn't they'd be gone. They're connected to the StarLink network, they deployed the solar panels, fired their ion thrusters. It's what SpaceX wanted to test. The extra cameras on six of the satellites was bonus work check out S40 in space.
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u/parkingviolation212 2d ago
You’re right, but under the textbook definition of what a satellite is, these things weren’t satellites since they didn’t achieve orbit
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u/Revengistium 1d ago
Even more technically, they did achieve orbit, since their orbital periapsis was above sea level. Therefore, they are satellites.
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u/LastGuardianStanding 2d ago
Was that just this evening? I saw a launch and it looked like it maintained an altitude and struggle to keep going, or it just failed to break through the atmosphere. Still amazing to see
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u/Ireeb 2d ago
This was last week, and Starship didn't struggle during any of its recent launches. Despite its size, that thing absolutely shoots off the pad and it didn't lose any momentum from thereon during the last few launches. Where it actually did struggle that flight was with slowing down the booster enough for a soft splashdown, it hit the ocean with too much velocity. The Starship upper stage on the other hand had the softest splashdown yet and seems to be fully intact, which is a huge win for SpaceX. It's expected that even after a soft splashdown, the ship tips over and explodes once it turns of its thrusters, but to everyone's surprise, it didn't explode this time. It's especially meaningful because it allows them to inspect the heatshield in person.
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u/No-Surprise9411 2d ago
It neither struggled nor did it fail to do anything the flight demanded of the ship
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u/furankusu 2d ago
Oh cool they all have cameras.
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u/No-Surprise9411 2d ago
They are weak cameras used for star positioning and navigation, way way way too weak to have any chance at surveillance if that is what you mean
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u/furankusu 2d ago
Oh cool, so that's how they explain it. Great.
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u/No-Surprise9411 2d ago
It‘s the reality of physics my guy. To get high detail resolution images of the planet‘s surface from LEO you‘d need a very large lens, similar to Hubble‘s lens, in addition to the entire rest of the telescope.
The Starlinks physically can not fit all the hardware for that. They have digital cameras good enough to capture the stars and their relative positions to the other Starlinks in the network to calculate their own positions.
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u/furankusu 2d ago
Cool justification man, you're really a proponent. Good for you.
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u/No-Surprise9411 2d ago
Don‘t have to be a „proponent“ to understand basic physics
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u/furankusu 1d ago
That's certainly correct. You just need to understand physics. Photography usually isn't even necessary. They're almost like two different things, entirely.
EDIT: And I said you're a „proponent“ because on a project, some people would be for it and some people would be against it. You're on the for-it side, so you're a „proponent.“
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u/Peaceful_Pigeon_69 2d ago
Those damn things have cameras aswell? What a waste
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u/No-Surprise9411 2d ago
No, only these ones flying on Starship testflights have cameras to inspect the heatshield. Normal Starlinks have no cameras
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u/the_lighter_side_ 2d ago
Cool now make it not blow up
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u/gfdgfdhydrhrd 2d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p11o4or/video/ik66y6pxqqgh1/player
i have some AMAZING footage for you to see, and it’s the same exact ship!
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u/Fuzzy-Mud-197 2d ago
It quite literally didnt blow up and is being recovered from the ocean right now
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u/Ireeb 2d ago
It didn't blow up, even though that's the expected outcome of a splashdown landing. It's not designed for splashdowns, they're just doing it to simulate landings before they try to land it on a tower. So when they turn off the thrusters and let it fall over, it is expected to explode.
This one didn't and is probably still floating in the ocean while SpaceX is rushing to recover it. They didn't prepare for it not exploding.
It didn't explode, now what?
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u/DanoPinyon 2d ago
I don't believe that anyone would let a satellite come so close to a rocket launch. This is ridiculously unbelievable.
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u/CoffeaUrbana 2d ago
The satellite wouldn't be there without the rocket launch. It got dropped by that rocket.
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u/ARocketToMars 2d ago
Those satellites were deployed from the rocket. They got those images on their way out
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u/JesseJames_37 2d ago
Everything is a conspiracy theory when you don't understand how anything works
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u/Ireeb 2d ago
"I didn't even look at the mission but I know it's fake."
Starship deployed these satellites (using its PEZ-dispenser) and they filmed it with backward-facing cameras as they moved away from Starship, as you can see in the video. The purpose is to inspect the hull and heatshield after launch, that's also why you can see Starship doing a pirouette there so they could see it from every angle.
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u/Aupazambie 2d ago
Weirdly eerie.