How’s does space x control the burn of the rocket from a distance how does it work what is the distance ? Or tech component they use?
In: Engineering
The rocket controls itself (pre-programmed) throughout the launch.
Also, radio waves. The same way you control an RC car, but… “bigger”. They can send out a signal to satellites, which relay that signal to the ship.
Direct controll of what exacty is done it by internal computers in the spaceship. That is how it has been done since the beginning of spaceflight.
Ordes can be given to what the spaceship should do in the future by radion links to it. It can be from groundstation that will be limited by where they are on earth. It can also be done by using satellites higher up as relays. I do not know exactly what Space X are using, the did use Starlink for the video stream in the latest Starship test.
I actually work on these things (but not space x) so ask away. The rocket is primarily preprogrammed. it knows the mission and knows what to do in different situations. It’ll do things on its own. It does have radios that can be used to talk to the spacecraft. These are still typically not direct control, but do allow ground operators to tell the spacecraft to execute pre defined actions.
Much of the spacecraft is automated but some control from the ground is possible. The specific radio network used is the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). This is made up of several NASA TDRS communication satellites, each in a high orbit so they maintain their positions over points on the earth’s surface, giving essentially global coverage. The system was deployed from the 1980s to allow for communications with earth-orbit spacecraft, so they don’t have to wait to be above a ground station.
SpaceX is also using its own Starlink network of thousands of low-earth-orbit communications satellites and this is used to send high-bandwidth data, notably the high-definition video we saw from the spacecraft.
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