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SpaceX Internet Satellite Network: Starlink

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And to try to steer this thread back on topic... ;)

Elon just tweeted: “Today’s Falcon launch carries 2 SpaceX test satellites for global broadband. If successful, Starlink constellation will serve least served.”

I like that phrase, “will serve least served.” The goal is global broadband access. I envision small groups of low income people who have no net access buying a single receiver and a router and sharing the connection.

Along with solar panels, a Powerwall, and high efficiency LED lighting. Complete data/power source in a box for (almost) anywhere on Earth.
 
And to try to steer this thread back on topic... ;)

Elon just tweeted: “Today’s Falcon launch carries 2 SpaceX test satellites for global broadband. If successful, Starlink constellation will serve least served.”

I like that phrase, “will serve least served.” The goal is global broadband access. I envision small groups of low income people who have no net access buying a single receiver and a router and sharing the connection.
He also means people on Antartica, above the Arctic Circle and in the middle of the Atacama (Lithium Mining in Chile - Lithium Mining - The Worldwide Website).
Many of those people are distinctly not poor. I'll happily wager that Starlink will serve both impoverished communities and wealthy remote ones. They'll include places like Pitcairn and islands everywhere. If the world is lucky there will be competition for Starlink.
 
Many of those people are distinctly not poor. I'll happily wager that Starlink will serve both impoverished communities and wealthy remote ones
Of course. My post did not mean to imply that Starlink was only for low income people, only that it could also serve them, as opposed to currently available broadband choices that clearly do not.
 
Of course. My post did not mean to imply that Starlink was only for low income people, only that it could also serve them, as opposed to currently available broadband choices that clearly do not.
Thanks, I thought you would agree. It seems to me that the great risk is underestimating the potential for Starlink. It would be perfectly plausible for others to do taht too, but they'd need very cheap launches to make the economics attractive. Presumably SpaceX might also do launches for competitors. Presumably Blue Horizon or somebody else will learn to make cheap launches too.
 
At least in the US, terrestrial internet connection are often crazily expensive and offer poor data rates due to the monopolies the ISPs enjoy in many areas, even very highly populated ones. I'm not sure what happens when/if Starlink starts offering competitive data rates and pricing in these areas. Perhaps it will force existing ISPs to lower their prices and/or increase their data rates. On the other hand, it may drive them out of business because the ISPs won't want to expend the capital to upgrade their infrastructure.
 
Wow...surprising to see Ajit Pai come out in favor of this. I would have thought he would have been pressured by the existing Telecom players to delay or prevent approval. Good news.

What is beautiful about this whole situation, is that Ajit pushed for the rollback of net neutrality (arguably motivated by his ties to big telco monopolies), now that same rollback may pave the way for Starlink to screw over the same big monopolies.

I think the only reason he is coming out in favor of this, is because there is no way for him to oppose it and not looked blatantly crooked.
 
What is beautiful about this whole situation, is that Ajit pushed for the rollback of net neutrality (arguably motivated by his ties to big telco monopolies), now that same rollback may pave the way for Starlink to screw over the same big monopolies.

I think the only reason he is coming out in favor of this, is because there is no way for him to oppose it and not looked blatantly crooked.

I was thinking about this and the conspiracy theorist in me believes that this may be a way to delay significant action in bringing broadband to rural communities. Any delay or ability to push this off would alleviate large capital requirements so the big telecom players may not be too worried about Starlink.

Granted Starlink is so far out I may just be seeing more here than actually exists.
 
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I was thinking about this and the conspiracy theorist in me believes that this may be a way to delay significant action in bringing broadband to rural communities. Any delay or ability to push this off would alleviate large capital requirements so the big telecom players may not be too worried about Starlink.

Granted Starlink is so far out I may just be seeing more here than actually exists.
Viva conspiracy theories if that is the result we'll get! This might be the only time I think that.
 
