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SpaceX Internet Satellite Network: Starlink

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Are there any technical limitations preventing the system to be moved from place to place (like a mobile home), or you think it will be contractual limitations?

Max number of stations per area is one (channel usage). The other is the method the system uses to point sats at ground stations. That does not require a search mode in the fixed stationary case. If they use zone coverage, then no search is needed, just ground station channel arbitration.
 
Mobile use probably not. Relocatable should work. In other words it should work at my house and at my recreational property.

From a technical perspective, it will absolutely work. The phased arrays on the sat and user side require a pretty precise location for each of them (I don't actually know what their beam-hopping scheme is or even how small the beams can be) and the UT will certainly have a GPS antenna on it with enough accuracy that location is a non-issue. (The sats get really complicated because they'll be yawing with the sun angle, so the satellite footprint that looks like a just basic circle is actually rotating back and forth)

From a service perspective I could see SpaceX adding a little friction when it comes to moving a residential UT beyond just finding a better place on your property. While total system load will basically stay the same in the not-mobile-but-sneaking-it-mobile scenario, if (for instance) everyone in a vacation home hotspot all brought their starlink antennas in for the big holiday weekend the local load could spike unexpectedly, inconsistently, and potentially unfavorably for the system and to the detriment of everyone's service.

Its kinda like how everyone's mobile service works pretty flawlessly most of the time, but when everyone shows up at the same place and the same time (concert, big game, etc.), everyone's service turns to crap.
 
Airlines should use Starlink to replace their current offerings. It would absolutely destroy everything in usage now in terms of performance (and likely cost).

Intuitively it makes sense.

Dig deeper and it gets a little more complicated. One could imagine aircraft becoming a pretty high load--you could easily have tens if not a hundred or more people pulling through a single pipe, so the load density basically ends up more like an apartment building rather than individuals scattered across the countryside. Then layer on the fact that air traffic often operates in lanes that move around a bit with the weather and you end up with these dynamic and only somewhat predictable apartment building loads roaming all over all the countryside Starlink users below. Long haul flights might intuitively be easier to manage since they're often flying over oceans...but they don't always fly over oceans, and their load could be easily hundreds of users, making the above scenario a big apartment building.

Solvable problem for sure, but its not a slam dunk.
 
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1. There will always be a threshold of user density at which terrestrial providers can build out infrastructure to sell better+cheaper service than Starlink. Plus as both population and density increase over time and terrestrial providers find it profitable to expand further into traditionally rural areas, the potential starlink user base will continually shrink. Even the initially beneficial distribution of WFH workforces will eventually turn negative on Starlink.

Sure, there is a tipping point, but that point may never (can never) be reached in many areas. Very few are going to pay multi-thousands to get cable/ fiber vs Starlink. Nor do many areas allow the population density to cause the companies to install it on their own.
When home Internet service costs $5,000—or even $15,000

Starlink being available before terrestrial service means it will be harder for terrestrial to expand (if it even wanted to).

3. Next gen/mm wireless networks: Obviously there's plenty uncertainties with and plenty of work to do on that technology, but the bottom line is a similar story around user density. If a terrestrial service can last-mile wireless from a few towers that's going to be a game changer for providers that find hardwiring users too expensive. This has an additional threat if direct-to-device service turns into a reliable thing.

Starlink can support this also, without a hard line being run to the tower. Lien of sight is not so easy either.

4. Perhaps counterintuitively, there's no current competition in space. OneWeb is restructuring and the tech was always going to be lagging Starlink, Telesat is years behind assuming they even remain a thing, and the establishment GEO internet services rely on technology that even in latest-and-greatest form (which is still conservative) is ~twice the capital of Starlink. (I did a hand-wavey cost normalization of the two in the starlink thread if you're interested). BUT, as the history of anything tells us, no advantage lasts forever. As more and more companies try to compete in the satellite internet space, each company is going to have to settle for a smaller piece of the pie and/or evolve their product in some differentiating way.

