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SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

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Re: SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

#81

Post by mlindner »

modeless wrote: post #24
andy_ppp wrote: post #13

How easy will star-link be to block, for example in Russia say or China?

Not easy to block with technical means over a large area. But easy to block with legal means. The way Starlink works the system needs to know exactly where each terminal is, so SpaceX doesn't have plausible deniability about serving customers in areas that prohibit it. It would make much more sense for them as a business to try to provide censored service to China so that they could openly sell to the Chinese. Elon h…

> Not easy to block with technical means over a large area. But easy to block with legal means. The way Starlink works the system needs to know exactly where each terminal is, so SpaceX doesn't have plausible deniability about serving customers in areas that prohibit it.

That is incorrect. SpaceX doesn't need to know where a terminal is for it to work. The Terminal itself though will know where it is, as it needs that information to calculate the pointing angles of the phased array to the satellite orbits.

Re: SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

#83

Post by mlindner »

Trisell wrote: post #71

I’m not sure that Starlink is supposed to make money. I think it’s another part of the get Musk to Mars plan. If you are going to a planet with unknown resources what is the easiest way to bootstrap communications. Is it bury 100k of km of wire? Or just plug a bunch of “cheap” satellites into a low Mars orbit? Makes total sense in that light to try it here. I’m not convinced these plans and products are designed to m…

Starlink very clearly is supposed to make money and has been stated many times... It's there to provide revenue for Mars vehicle development.

Communications development for Mars before even having a launch vehicle for Mars payload delivery is putting the cart before the horse. You don't need a global network of satellites to communicate with Mars.

Re: SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

#84

Post by nexuist »

hamandcheese wrote: post #41
tpetry wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you remove all streaming/porn/torrent traffic it would be able to handle a lot more of the global traffic.

That’s a bit tautological wouldn’t you say?

I'm sure people who intend to do business will accept such restrictions as long as they can access email and Salesforce dashboards. Although it might break the spirit of net neutrality (which, to be fair, isn't really a thing anymore anyways).

Re: SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

#85

Post by wmf »

bane wrote: post #57
callesgg wrote: post #9

One off the satellites where apparently already dead and would not respond to commands when they got it mounted on the rocket. But they launched it anyway.

I've been having this hard to articulate notion that humanity hasn't really begun to fathom the changes that will come with "cheap" launch vehicles. We have better than half a century where space launch was so expensive, and so rare, that this had an impact on the payloads themselves. Perversely it caused the payloads to become so highly engineered (for a variety of reasons) that they also became ultra-expensive in-l…

During the height of the cold war the US launched ~20 disposable film-based spy satellites per year; I wonder if they got meaningful cost reduction.

Re: SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

#86

Post by mlindner »

gt565k wrote: post #22

Can't wait to see every Tesla become a wifi hotspot hooked up to Starlink. Traditional ISPs are in trouble if the Starlink latency is really in the sub 100ms due to the LEO distance advantage. Global coverage with decent latency! I wonder if that's why google dipped out on rolling out fiber infrastructure. Physical infrastructure is about to become obsolete as more advancements in wireless tech and satellite internet…

Sorry to rain on your parade. But Starlink will never be competing with internet in urban areas. The economics for simply laying a few miles of fiber are too good (if the fiber isn't even already there). More so the satellite density needed to serve an entire city is many more than even SpaceX is proposing. Starlink is for long distance backhaul and for rural/underserved areas.

Re: SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

#87

Post by pbreit »

callesgg wrote: post #9

One off the satellites where apparently already dead and would not respond to commands when they got it mounted on the rocket. But they launched it anyway.

Rough seas also prevented recovery of the substantially more expensive fairings.

Re: SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

#88

Post by modeless »

mlindner wrote: post #81
modeless wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not easy to block with technical means over a large area. But easy to block with legal means. The way Starlink works the system needs to know exactly where each terminal is, so SpaceX doesn't have plausible deniability about serving customers in areas that prohibit it. It would make much more sense for them as a business to try to provide censored service to China so that they could openly sell to the Chinese. Elon h…

> Not easy to block with technical means over a large area. But easy to block with legal means. The way Starlink works the system needs to know exactly where each terminal is, so SpaceX doesn't have plausible deniability about serving customers in areas that prohibit it. That is incorrect. SpaceX doesn't need to know where a terminal is for it to work. The Terminal itself though will know where it is, as it needs tha…

The satellites have phased array antennas too. Aren't they also going to point their beams at the terminals?

Re: SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

#89

Post by gscott »

zlsa wrote: post #65
LeoPanthera wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can't wait to see every Tesla become a wifi hotspot hooked up to Starlink. The Starlink receiver is the size of a pizza box (and cannot get smaller, since that is the size of the necessary antenna) - and doesn't work while moving. So it's impractical to use on cars. What Tesla probably could do is put a receiver at every Supercharger and broadcast wifi there. It would be especially useful at the more rural location…

With the USAF, SpaceX has demonstrated 610mbps[0] to the cockpit of an aircraft in flight. [0]: https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlin...

It would be great for the military, future warfare will be all about having the best signal through all of the jamming from the other side.

Re: SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two reuse records

#90

Post by skunkworker »

mdorazio wrote: post #56
CydeWeys wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about this, and it seems doubtful. The fairings are under a million dollars apparently, so they'd have to recover many dozens if not hundreds to pay back the investment into all the catching technologies. It's not clear that they'll ever use that many fairings before switching over entirely to BFR.

Fairings cost upwards of $5M per launch. The technology for the boat basically consists of some arms (with shock absorbers) welded to the deck and a big net strung between them. The boat itself is chartered, not owned by SpaceX as far as I know. The only real tech development is in the parachute systems for the fairings, which also aren't particularly advanced. I can't imagine positive ROI requiring more than 4 or 5…

I remember reading that the fairing build time is also fairly long (months? but I can't find the reference, it might've been a comment on /r/spacex), so it's trying to minimize the cost + build time.
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