TeraWave Satellite Communications Network • Hacker News Board

Re: TeraWave Satellite Communications Network

#111

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 7:36 PM UTC

chris_va wrote: post #110

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a very real possibility It's really not. Not in the popularly-portrayed manner. Militaries have been researching how to intentionally cause such a cascade in even a limited orbit. To my knowledge, there isn't a solution.

It's a very real possibility, it's just a very slow exponential. If you have 100,000 satellites, and each collision produces 50,000 pieces of shrapnel with some distribution of altitudes and atmospheric drag, it's not that hard to do the math. The cinematic portrayal of cascading failure (ala the movie Gravity) is completely insane, but that doesn't mean this isn't a real problem on a 100 year timescale.

> If you have 100,000 satellites, and each collision produces 50,000 pieces of shrapnel with some distribution of altitudes and atmospheric drag, it's not that hard to do the math

One, it is. And two, you need insane distributions to get over the energy requirements of plane changes.

> on a 100 year timescale

Irrelevant in LEO.

Re: TeraWave Satellite Communications Network

#112

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 7:39 PM UTC

Gravityloss wrote: post #107

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Satellites move about 30x the speed of airliners. Hence, if everything else was similar, one would expect 30x the amount of collisions Not how orbital mechanics work. Planes maneuvers, get tossed around and have hubs they circle. A plane under my left wing can’t be relied on to continue in a straight line. The satellite can.

Of course. But your comment that speed is not a factor was incorrect.

> your comment that speed is not a factor was incorrect

It would be if I had said this.

Speed doesn’t matter “a lot”. (Orbits around a small object get crowded quicker. The speeds are less. But the volumes are way less. Volume absolutely dominates speed when it comes to orbital cross sections.)

Re: TeraWave Satellite Communications Network

#113

Post by Noaidi » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

Liftyee wrote: post #46

Noaidi wrote: post #8

[flagged]

Given that you're worried about EMFs, the amount of power from nearby WiFi routers and cell towers is orders of magnitude more than from these satellites. Starlink etc. use directed spotlight-like beams, so if you're not near a receiver (on the road) then no signal will be present. Why would they waste energy directing the signal anywhere other than where their dishes are? (I personally don't believe in the harms of…

> Starlink etc. use directed spotlight-like beams, so if you're not near a receiver (on the road) then no signal will be present. Why would they waste energy directing the signal anywhere other than where their dishes are?

You do not know how starlink downlinks work, so I can excuse your comments to ignorance. One person using a starlink antenna requires a beam from a satellite that covers about a 16 mile diameter with the power obviously being highest closest to the antenna. But anyone withing that hexagon will be exposed to mmWave radiation. It is not the "spotlight" you assume it to be. More like a flood light. "Narrow" is subjective in this case.

https://redlib.perennialte.ch/r/Starlink/comments/lwfj8v/map...

http://www.satmagazine.com/story.php?number=1026762698

This papare goes into the beam forming very expertly:

https://people.engineering.osu.edu/media/document/2022-10-12...

And it is not about only the power, it is about the effect. The same power used to push a 400 pound man vs a 40 pound child, you tell me the difference in outcome. As I said, you can be more skeptical and undecided and have a discussion with me, or just think that everyone has the same genetics and sensitivities and go on with your life.

Re: TeraWave Satellite Communications Network

#114

Post by minetest2048 » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 8:51 PM UTC

defrost wrote: post #96

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's the state of solar powered magnetorquers these days? Academic. We don't currently have a pressing need for reactionless thrust in the magnetosphere. Each of semiconductors, launch vehicles and telecommunications standards are moving faster than satellites last.

Thanks for the reply. > Each of semiconductors, launch vehicles and telecommunications standards are moving faster than satellites last. That's certainly a pragmatic cost based argument for not using them in the fast moving world of commercial magnetosphere constellations. > Academic. I feel they've moved past academic and transitioned to deployed .. at some evolution of implementation. Not commercially relevant is c…

A bit pedantic here.. I think you might be thinking about space tether propulsion. I don't know if that has been deployed yet. Magnetorquers, as in a device that uses magnets to rotate the satellite are very common in cubesats, you can buy it off the shelf

Re: TeraWave Satellite Communications Network

#115

Post by defrost » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 10:43 PM UTC

minetest2048 wrote: post #114

defrost wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply. > Each of semiconductors, launch vehicles and telecommunications standards are moving faster than satellites last. That's certainly a pragmatic cost based argument for not using them in the fast moving world of commercial magnetosphere constellations. > Academic. I feel they've moved past academic and transitioned to deployed .. at some evolution of implementation. Not commercially relevant is c…

A bit pedantic here.. I think you might be thinking about space tether propulsion. I don't know if that has been deployed yet. Magnetorquers, as in a device that uses magnets to rotate the satellite are very common in cubesats, you can buy it off the shelf

Hmm, there's a throwback.

I first encountered space tethers in 1980 reading an Introduction to Engineering text where the example was given of unrolling a flat spool of thin metal through shaping rollers to extrude a very long boom with a spring on the end to stabilise the orientation of a satellite.

That was one of the first times I noodled about with the dynamics of a pendulum in a potential field.

These days, of course, there's a few more tricks that can be done with a dangling lasso, including interacting with the magnetic field via a looped current.

That aside, I was curious about traditional magnetorquers and their variations actively providing force in the magnetosphere.

The Earths magnetic field has a lot of diurnal pulsing .. the gravitational field is lumpy but stable.

There's a control challenge in getting a smooth desired response from a choppy field.

Cheer's for the lookout though, it hadn't occurred to me that some would be talking about magnetic force against the field using "space tether" as the base description - my background was more about the field equations than the physical implementation.

( Magnetorquers are also used in the US Navy for twisting controls inside a fully sealed container. )

Re: TeraWave Satellite Communications Network

#116

Post by Liftyee » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

Noaidi wrote: post #113

Liftyee wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that you're worried about EMFs, the amount of power from nearby WiFi routers and cell towers is orders of magnitude more than from these satellites. Starlink etc. use directed spotlight-like beams, so if you're not near a receiver (on the road) then no signal will be present. Why would they waste energy directing the signal anywhere other than where their dishes are? (I personally don't believe in the harms of…

> Starlink etc. use directed spotlight-like beams, so if you're not near a receiver (on the road) then no signal will be present. Why would they waste energy directing the signal anywhere other than where their dishes are? You do not know how starlink downlinks work, so I can excuse your comments to ignorance. One person using a starlink antenna requires a beam from a satellite that covers about a 16 mile diameter wi…

Intriguing. I concede that I was wrong about Starlink satellite beams. It makes sense that even with phased array beamforming, achieving a single dish-sized footprint on the ground is not feasible. At a 310 mile altitude, a 8 mile radius beam is about 3 degrees wide.

You learn something new every day!

In flashlight terms (my familiar territory), that is decently narrow, but the sheer distance of orbit means that on the ground it's still a large radius.

I am willing to have a discussion. To me, it sounds like your point is that you are exceptionally sensitive to the EMF radiation? If that's the case, I wish you the best in finding a solution.