Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

spacenews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 276 posts

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

#141

Post by shaklee3 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #138
shaklee3 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Satellite internet has existed for decades. Why is spacex the only way to provide high speed internet?

Satellite internet has indeed existed for decades, but via small numbers of geostationary satellites (Iridium only has 76 active satellites; Starlink launches about that many in every launch ). That means severely constrained bandwidth, and high latency given the ~50,000 mile round trip the data has to take. It's also expensive to get a satellite out there. Low Earth orbit constellations have both lower latency (a co…

I'm well aware of the scale of starlink, but the speeds delivered by starlink won't be any faster than the existing GEO satellites at the time, not will it be cheaper. The OP talked about high speed internet, which, in most cases, the latency doesn't matter.

Every cost estimate made by people in this industry say it will be much higher than geo to deliver a bit. If you have a source that says otherwise, please post it here.

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

#142

Post by shaklee3 »

shaklee3 wrote: post #114
SamReidHughes wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lowering orbit doesn't substantially reduce latency, building more satellites does.

Building more satellites doesn't reduce latency. Are you referring to the ISL?

You are referring to the ISL in these satellites, that are not in the first batch, nor are there any plans to change that soon from what I've seen. So without the ISL, their latency is certainly not lower by adding more satellites. The difference in latency from different altitudes LEO is negligible.

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

#143

Post by whatshisface »

mstipetic wrote: post #134
cbanek wrote: post #110

(I'm not speaking for any of my current or past employers, just for myself, and how I've seen this play out. One employer being a telescope impacted by Starlink, and the other being SpaceX, I want both sides to succeed.) First, astronomers know that satellites can disrupt observations. They've known for a while, and have had to deal with things like flares from Irridium satellites, which were probably when these prob…

This sounds to me like a new technology and a way of operating has come and we're trying to make it accommodate the old way of doing things. If we really have a way to launch thousands of satellites easily, can't we replace the terrestrial functionality with that? Let's launch hundreds of satellites observing near earth asteroids. If a private company can do it, governments definitely can

That's a good point. SpaceX could be the key to launching a horde of new Hubbles. However that's not so likely in the short run because everything is going towards the JWST.

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

#144

Post by close04 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #97
jdsully wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also has a history of calling people pedophiles for disagreeing with his designs. Even when they are domain experts and he is not. I think that’s more just PR and he’s not honestly seeking feedback.

CEO's "open door policies" tend to be a way to quickly get fired.

Just to be clear, because I'm aware objecting what your (potential egomaniacal) CEO says is as career-limiting as it gets, I suggested that everyone else should publicly question everything. Having the objections out there makes plausible deniability claims a lot harder.

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

#145

Post by rrss »

dylan604 wrote: post #13
readams wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They announced their plans years ago. The astronomy community could have raised concerns then. The fact that they didn't would indicate nobody connected the dots.

> The fact that they didn't would indicate nobody connected the dots. Or that nobody knew who/where to contact someone to raise their concerns. A lot of people will think that if I just had this thought, then it must be pretty obvious so that others will have the same thought as well. No need for further action. Others will just not feel the need to spend their time/effort trying to look up the complaints department.…

> nobody knew who/where to contact someone to raise their concerns

SpaceX had to get approval from the FCC to launch these satellites. There was a comment period intended to provide an opportunity to voice these concerns. I looked into this the last time it was in the news (late May?), and could not find any petitions that raised concerns about reflecting light. There were several from other satellite companies requesting that the FCC deny the application based on concerns about increased risks of collision and/or radiointerference with their licensed bands.

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

#146

Post by Filligree »

mstipetic wrote: post #134
cbanek wrote: post #110

(I'm not speaking for any of my current or past employers, just for myself, and how I've seen this play out. One employer being a telescope impacted by Starlink, and the other being SpaceX, I want both sides to succeed.) First, astronomers know that satellites can disrupt observations. They've known for a while, and have had to deal with things like flares from Irridium satellites, which were probably when these prob…

This sounds to me like a new technology and a way of operating has come and we're trying to make it accommodate the old way of doing things. If we really have a way to launch thousands of satellites easily, can't we replace the terrestrial functionality with that? Let's launch hundreds of satellites observing near earth asteroids. If a private company can do it, governments definitely can

Terrestrial telescopes are huge. Hubble is comparatively tiny, and launching a telescope the same size as the ones we use down here would be completely out of the question with any near-term launch capability.

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

#147

Post by mstipetic »

whatshisface wrote: post #143
mstipetic wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds to me like a new technology and a way of operating has come and we're trying to make it accommodate the old way of doing things. If we really have a way to launch thousands of satellites easily, can't we replace the terrestrial functionality with that? Let's launch hundreds of satellites observing near earth asteroids. If a private company can do it, governments definitely can

That's a good point. SpaceX could be the key to launching a horde of new Hubbles. However that's not so likely in the short run because everything is going towards the JWST.

JWST is a great project and a type of project we should strive for. I'm personally just annoyed why the conversation is so defensive and negative.

I don't know much about astronomy, but from what I understand the Earth's atmosphere is hard to deal with, why aren't we talking more about what can be done with this new tech, and not how it makes current things more difficult

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

#148

Post by rrss »

Last time this was in the news, there was another discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20095462.

User 'twtw asked the following, with no responses:

> Why didn't the IAU petition the FCC during the comment period for SpaceX's application? Seems sorta weird to wait for the first launch to express concerns when the application was submitted to the FCC many months ago (and I think I recall an earlier version years ago).

I think this is an interesting question. There are a number of commenters criticizing SpaceX's claim that "no one thought of this." I'd be interested in their response to this question. If so many people knew it was going to be a problem, why not raise those concerns to the organization tasked with regulating this stuff?

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

#150

Post by buboard »

ceejayoz wrote: post #88
buboard wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

compared to geostationary sats, starlinks are 1/30 of the distance, and thus 1/30 of the latency

It makes a difference there, sure, but SpaceX lowered orbits from 1,150 to 550km. Half the latency, but only by about as much as traffic between LA to SF incurs.

right i didn’t know that
Post reply on HN