SpaceX gets $1.9 million Air Force contract for Starlink services in Europe and Africa
SpaceX gets $1.9 million Air Force contract for Starlink services in Europe and Africa
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The interesting thing about this contract is that SpaceX doesn’t have approval from all those African countries to operate there. But the US Air Force can basically say screw that, give us Starlink for all our military assets regardless. Anyways, this is a classic build it and they will come approach. “Normal” military contractors don’t buy a paper clip without a government contract. SpaceX builds the capability with zero government funding and then sells it to them.SpaceX gets $1.9 million Air Force contract for Starlink services in Europe and Africa
SpaceX gets $1.9 million Air Force contract for Starlink services in Europe and Africa
SpaceX filing to FCC reveals they are going to launch physically more compacted V2 sats on Falcon 9.
https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=16832647
https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=16832647
So they aren't "downsized" V2 satellites, they are just physically modified V2 satellites to fit into a F9 fairing. I guess that Starship delays reached a critical threshold, and the demands of the constellation forced them to go to plan B. Elon always has a plan B (and C and D).
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Yeah. I always thought the previous FCC constellation update was suggesting V2 on F9.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
A poster on reddit says "Starlink v2 is around 1250 kg so F9 can take 18 to orbit."
The most recent launches have been taking up 53 Starlink v1.6 satellites.
So if the new 2.0 sats can handle more than 3x the traffic it's worth switching to them even if the mass limits you to less per launch.
Alternately, if the 2.0 sats are similar to 3x the capability you don't lose much and get to switch deployment to the new design that you have already switched production to.
We know Elon suggested the 2.0 sats would be on the order of 10x the capability and if the F9 modified version is even 5x it'd be a clear jump in capability worth switching for.
The most recent launches have been taking up 53 Starlink v1.6 satellites.
So if the new 2.0 sats can handle more than 3x the traffic it's worth switching to them even if the mass limits you to less per launch.
Alternately, if the 2.0 sats are similar to 3x the capability you don't lose much and get to switch deployment to the new design that you have already switched production to.
We know Elon suggested the 2.0 sats would be on the order of 10x the capability and if the F9 modified version is even 5x it'd be a clear jump in capability worth switching for.
Isn't the main advantage of the 2.0 sats that they have laser link capabilities, so they can expand the coverage area into places that don't have a ground station? (Or did 1.6 add laser links as well?)
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
1.5 and 1.6 have laser links. The 2.0 advantage mentioned is higher bandwidth. But it could bring incremental improvements in other facets that aren't mentioned.
I'm assuming the 2.0 sats have larger or more solar panels (higher total power capacity) and more powerful networking hardware for routing packets (more power consumed), and possibly more antennas/revised antennas to allow sending/receiving to more user terminals at once (possibly higher power draw).
I have no idea how much of a size issue they have with F9 vs Starship launches. Maybe the v2 F9 sat is the same total area but a different aspect ratio. Maybe the aspect ratio is modified but they still had to reduce the overall size slightly. If So I would expect they would just reduce the solar panels to fit and keep the core unchanged, possibly having to software throttle to keep under the revised power limit.
I don't think they would be weight limited since they are launching dozens at a time, they can just reduce the stack by one per launch if weight is an issue. So I expect size is the only concern and even that isn't a show stopper (apparently, even contradicting Elons prior comment about not being able to fit the 2.0 sat in the F9 fairing).
Either way if Starship comes into play any time this year or in the first half of next year the F9 version of the 2.0 sat will be a minor footnote in the long term.
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IIRC The 1.x laser links are only forwards and backwards along the same plane, hopefully V2 finally adds side-links to go from plane to plane, which would really improve reach to areas without ground stations much more, as well as let them get into backhauling traffic around the world without in-between ground stations once the entire constellation was replaced with such sats.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
I think 1.5 was intra plane laser links. We don't know if 1.6 added the side lasers or if that is a 2.0 trick.
I don't have a link for the 1.5 being that way it's a combination of me remembering that Elon said they would start with intra plane links first and add more lasers later and him saying 1.5 had lasers. The statements were made at separate times and it is possible that we are wrong to combine those and assume nothing changed.
I don't have a link for the 1.5 being that way it's a combination of me remembering that Elon said they would start with intra plane links first and add more lasers later and him saying 1.5 had lasers. The statements were made at separate times and it is possible that we are wrong to combine those and assume nothing changed.
CyberGus
Not Just a Member
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
1.5 sats have lasers and started launching late 2021
confirms polar orbit sats all have lasers
confirms they are in orbit.
activate lasers "soon"
says they will be operational before end of 2022
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1353408098342326276 pic of the lasers on a sat stack (one tweet up).
yeah, I can't find a tweet that says the lasers are already active, but I assume they are. Even if only for testing. Likely waiting for enough sats with lasers to be up before changing the preferred routing.
Still I would expect they are active on the polar orbit sats just because they have no other option.
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dhanson865
Well-Known Member
I would expect they are active on the polar orbit sats just because they have no other option. We know that there are operational cells above the 53 degree line that was the old cutoff.
Canada
Europe
I can't find any evidence of a ground station in Sweden.
the mod of starlink.sx thinks they are just changing beam angles to allow that with existing ground stations
but I don't know about that. It explains Canada and northern UK but not Sweden.
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dhanson865
Well-Known Member
OK found another one I had read some time back
"It's incredible watching the pings change, and I'm not sure anyone in North America can see what I'm seeing yet, as the Ground station coverage there is complete.
So I'm in a pretty unique position in that most of my coverage is running over Lasers either down to Sydney - 46ms ping, Down to Perth area and over to Sydney - 110ms ping, or over to Europe or America - 250ms - 550ms ping (Back to Sydney POP etc)"
"
- There aren't any ground stations within distance. The furthest I tested was in Darwin, Aus, and the closest ground Station is in Pimba, Aus, over 2500km away.
- The lowest pings - Australia only has one POP - Sydney. From anywhere in Western Australia, the POP pings are about 100ms - By the time the signal gets from the ground up to a bird, down to a ground station and then via Fibre across Australia to Sydney. The lowest ping I have had so far to Sydney has been just 46ms, or as in the photo attached, around 58ms. This is over a physical distance of 3400km. 4G phone in the area sits at around 118ms to get to Sydney from here.
- The Highest pings - At over 500ms - Indicate that the data is moving intercontinental to get back to my POP in Sydney."