Just spitballing a potential disruptor to Starlink's otherwise massive disruption, many folks see GEO as 'dead'...but IMHO its actually ripe for opportunity. IMHO the above mentioned latest-and-greatest GEO internet satellite only normalizes to ~twice as costly as Starlink because nobody like SpaceX has ever tried to do GEO like SpaceX has done LEO. As a data point, SpaceX has figured out a way to reduce cost of a LEO satellite by over 2 orders of magnitude while also increasing capacity by more than 3 orders of magnitude (using Iridium Next...kind of the only relevant comparison that's in public domain). Obviously a big part of that comes from economies of scale, but if a GEO (or MEO) constellation could realize even a fraction of those gains on a new school vs old school GEO/MEO, that math very much checks out. Partner with a LEO network (OneWeb or someone new?) to handle the fraction of traffic that actually needs low latency and its a least plausible competition to Starlink.

GEO/ MEO has additional issues. Starlink has savings specifically because it is close:
Assured deorbit
Less transmit power/ receiver sensitivity (both ends)
Tighter spot for same size antenna. Along with this, higher levels of bandwidth reuse
Significantly lowing ping times
Lower launch cost/ more sats per launch
 
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Sure, there is a tipping point, but that point may never (can never) be reached in many areas. Very few are going to pay multi-thousands to get cable/ fiber vs Starlink. Nor do many areas allow the population density to cause the companies to install it on their own.

No disagreement. There are always going to be edge cases where Starlink is the only, let alone best option. There are always going to be corner cases like the random Boston article you linked. There will always to be a user base for Starlink. The point (in this case) is that its foolish to assume terrestrial providers are going to sit back and let Starlink scoop up all the rural users without any fight.

Starlink being available before terrestrial service means it will be harder for terrestrial to expand (if it even wanted to).

Why harder? Agree there needs to be a desire from terrestrial to expand (where desire = profit), but its not like there's any material first-to-market advantage for starlink. Broken record here, but people don't care where their service comes from.

Hell, if anything an operational Starlink network gives the terrestrial providers high fidelity targets and a good sense of user distributions to input into their cost models to determine if/when its worth expanding. It will be especially interesting to see what happens in the space where people are dropping their shitty terrestrial service for Starlink.

Starlink can support this also, without a hard line being run to the tower.

Of course--we've talked about this many time before in this forum. And at an LTE equivalent level of service the starlink backhaul is almost certainly going to be more than sufficient. The question really revolves around the number of users a starlink backhaul can support at higher levels service...let's say the standard-is 100/10 metric. A couple people? No problem...though its pretty silly to build a tower for that. Ten? Sure. Many tens? Certainly not with the initial constellation phases, as the that effectively creates the user density problem that would suck too much from neighboring users. For this one the good news is that as the constellation grows so will its capacity, and at a rate that's likely greater than the sum of its parts (in this case, the sum of the individual satellite performances) so it would be easier to aggregate many tens-of-users towers across more sats. But again, the real question is at what point it makes more sense to hardwire the tower vs strap a starlink terminal on the top.

GEO/ MEO has additional issues. Starlink has savings specifically because it is close:
Assured deorbit
Less transmit power/ receiver sensitivity (both ends)
Tighter spot for same size antenna. Along with this, higher levels of bandwidth reuse
Significantly lowing ping times
Lower launch cost/ more sats per launch

Sure, and I'm a LEO person (formerly a long time GEO person) so I'm not actually making a hard sell on GEO or anything. I'm just trying to be fair in assessing the potential for GEO as opposed to the current reality of GEO. Again, nobody like SpaceX has ever tried to do GEO/MEO, so its not quite a slam dunk to say there's no future up there. I mean, everybody thought EVs were crap until Tesla came around. Everybody thought rockets were expensive until SpaceX came around.

I'm also not going to dismiss the benefits of GEO/MEO:
-Practically no deorbit (needs barely some leftover ∆ v just to raise up to a graveyard)
- larger satellites = lager solar arrays, + shorter eclipses = way more available power
-WAY bigger antennas = higher gain (to offset ranging losses)
-Larger coverage area = way fewer satellites
-Fewer satellites = all manner of efficiencies (think: moving cargo with a train as opposed to a bunch of tractor trailers, think: we only need a couple reaction wheels instead of thousands)
-Basic UTs = inexpensive UTs (no need for phased arrays that have to track wide swaths)
-Maximized operational duty cycle (no 'wasted' satellite capability while they're flying over low/no user areas)
 
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For another installment of bxr's only a narcissist quotes themselves...

