Long line of planes flying over or a series of satellites?

[notagaincharlie]

We are near the South Coast and there a constant stream of lights going over, equi distant very high up?
Not on Flighttracker.

Can anyone else see them?

@Freeekedout

Will try and answer as best I can...

How long does it take for the rocket to return to earth once it's released the satellites?
We had a successful landing this time around - the last 2 Starlink launches didn't quite make it. The first stage (the main part of the rocket) actually lands before the second stage releases the satellites, a few minutes going up then another few coming down. The second stage orbits for about 15 minutes after stage-separation before performing its twisty-round satellite deployment move.

Is the flight manned with a crew? If so, how many?
Nope, it's uncrewed. Although SpaceX will be launching astronauts into space on the Crew Dragon capsule on the 27th of April. This will be the first time that a private company has ever achieved this feat and will be the first crewed mission from American soil in nearly 10 years since the Space Shuttle program was cancelled. For the last 10 years all astronauts have had to use a Soyuz rocket flying from Kazakhstan which is now a 40 year old piece of kit.

What size is each of the satellites?
The Falcon 9 fairing holds 60 Starlink satellites which are all neatly folded in an Ikea style fashion...
everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/starlinksatsloaded.jpg
For a bit of reference that same fairing could contain one of those yellow American school buses.

How can I see a relatively small object in slave, but I can't see something the same size the same distance away on earth?
Starlink satellites are still pretty close, around 300-400 miles when visible and highly reflective. On earth anything that far away is usually hidden by the curvature.

You should check out Tim Dodd (The Everyday Astronaut) on Youtube, all of your questions will be answered in one of his videos.

This is fascinating, thank you for taking the time to explain! I will check out that link tomorrow. DH and the DC will be super impressed by my knowledge! 😁

I'm amazed that we can pinpoint to the minute what time the satellites will be visible from earth, when they're travelling so fast over such a vast area. My mind is blown! I've unleashed my inner geek!

You can get the timing down to pretty much the second..there's lots of stuff up there so you can unleash your even geek further using this website..

www.heavens-above.com/

I'm so frustrated - I've been out on three separate nights looking for these things and still haven't seen them! I can only imagine I am looking in the wrong place and they sail by behind me

Have you run your location through one of the apps if you do you should be able to get an exact time for where you are - accurate almost to the second, and an idea of where to look verses visible stars.

I'd also ask are you somewhere with darkish skies? When I've seen them these satellites are quite bright (it varies) but they aren't brightest objects in the sky - they are nothing like as bright as Venus is at the moment. For example I'm not sure they'd be any easy "spot" from a well illuminated urban area.

Also worth bearing in mind you are looking for procession of middlingly (?) bright, white stars moving from west to east...nothing more spectacular than that...

Im peeved too as we've been out 4 times and only seen them once.

and particularly wanted to see the new lot that went up last night as was hoping they would be closer together

It just isn't dark enough.
Venus is very bright too, which isn't helpful. Although it is beautiful, it lights upthe sky.

What about the lyrid meteor showers?

What about the lyrid meteor showers?

There was a whole other thread on that - but to cut to the chase it wasn't massively spectacular (there was never any guarantee it was going to be) and it's effectively finished.

Here you go:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3887554-Lyrid-Meteor-Shower?noti=1&utm_source=watchedthreads&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-02-27&utm_term=Mumsnet%3A+New+message+on+thread+Flight+Radar+24+pt+2&rei=1055485#95873097

We saw them last night. Did not look as I expected, Much much closer together, like a short line moving across the sky.

Is that because of distance/perspective?

@notimagain (there was a little chunk left of the end of that post, apologies).

I meant to ask whether with the satellites being released there was any risk of impact due to this- I'd assume launching whilst there was alot of activity in the skies would pose a slight risk?

Ah got you..

There are actually meteors arriving at the Earth everyday outside of the main showers and AFAIK whilst on paper they could pose a risk - not just to starlink but to things already in orbit like the space station- the chances of a seriously damaging collision is regarded as being so astronomically small ........:-) that AFAIK launches aren't delayed to avoid a meteor shower.

OTOH there have been issues with Starlink potentially hitting other satellites...certainly due to the shear number of objects the starlink project is putting into orbit it is not universally loved..

www.theverge.com/2019/9/3/20847243/spacex-starlink-satellite-european-space-agency-aeolus-conjunction-space-debris

@Teddypops - the 9pm ish ones last night were the latest launched ones and presumably more bunched, then spread out the older they get. They are due over again tonight

Thanks for the links.
The DC and I spotted a couple of (I assume) satellites the other night, they were tiny and moving very fast. There is a lot of light pollution here so we were pleased to see something, but would love to see a chain of Starlink.

Thank you @notimagain - the links are great- this is all new reading for me, its fascinating!

I did start reading a little after Trumps 'space force!' speech, just because I found it hilarious, but after a few articles I've become a little hooked-