I never give out my ISP email address to people. <snip>
Sorry, one last tangential post - this is a reasonable use of ISP e-mail addresses, and doesn't fit my peeve of people using them as their "public" identity! It still seems a bit odd to be on a list of requirements you look for in an ISP since it seems you're flexible on which provider it is, as long as you have multiple of them. Really wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX doesn't provide an e-mail service, keeping in line with the general Tesla and SpaceX mantra of doing really well at the core service, and ignoring fluff that others do. Heck, I just checked and the internet provider I'll be switching to when I move (a community fiber system) doesn't provide e-mail, and requires you to provide an e-mail address to sign up. Of course, I'm looking at that on their webpage, so maybe if you had to call them in order to sign up, they wouldn't require you to already have an e-mail address! Further googling on their website shows a support article of how to set up an ISP provided e-mail, but the connection details are obvious that they outsource it to another provider.
 
By chance today I had the opportunity to talk to a very nice Starlink engineer at a Supercharger in the Pacific Northwest. He and his wife were heading home to Seattle in their new Model 3 after making a trip to California in hopes of seeing the VAFB launch this past weekend. Unfortunately they didn’t get to see the launch because it was postponed too many days.

We chatted about the upcoming launch of the test sats, the sat propulsion system, the issues involved in deciding on initial coverage areas, and other stuff. He was very friendly but of course did not tell me anything that is not already public knowledge. We also talked about Tesla, Tesla Energy, and SpaceX of course!
 
During the Paz/Hidesat launch webcast today, a photo of the Starlink sat was briefly shown, which surprised me. Here is a screen cap from the livestream showing one of the two sats that were launched. There is nothing in the photo to give a sense of scale, but my guess is the sat is about the height of a human. There appear to be four solar panels, each consisting of three sections, they are folded up in this image, only the backs of the panels are visible. At least that is my guess. I am also going to guess that the four flat octagonal pieces are antennas of some sort (look carefully to see all four)

86556CB1-D099-4CAF-81F3-F564AAE6C243.png
 
There is nothing in the photo to give a sense of scale..

There are a few things.

--The whole assembly will package in a 5m fairing
--The 30 ton lifting beam is probably ~24" tall with 1.25"+ holes for shackles
--The workstand legs are probably stock extrusion, maybe 6x6 and 4x4 or 2x2
--The lifting crank on the sides of the workstand are probably 12" long
--The workstand height is probably something close to a typical desk or counter height, so 30-36"
--The cylinder is probably 1194mm
--The blue flash tape covering the exposed welds of the workstand are probably 1"
--The folds on the curtain blocking off the rest of the integration facility are probably 16-18"
--The access holes on the dispenser cylinder are probably big enough to push a hand through, so 6"?
--There's a human in the back...

Putting all that together I'd guess that these platforms are ~2-2.5m tall

A few other notes:
--This likely is, but isn't necessarily the final platform. Getting technology to work and industrializing a product configuration are potentially two different activities.
--There's a large and small octagonal feature on each unit that are the transmit and receive arrays
--The white tubey-deals behind the arrays are the optical units
--The black rectangular features are some kind of unfurlable or roll out solar array (not panels)
--The red caps at the bottom of the vehicles are probably on star trackers
--The bronze square-curvey feature at the top of the left vehicle might be a GPS antenna (there are two on on the right vehicle too)
--The white slantey panels on the top and the bottom of the vehicles (we're looking at them edgewise-ish) are probably radiators for the arrays, and they look like they have holddown mechanisms. Alternatively, they might also be sun shades...
--Given the array configuration, they probably put 8 vehicles on one of these dispensers, unspy-downsie configuration. Best guess is they can stack 3 dispensers on a f9.
 
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There is nothing in the photo to give a sense of scale, but my guess is the sat is about the height of a human.
I should have been more clear: ”There is nothing in the photo to give me a sense of scale”. ;)

I'd guess that these platforms are ~2-2.5m tall
Thank you. So my guess was pretty close.
 
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The black rectangular features are some kind of unfurlable or roll out solar array (not panels)
I was using the term “panel” to mean each of the 4 “arrays”. Not the correct term, apparently. So there are 4 arrays, each of which consist of 3 sections?

Given the array configuration, they probably put 8 vehicles on one of these dispensers, unspy-downsie configuration. Best guess is they can stack 3 dispensers on a f9.
That means 24 sats per F9 launch? Wow.
 
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