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Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

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Re: Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

#141

Post by rapjr9 »

dotnet00 wrote: post #136
rapjr9 wrote: post #131

So far I haven't seen anyone mention the big deal here, that Starshield is offering to take over ANY satellites communications entirely using lasers. A customer no longer has to include a radio system on their satellite (unless that is the whole point of the satellite), just a small laser and gimbal. This seems like a major savings in weight and power. Send your satellite up and join the existing network and you get…

Practically speaking it doesn't really eliminate the need for a radio system entirely, since you would still want a control interface that isn't dependent on such a sensitive technology (ie you would want to be able to fix the satellite if some software or tracking error makes it unable to accurately target a Starlink satellite). What this does mean is that the bandwidth restrictions for transmitting larger amounts o…

That makes sense. The radio system could be a much lower power, low baud rate system though, enough to transmit commands and get a little telemetry but much smaller than would be required for constant communication with Earth. This may also be relevant:

"NRL Engineers Ready Innovative Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) Payload for Launch"

https://www.nrl.navy.mil/Media/News/Article/3214111/nrl-engi...

Starshield as a "space network as a service" and robots as a "repair service for space infrastructure". Seems like together these could make doing things in space cheaper and easier. Both would require very well defined standards.

Re: Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

#142

Post by Retric »

skorpeon87 wrote: post #138
Retric wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DoD already had something like Starlink. SpaceX is trying to sell a lower cost version of the same thing, but cost savings isn’t that compelling for congress who sees costs as much as a feature as a bug.

> The DoD already had something like Starlink. The NDSA doesn't actually exist yet, and SpaceX is presently the only company that could launch the larger versions of it.

They already have global coverage via a range of communication satellites used by various programs going back decades. For example the F-16 program had an independent network for effectively global coverage via 4 geostationary satellites. Other systems used polar orbits for actual global coverage.

Starlink has more total bandwidth and lower orbits, but the US military only needs so much bandwidth.

Re: Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

#143

Post by [deleted] »

skorpeon87 wrote: post #138
Retric wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DoD already had something like Starlink. SpaceX is trying to sell a lower cost version of the same thing, but cost savings isn’t that compelling for congress who sees costs as much as a feature as a bug.

> The DoD already had something like Starlink. The NDSA doesn't actually exist yet, and SpaceX is presently the only company that could launch the larger versions of it.

[deleted]

Re: Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

#144

Post by credit_guy »

jltsiren wrote: post #71
credit_guy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Not sure what you mean by significant delta-v. An 8km/s vehicle meeting a 6km/s warhead coming from the opposite direction will kill it just as surely as a 10km/s one. If you mean delta-v to go laterally, for that 1km/s is probably more than enough. A vehicle with 1km/s delta-v is, in the worst case scenario, twice as heavy than one with 100m/s delta-v, not 100 times as heavy. 2. 9 minutes is plenty. A ballistic m…

1. This is just basic orbital mechanics. Multiple missiles are launched from different locations at different targets. The launches are not fully simultaneous. Each kill vehicle must be at the right place at the right time to intercept its target. If you launch all kill vehicles from the same location at the same time, the differences between the required velocity vectors are easily several km/s. 2. The midcourse pha…

> What is the price of a fully disposable Starship?

Musk aims to get the cost of building one Starship to $5 million [1]. That sounds insane, I know, but he also aims to build about 1000 of them. When you get to this scale of mass production, efficiencies of scale kick in. Could he be wrong. I suppose so, but even if he's wrong by a factor of 10 or 20, it would still provide a tremendous value proposition for an Anti Ballistic Defense system.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/inside-elon-musks-pl...

Re: Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

#146

Post by beambot »

Retric wrote: post #142
skorpeon87 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The DoD already had something like Starlink. The NDSA doesn't actually exist yet, and SpaceX is presently the only company that could launch the larger versions of it.

They already have global coverage via a range of communication satellites used by various programs going back decades. For example the F-16 program had an independent network for effectively global coverage via 4 geostationary satellites. Other systems used polar orbits for actual global coverage. Starlink has more total bandwidth and lower orbits, but the US military only needs so much bandwidth.

4x giant geostationary assets have a drastically different adversarial profile compared to 10,000 mini assets.

Re: Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

#147

Post by candiodari »

georgeg23 wrote: post #51
GekkePrutser wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they're defensive weapons only? I think Reagan's star wars program was cancelled only because the Russian threat was not as big anymore. Not because of weapons in space concerns. FWIW only WMDs are really banned in space.

Democrats / Clinton shut down the original Star Wars program because they favored arms control (arguing Star Wars was illegal under the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty) That treaty expired in 2002 and then Elon went to Russia to buy some ICBMs...

Do "kill vehicles" that are only capable of destroying a few tens of square meters at best really illegal under the ballistic missile treaty?

Re: Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

#148

Post by Cyberdog »

mhoad wrote: post #28
Cyberdog wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate for those of us who don’t typically follow space news? Has Space-X had some trouble recently?

I can’t tell if you’re being cute and trying to carve out some exemption here when it’s clear what I’m talking about I think but let’s operate on good faith. The owner with an 80% voting control of the company has had some very serious issues in judgement lately not limited to the Twitter fiasco but has also made a number of public moves that were very friendly towards what the US has called their biggest national se…

What does the Twitter purchase or Musk’s opinions on the war in Ukraine have to do with Space-X’s capabilities to successfully put satellites into orbit?

Re: Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

#149

Post by rocqua »

Retric wrote: post #142
skorpeon87 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The DoD already had something like Starlink. The NDSA doesn't actually exist yet, and SpaceX is presently the only company that could launch the larger versions of it.

They already have global coverage via a range of communication satellites used by various programs going back decades. For example the F-16 program had an independent network for effectively global coverage via 4 geostationary satellites. Other systems used polar orbits for actual global coverage. Starlink has more total bandwidth and lower orbits, but the US military only needs so much bandwidth.

I would expect the bandwidth demands of the US military to be effectively infinite. Especially if the connection can be guaranteed and is low latency. Communication is incredibly valuable in maneuver based combined arms warfare. The main limit is being able to quickly react and properly coordinate. For that comms are important, and reliability of comms is incredibly valuable, with latency being important as well.

Starlink has the very nice feature of being robust, just by virtue of having soo many satelites. China can easily knock out 4 geostationary satellites. But hundreds of low-orbit satellites make for a very difficult target.

Re: Starshield: Secured satellite network for government entities

#150

Post by Retric »

beambot wrote: post #146
Retric wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already have global coverage via a range of communication satellites used by various programs going back decades. For example the F-16 program had an independent network for effectively global coverage via 4 geostationary satellites. Other systems used polar orbits for actual global coverage. Starlink has more total bandwidth and lower orbits, but the US military only needs so much bandwidth.

4x giant geostationary assets have a drastically different adversarial profile compared to 10,000 mini assets.

The DoD has far more than just 4 satellites up there.

Anyway, it’s vastly easier to destroy LEO satellites than Geostationary ones. A surprisingly tiny missile fired from an aircraft doing Mach 2 can take out Starlink satellites as you only need vertical speed the satellite provides energy at collision, but geostationary orbit takes significantly more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

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