TLDR: Starlink-to-orbit is cheaper than GEO but maybe not quite as cheap as it might appear.

Turns out some people just can't get enough of themselves.

This time, its worth noting that my assessments don't consider the lifetime of the assets. Again real 0th order stuff here, while I may have basically concluded above that the Starlink's cost ~half as much as an ~equivalent GEO, the starlinks only have a ~third of the life of the GEO. So two more sets of sats need to be launched over time to really have an accurate comparison, which might even suggest the GEO is actually cheaper than Starlink.

It doesn't quite work out that way in reality as the subsequent starlink sats will be newer tech and generally better/faster/cheaper, but its definitely another element in the thought experiment. Abstracting away from the specific topic a bit, this one--more than most--also happens to be where most of the concept-level discussions go when trying to figure out what to baseline for a LEO constellation. Its really hard for a lot of the old dogs to wrap their head around a 5-7 year sat vs a 15 year...
 
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Turns out some people just can't get enough of themselves.

This time, its worth noting that my assessments don't consider the lifetime of the assets. Again real 0th order stuff here, while I may have basically concluded above that the Starlink's cost ~half as much as an ~equivalent GEO, the starlinks only have a ~third of the life of the GEO. So two more sets of sats need to be launched over time to really have an accurate comparison, which might even suggest the GEO is actually cheaper than Starlink.

It doesn't quite work out that way in reality as the subsequent starlink sats will be newer tech and generally better/faster/cheaper, but its definitely another element in the thought experiment. Abstracting away from the specific topic a bit, this one--more than most--also happens to be where most of the concept-level discussions go when trying to figure out what to baseline for a LEO constellation. Its really hard for a lot of the old dogs to wrap their head around a 5-7 year sat vs a 15 year...

Investing now, with a dependency on future cost reduction. Starship being an obvious part of it. Full reusability, fewer launches required.
 
Investing now, with a dependency on future cost reduction. Starship being an obvious part of it. Full reusability, fewer launches required.

Yeah for sure. Good news is that whenever Starship actually becomes operational it will be an enabler for all missions, not just Starlink to LEO.

And one can't understate the upside of frequent replenishment of technology--it sounds like a statement of the obvious, but that's not the way a lot of folks approach space technology. For many, if a 15 year sat costs twice as much as a 5 year sat, the 15 year is a better deal... :confused:
 
Recently discovered there's a whole host of articles published this weekend criticizing SpaceX and Elon Musk for the reflectivity of the early generation of Starlink satellites.

For e.g. SpaceX's Internet Satellites Keep Photobombing the NEOWISE Comet

But how do these astrophotographers know they're looking at Starlink satellites? Some quick research says there's presently about 5,000 satellites orbiting the Earth right now, and only about 10% of them are Starlink.

Surely this is an issue that existed before Starlink, so I'm not sure why they're getting the blame.
 
It is an issue that existed before Starlink. However, the concern is that Starlink (and other similar programs) will add a lot more satellites, significantly increasing the chance of the satellites reflecting light back down and ruining images. Many of the pre-Starlink existing satellites are in orbits or at distances that don't create as much of a problem. It's a complicated issue with pros and cons. SpaceX's work to make them non-reflective may help a bit. As to how people know which satellite it is, take a look at the link below. Most satellites are tracked. I've been doing astrophotography for decades, and have had many images with satellites in them. It is getting worse now, however, and may get to the point that there is a real concern for taking pretty pictures and doing science.

Starlink - dynamic 3D orbit display
 
Recently discovered there's a whole host of articles published this weekend criticizing SpaceX and Elon Musk for the reflectivity of the early generation of Starlink satellites.

For e.g. SpaceX's Internet Satellites Keep Photobombing the NEOWISE Comet

But how do these astrophotographers know they're looking at Starlink satellites? Some quick research says there's presently about 5,000 satellites orbiting the Earth right now, and only about 10% of them are Starlink.

