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Back to Inside Starcloud’s $2B Space Factory, with Philip Johnston & Ezra Feilden.

Why Does Everyone Leave a Starcloud 2 Test?

Philip Johnston says everyone leaves the building for a Starcloud 2 vibration test because a xenon tank under the satellite has about half the explosive power of a hand grenade if it explodes.

Vibration tables themselves are pretty safe, and the magnet does not shoot out. The worst outcome is that the hardware under test explodes. Underneath Starcloud 2 is a xenon tank for the thrusters, so the team is not running the test today. When the test does run, everybody has to leave the building. The whole satellite goes on the table, and the solenoid can flip up so the same hardware can be tested along two axes. A toy manufacturer keeps storage across the street and has no idea what is going on inside, but the distance is enough that the people there stay safe.

Grokipedia·StarCloud·Philip Johnston

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Inside Starcloud’s $2B Space Factory ·

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  1. How Much Did Starcloud Pay for a Broken Vibration Table?Philip Johnston says Starcloud bought a secondhand broken vibration table for 200 grand after the team could not find a table in the US that would test a…
  2. Where Are Most New Satellites Built?Philip Johnston says Starcloud is based in the Seattle region because 90% of all satellites launched in the last few years by mass were designed, built, and…
  3. How Does Starcloud Cool Computers in Space?Adi Oltean says Starcloud cools computers in space with the liquid cooling that data centers on Earth switched to in 2025, because liquid cooling is the only…
  4. How Big Is the Starcloud 3 Spacecraft?Ezra Feilden says Starcloud 3 is the company's largest platform, a vehicle of about two tons, and as many as 50 can deploy on one Starship launch.
  5. How Easy Is Booking a Falcon 9 Rideshare?Ezra Feilden says booking a Falcon 9 rideshare is unbelievably easy.
  6. Why Would Anyone Put a Data Center in Orbit?Philip Johnston says a data center in orbit gets cheaper than one on Earth once launch falls to about $500 a kilogram.
  7. What Is Starcloud One Doing With Satellite Imagery?Philip Johnston says Starcloud One runs inference on satellite imagery in orbit, so the coordinates of a vessel can come down in minutes rather than hours and…
  8. What Did Miguel Rivera Do at Helion?Miguel Rivera was the welder for Helion Energy, where the team built fusion generators, and he ran their fabrication shop for more than a year before becoming…
  9. What Did Bailey Montaño Do Before Starcloud?Bailey Montaño started at SpaceX in aerospace, spent about four years there, tried biotech and consumer product design, and then spent three years in fusion…
  10. Why Is Shooting Down a Satellite So Hard?Philip Johnston says shooting down a satellite is a lot harder than blowing up a data center in Virginia, because satellites travel at about 17,000 miles an…

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