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SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

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Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#51

Post by Tomte »

SEJeff wrote: post #42
Tomte wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, the officially stated purpose is "Internet access". There is some handwaving towards "maybe it could do more".

Musk has been excessively clear the goal of Starlink is to allow SpaceX to self-fund a manned mars mission. You're welcome to downvote all you want, but this does not negate the fact Musk has directly said this (in several interviews). Many people tend to agree with him on this possibility: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/15/musk-on-starlink-internet-sa... https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-internet-satellites-ma...

So the ends justify the means?

Great, why doesn't Musk trade in Ivory? There's a tidy profit to be had. Maybe he can donate a couple dollars to PETA, and everything's fine.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#52

Post by Tomte »

chr1 wrote: post #47
Tomte wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Professional astronomers would rather use a swarm of large and better working telescopes in space Sure. How many telescopes do those StarLink satellites have? None, right.

They do not need to be part of StarLink. The more satellites are launched the more money SpaceX gets to develop starship, starship reduces the cost of launching satellites and increases the maximum volume of the satellite, with cheaper launches and cheaper mirrors that do not need complex folding launching space telescope becomes cheaper than building a telescope on the earth, which means that new telescopes will be…

The same line of reasoning works for selling weapons to conflict parties.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#53

Post by portillo »

jesseb wrote: post #41
sprash wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do not think it is possible to find any other real solution The solution is not to fill up our precious LEO with space trash. If you want faster Internet lay some fiber. It's probably even less expensive to lay some fiber across the whole jungle than Musks megalomaniac fantasies. As hobby radio astronomer this whole story fills me with rage.

Not every country has the resources or desire to lay nation-wide fiber. Satellite internet could beneift millions of people who don't have access to reliable high-speed connections.

This is, in my opinion, kind of a myth. In the markets where the average revenue per user is high (Europe, USA, Canada, Australia) there is already (or there will be very shortly when Viasat3 is fully launched) high-speed reliable Internet connectivity through GEO satellites. And yes, the latency is huge and there are data-caps (which are pretty low if you want to binge-watch Netflix). But I am not sure that LEO constellations will be able to compete with GEO vHTS in price (not to mention the huge challenge of getting the price of the phase array user terminals cheap enough), so I am skeptical they will be able to capture a significant fraction of the market share.

In the rest of the world, the ARPU is so low that it's hard to have a viable business model for broadband satellite connectivity (for all orbits GEO, MEO, or LEO). Furthermore, 90% of the population is currently covered by 3G/4G networks, so I would argue that for most of the 3.5 billion people currently unconnected, the issue is not infrastructure (but other factors such as affordability, relevance, or readiness). Finally, populations in those countries connect largely using mobile broadband (i.e., in Southeast Asia 75% of the population only use cellphone to access the Internet), so I think that fixed-broadband will have a limited impact in those places. (Maybe they can get a higher share of the cellphone tower backhauling market, but it will depend on the price per Mbps/month they can offer to MNOs).

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#54

Post by chr1 »

sprash wrote: post #49
jesseb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every country has the resources or desire to lay nation-wide fiber. Satellite internet could beneift millions of people who don't have access to reliable high-speed connections.

Sorry but I don't really care. Laying fiber is a dead simple procedure that is rather inexpensive. The main reason it doesn't happen are political reasons. Other countries are responsible to solve their political problems themselves. I have neither any influence, ability or responsibility for the political process in other countries (which is certainly a good thing). Former poor soviet block countries built their own…

First starlink is better than fiber because it will have lower latency.

Second and more important it doesn't destroy astronomy at all, it adds some small temporary inconvenience for some types of observations, but at the same time makes space launches cheaper allowing more space telescopes, which is going to help astronomy greatly.

Your reaction would be totally justified if starlink was really disrupting astronomy, but it is simply not true.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#55

Post by ceejayoz »

Tomte wrote: post #51
SEJeff wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk has been excessively clear the goal of Starlink is to allow SpaceX to self-fund a manned mars mission. You're welcome to downvote all you want, but this does not negate the fact Musk has directly said this (in several interviews). Many people tend to agree with him on this possibility: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/15/musk-on-starlink-internet-sa... https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-internet-satellites-ma...

So the ends justify the means? Great, why doesn't Musk trade in Ivory? There's a tidy profit to be had. Maybe he can donate a couple dollars to PETA, and everything's fine.

https://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban...

> On July 6, 2016, a near-total ban on commercial trade in African elephant ivory went into effect in the United States.

Hard to make a profit when you're shut down by the government.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#56

Post by throwaway2048 »

chr1 wrote: post #23
mentos wrote: post #4

Not a valid solution but I thought maybe SpaceX could launch a bunch of telescope satellites that could be used by hobbyists.

Why is it not a valid solution? It is actually a much better solution than using small low quality telescopes. If starlink is successful in a few years launching satellites will become cheap enough to allow us to launch multiple telescopes better than hubble, and we'll have equivalent of google earth with high quality images of night sky. Combined with VR why would anyone even want to use telescopes? (Maybe people wh…

Because there is a difference between things that could maybe happen, and things that are almost certainly going to happen. Especially when the "maybe" is relying on the largesse of somebody else to fix the problem they created.

History is full of disasters and situations where that absolutely does not work out.

Pinning the near-entire future of astronomical observation on Musk's good will is ridiculous.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#57

Post by downrightmike »

dylan604 wrote: post #6

“No one thought of this,” she said. “We didn’t think of it. The astronomy community didn’t think of it.” I really have trouble believing that nobody mentioned adding thousands of satellites would go unnoticed. It is damn near impossible to take any image of the night sky without having a satellite streak through the frame. I have plenty of images with multiple satellites visible at the same time. In wide angle timela…

Software should be able to account for this. If photoshop can remove people from photos, why can't astronomy software remove satellites? Orbit is already pretty cluttered and we can't remove much that gets stuck up there already.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#58

Post by SEJeff »

ceejayoz wrote: post #55
Tomte wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the ends justify the means? Great, why doesn't Musk trade in Ivory? There's a tidy profit to be had. Maybe he can donate a couple dollars to PETA, and everything's fine.

https://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban... > On July 6, 2016, a near-total ban on commercial trade in African elephant ivory went into effect in the United States. Hard to make a profit when you're shut down by the government.

He’s just trying to build up a strawman to attack. Typical HN troll.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#60

Post by sunstone »

9192631770_Hz wrote: post #50
dylan604 wrote: post #6

“No one thought of this,” she said. “We didn’t think of it. The astronomy community didn’t think of it.” I really have trouble believing that nobody mentioned adding thousands of satellites would go unnoticed. It is damn near impossible to take any image of the night sky without having a satellite streak through the frame. I have plenty of images with multiple satellites visible at the same time. In wide angle timela…

Yes, I’m an astronomer and I can tell you this SpaceX statement is pure BS. The astronomy community absolutely thought of this before any of these satellites were launched. I’ve personally talked about it at public outreach events (and it was members of the public who brought it up) and topic has definitely come up at professional meetings...but there is just a general feeling of powerlessness, both from the point of…

It's very unlikely that SpaceX, who has to be concerned about space debris every time they launch, didn't think about the collision risk while they were designing their satellite system.

In fact they petitioned the FCC(?) to lower the constellation's altitude for the very reason that, in the case of a malfunction, the satellite's would orbit would degrade more quickly. A carefully tracked constellation of satellites would be much easier to avoid than the random chunks of shrapnel left behind by other mishaps.

EDIT: a few typos

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