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Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

newscientist.com

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Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#101

Post by jacobgkau »

polalavik wrote: post #99
bryanlarsen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China did 92 launches in 2025. If they only need to put up 500, and if they can put up 22 per launch like SpaceX can, they have the capability now, let alone 5 years from now.

i don't get why more folks aren't just going for the much cheaper option like this https://www.solaris-suborbital.space/

There might be less societal objection to "satellites in space orbiting the planet" than to "planes flying continuously over the same area," even if both can be used for similar purposes. I'd assume it'd also be easier to disrupt suborbital systems like that than satellites, but I could be wrong.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#102

Post by iSnow »

palmotea wrote: post #48
tartuffe78 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink is apparently 65% of all active satellites, it would be very expensive to emulate that without super efficient launching capabilities.

> Starlink is apparently 65% of all active satellites, it would be very expensive to emulate that without super efficient launching capabilities. But does a military really need that many to get the necessary capability? Would a smaller constellation be sufficient, especially without competing civilian users?

>But does a military really need that many to get the necessary capability?

No. The German army wants a constellation of initially 40, and later just over 100 satellites. They do not want or need to replicate the massive Starlink numbers.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#103

Post by iSnow »

spwa4 wrote: post #16
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #14

In Canada, the CF is working on rebuilding their expertise in HF radio, as they realized that in case of large scale conflict, satellite systems aren't going to be dependable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Forces_Affiliate_Radi...

Ever notice just how many countries seem to be pretty convinced war is coming? And don't tell me it's all Trump, at the very least they believe that whoever follows Trump isn't going to be very different. Plus it's mostly EU that's rearming, and surely they aren't afraid they'll be attacked ...

Some EU member states are bordering Russia, of course they are afraid the next war will be on their soil.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#104

Post by thisislife2 »

tekla wrote: post #9
thisislife2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what makes Falcon9 / Starship special (or needed) to launch these satellites? China, India, EU, Japan etc. all have the capability to launch satellites. So why is a Falcon9 / Starship a particular requirement?

None of those countries (well probably except China) have any significant launch capacity to deploy constellations

India is already one of the cheapest service providers for such launches - ISRO puts 36 OneWeb satellites in orbit - https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/isro-successfully-... (They are ofcourse working to create a reusable launch vehicle too).

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#105

Post by cyberax »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #36
bryanlarsen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon-9 first landed in 2015 and was regularly landing within a couple of years. So being 10 years behind means "almost ready to go". suborbital Yuanxingzhe-1 landed may 2025, and orbital Zhuque-3 was really close to landing in December. Long March 12A also tried in December although it wasn't as close to success. So if China is 10 years behind, they've caught up. We won't know if they're 10 years or further behind…

China also had made industry espionage their way to go in these things. They are not even hiding it anymore. It's almost comical how much they copied SpaceX. And I'd be surprised if they hadn't supply-chained themselves into some level of access in all the big aerospace corpos by now. But Europe? Developing this kind of stuff from scratch in a few years without an unregulated messy startup ecosystem and no army of st…

> China also had made industry espionage their way to go in these things.

They're even espionaging from themselves in the future!

Dude, have you ever _been_ in China? They don't need espionage, they're now way ahead of the world in technology, except in a few areas like biotech research and semiconductor manufacturing.

For the last decade, China has been having more engineers in _training_ than the total number of engineers in the US. Sure, the quality of Chinese universities is not that great, but the sheer number of them has its own power.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#106

Post by RobotToaster »

kolinko wrote: post #2

The thing is - without Falcon9 / Starship they really cannot - both China and EU are ~10-20 years (sic) behind SpaceX, and without thousands of satellites on LEO you just cannot have terminal similar to SpaceX's. (And don't get me started on how bad Iris2 is/will be. It's a program that EU has to shut down discussions on how terribly behind we are. The last time I checked, a year ago, EU's plans were to have first Fa…

I'm wondering if we will see a resurgence in direct to geostationary, It seems like it should be a lot easier to cover the planet when you only need a few satellites.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#107

Post by noosphr »

cyberax wrote: post #105
sigmoid10 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China also had made industry espionage their way to go in these things. They are not even hiding it anymore. It's almost comical how much they copied SpaceX. And I'd be surprised if they hadn't supply-chained themselves into some level of access in all the big aerospace corpos by now. But Europe? Developing this kind of stuff from scratch in a few years without an unregulated messy startup ecosystem and no army of st…

> China also had made industry espionage their way to go in these things. They're even espionaging from themselves in the future! Dude, have you ever _been_ in China? They don't need espionage, they're now way ahead of the world in technology, except in a few areas like biotech research and semiconductor manufacturing. For the last decade, China has been having more engineers in _training_ than the total number of en…

I strongly suggest to anyone who thinks this isn't true to go to Shenzhen and then SF.

One feels like the future. The other feels like you will get shot.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#108

Post by thisislife2 »

kolinko wrote: post #2

The thing is - without Falcon9 / Starship they really cannot - both China and EU are ~10-20 years (sic) behind SpaceX, and without thousands of satellites on LEO you just cannot have terminal similar to SpaceX's. (And don't get me started on how bad Iris2 is/will be. It's a program that EU has to shut down discussions on how terribly behind we are. The last time I checked, a year ago, EU's plans were to have first Fa…

India's ISRO already competes with SpaceX for these launches ( ISRO puts 36 OneWeb satellites in orbit - https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/isro-successfully-... ), despite not having any reusable launch vehicles (reason - it's in the top 5 in space technology and just cheaper - Why it costs India so little to reach the Moon and Mars - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn9xlgnnpzvo ). Once it masters reusable launch vehicle technologies, it'll be hard to compete with ISRO on commercial launches.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#109

Post by spwa4 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #30
spwa4 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever notice just how many countries seem to be pretty convinced war is coming? And don't tell me it's all Trump, at the very least they believe that whoever follows Trump isn't going to be very different. Plus it's mostly EU that's rearming, and surely they aren't afraid they'll be attacked ...

Militaries have to always behave like there is a war coming soon. They might not believe that one is coming soon, but they have to behave like it is. If they don't, they won't be prepared when one does happen.

This is politicians rearming militaries, not militaries rearming themselves. You're right that militaries want to arm, but they've been trying for a very long time, and just been denied, and denied and denied some more.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#110

Post by adolph »

polalavik wrote: post #99
bryanlarsen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China did 92 launches in 2025. If they only need to put up 500, and if they can put up 22 per launch like SpaceX can, they have the capability now, let alone 5 years from now.

i don't get why more folks aren't just going for the much cheaper option like this https://www.solaris-suborbital.space/

That looks like a very cool option and effort. Like the Chinese balloons that overflew the US in the last (few?) years, it would likely be challenging to shoot down. Otoh, it might cause some diplomatic disagreements about overflight.

  There are a number of competing theories in international law, with varying 
  criteria, to delineate the upper limit delineating airspace versus outer 
  space. This debate is unsettled. [0]
There may also be some technical challenges having to do with beamforming rf to the vehicle. Starshield like Starlink has the predictability of orbital vehicles for tracking. It would be interesting to understand how a ground station focuses on the solar glider.

0. https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/97801992316...

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