Surely this is an issue that existed before Starlink, so I'm not sure why they're getting the blame.
One sat -> could be anyone
20+ sats in a train -> Starlink

Sky before Starlink -> known reference
Changes in sky after Starlink -> Starlink
 
There's been challenges to celestial observing from the ground since the invention of the telescope. Atmospheric distortion, then light pollution, and more recently satellites. Even airplanes can be a pita for long duration exposures. At least astrophotographers have some sophisticated software tools available these days that can combine multiple short exposures (stacking), eliminating those contrail artifacts left by satellites.

I found an interesting article that highlights a different and less frequently discussed cause for concern. The type of interference that affects radio astronomers, individuals that are only trying to listen to signals from Space.
Satellite Constellations and Radio Astronomy

On the bright side, with access to Space humans and their telescopes can manuever above most of the man-made pollution. Earthbound Neowise astrophotographers would probably relish the view Bob, Doug, Chris, and their two Russian crewmates recently had. On July 5th Bob turned the ISS camera on and took hundreds of photos, which were later edited together to make a video of Comet Neowise rising in 4K. The tail of Neowise is visible about half-way through the video, around 5:30. Also spectacular to see the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) atop Venus, both postioned toward the right center of the video.
 
But how do these astrophotographers know they're looking at Starlink satellites? Some quick research says there's presently about 5,000 satellites orbiting the Earth right now, and only about 10% of them are Starlink.

A fraction of those 5000 satellites are a) in orbits and b) large enough to create significant astronomy interference. Total WAG, but I’d say starlink is easily half of the annoyance right now, and will eventually represent 90% or more of the problem.
 
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On the bright side, with access to Space humans and their telescopes can manuever above most of the man-made pollution.
With the rapidly decreasing cost of access to space, it’s time for more and more of astronomical observations to move off the surface of the planet and into high Earth orbit. That’s where the future of astronomy will be.
 
With the rapidly decreasing cost of access to space, it’s time for more and more of astronomical observations to move off the surface of the planet and into high Earth orbit. That’s where the future of astronomy will be.
I agree although there are things beyond our current capabilities of getting things into space right now, like the massive observatories and instruments currently being built on Earth. Only a matter of time but this will cause many years of angst towards Starlink.
And individuals do enjoy taking out their own gear and image the night sky.
 
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Recently discovered there's a whole host of articles published this weekend criticizing SpaceX and Elon Musk for the reflectivity of the early generation of Starlink satellites.

For e.g. SpaceX's Internet Satellites Keep Photobombing the NEOWISE Comet

But how do these astrophotographers know they're looking at Starlink satellites? Some quick research says there's presently about 5,000 satellites orbiting the Earth right now, and only about 10% of them are Starlink.

Surely this is an issue that existed before Starlink, so I'm not sure why they're getting the blame.


I'm fairly sure it's already been mentioned here somewhere, but all of the last batch of sats had the shades to greatly reduce their reflectivity. I don't know if the shades get deployed right away or after reaching stable orbit, but the problem is being worked (this is the second or third attempt to make them invisible from the ground).

And you are correct- it's been an issue before, but now it's just getting more notice because of the train after launch being so dramatic (imho).
 
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I agree although there are things beyond our current capabilities of getting things into space right now, like the massive observatories and instruments currently being built on Earth. Only a matter of time but this will cause many years of angst towards Starlink.
And individuals do enjoy taking out their own gear and image the night sky.
You need huge mirrors (really computer controlled arrays of large mirrors) to do cutting edge astronomy from the surface of our planet. In space you can do the same or better with much small mirror arrays. With SpaceX already radically decreasing the cost of lifting payloads to orbit, once Starship is flying I think the groups that are spending huge sums to build enormous new telescopes on Earth will realize it is time to build the next generation of telescopes in orbit.
 
You need huge mirrors (really computer controlled arrays of large mirrors) to do cutting edge astronomy from the surface of our planet. In space you can do the same or better with much small mirror arrays. With SpaceX already radically decreasing the cost of lifting payloads to orbit, once Starship is flying I think the groups that are spending huge sums to build enormous new telescopes on Earth will realize it is time to build the next generation of telescopes in orbit.

And then maybe the moon is the bestest place.