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Astranis emerges from stealth with new satellite tech for connecting the world

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Re: Astranis emerges from stealth with new satellite tech for connecting the world

#71

Post by guhcampos »

I don't see the novelty on this at all. Geostationary satellites are pretty much the standard for satellite internet for years. I had a broadband connection like that on my first job, 15 years ago.

It's off course very welcome if they can get higher transfer speeds, cleaner and lighter satellites and newer technologies to the mix, but that's it. The biggest problem with satellite internet: the latency, is not going to be solved.

Which is fine, I must say, since they are in the business of bringing Internet to where there's none. But these new Internet users will arrive without access to the Internet's most incredible features, such as real time voice and video communication, interactive website experiences and online gamming.

Re: Astranis emerges from stealth with new satellite tech for connecting the world

#72

Post by black_puppydog »

guhcampos wrote: post #71

I don't see the novelty on this at all. Geostationary satellites are pretty much the standard for satellite internet for years. I had a broadband connection like that on my first job, 15 years ago. It's off course very welcome if they can get higher transfer speeds, cleaner and lighter satellites and newer technologies to the mix, but that's it. The biggest problem with satellite internet: the latency, is not going t…

Funny how you say those are the most incredible features. For me (and obviously this is personal preference, so please don't take offence) these are "nice to have" features. What I'm really after are (and have been, since I kinda grew out of FPS games)

* google/$INFORMATION

* Wikipedia

* podcasts

* spotify/torrent/$MUSIC

* blogs/twitter

* youtube/netflix/torrent/$VIDEO

pretty much in that order. None of which would be a problem on satellite (albeit less convenient) but would make a day/night difference for me.

As for the "interactive website experiences", that's usually the part I like the least about a website, which is why I use uMatrix most of the time, making pages more readable (or, depending on the JS affinity of the people making them, completely unreadable)

Re: Astranis emerges from stealth with new satellite tech for connecting the world

#73

Post by planteen »

ttul wrote: post #26
planteen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll hit you with 3 questions: 1. What bandwidth capacity are you aiming for per spacecraft? 2. Are you using commercial or rad hard parts? 3. Is there a deployable antenna that makes the spacecraft larger than 3'x3'x3'?

Let’s see: they’re spending tens of millions of dollars to put something into geostationary orbit that will presumably last there for years. I’m thinking they’re probably using radiation hardened parts.

Maybe. If I remember correctly, the total ionizing dose (TID) at GEO is around double what it is at LEO. There are more single event effects (SEE) at GEO which would have to be handled. Most small sats at LEO use commercial parts and can operate for many years. The original Iridium constellation used commercial parts, though in LEO.

Re: Astranis emerges from stealth with new satellite tech for connecting the world

#74

Post by paulsutter »

jandrese wrote: post #15
paulsutter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you plan to compete with SpaceX once they start offering low latency service everywhere? All interactive traffic is latency sensitive (have built middleboxes to improve latency issues with tcp and other protocols)

I'd take SpaceX's latency claims with a big grain of salt. They'll only be true if you're in close geographic proximity to one of their ground stations. Once you're routing packets between satellites to get to a ground station all bets are off.

SpaceX latency claims are based on the speed of light. Low earth orbit has only slightly longer line-of-sight distances between locations than the earth's surface, and:

- The speed of light is ~50% higher in vacuum than in fiber[1]

- Fiber on the ground doesn't follow straight lines

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-precisely-the-speed-of-light-i...

Re: Astranis emerges from stealth with new satellite tech for connecting the world

#75

Post by jandrese »

actionberries wrote: post #59
jandrese wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd take SpaceX's latency claims with a big grain of salt. They'll only be true if you're in close geographic proximity to one of their ground stations. Once you're routing packets between satellites to get to a ground station all bets are off.

Because SpaceX is known to over-promise and under-deliver? They seem to have an extremely powerful institutional engineering capability. That's not fanboy talk e.g., we're going to mars! Just look at what they've accomplished. Landing a rocket on its business end is no mean feat -- for any engineering team, ever. I know this is a YC forum but seeing the Astranis team's responses to people asking very incisive questio…

Because of the logistics of running a large number of ground stations, especially with the super narrow beams SpaceX is planning to use for their service. In order to achieve the latency numbers Musk talked about (beating terrestrial microwave transmission for front running purposes) you would have to deploy them like cell towers, and that's incredibly expensive.

Re: Astranis emerges from stealth with new satellite tech for connecting the world

#76

Post by gedmark »

guhcampos wrote: post #71

I don't see the novelty on this at all. Geostationary satellites are pretty much the standard for satellite internet for years. I had a broadband connection like that on my first job, 15 years ago. It's off course very welcome if they can get higher transfer speeds, cleaner and lighter satellites and newer technologies to the mix, but that's it. The biggest problem with satellite internet: the latency, is not going t…

Most large GEO's today still use purely analog repeaters. Having a true digital payload where we're doing digital signal processing on board the satellite is a significant step forward.

To get to the lower costs that we're aiming for, going to software defined radios was a necessary step. That's because it gives us the ability to build many satellites that are as identical as possible without hardwiring in the specific frequencies like they do with analog satellites today. It's hard to overstate the importance of that technology for what we're doing and the low cost targets we need to hit to get unconnected people online.

Re: Astranis emerges from stealth with new satellite tech for connecting the world

#77

Post by gedmark »

walrus01 wrote: post #60
gedmark wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey there, I think you got the gist of it in a different part of this thread (each of our spacecraft has a fraction of the number of transponders as a typical large GEO). But if you'd like to discuss further I'd be happy to chat offline. Do you have an email address or other way that I could contact you?

I understand you are probably at a very early stage of product design for the satellite capabilities, so you are cagey and don't want to make any definitive statements of technical specs... But I'd rather not move the discussion off forum into private email when the other people reading this thread could possibly benefit from answers to my specific questions. I am kind of concerned that your answers to others' questi…

Yes the plan is to lease bandwidth.

I'm always happy to answer basic questions about what we're doing. But questions around very specific technical details, especially when it comes to things that give us a competitive advantage like our antenna design, just aren't appropriate for a public forum. Thanks for understanding.

For more detailed questions we may or may not be able to answer them via email. But certainly I'd be happy to take a look at it and if its appropriate put them in touch with the relevant member of the team. (See-- https://www.astranis.com/about/)

Re: Astranis emerges from stealth with new satellite tech for connecting the world

#78

Post by gedmark »

nikanj wrote: post #65
walrus01 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand you are probably at a very early stage of product design for the satellite capabilities, so you are cagey and don't want to make any definitive statements of technical specs... But I'd rather not move the discussion off forum into private email when the other people reading this thread could possibly benefit from answers to my specific questions. I am kind of concerned that your answers to others' questi…

(C) Trust investors don't know enough physics to question the business plan. See also: Theranos, uBeam, etc.

We're lucky to work with a great group of investors-- the investors we work with at Andreessen Horowitz both have PhD's, one in CS, the other in EE. Our investor at Lux Capital has a PhD in RF engineering. Another of our investors has a PhD in particle physics. Couldn't ask for a more knowledgable, technically minded group.
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