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Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

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Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#301

Post by jessriedel »

supertrope wrote: post #298
mindwok wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How feasible is it though once the network reaches a huge size? Starlink satellites are tiny, and they've been deploying thousands of them over the last few years. I imagine it would take enormous resources to shoot them down, especially if the US does treat them like a strategic resource and adds more for redundancy.

Even if anti-satellite missiles are too expensive to be used to shoot down thousands of targets, the ground stations could be bombed instead. Hacking the control plane and sending de-orbit commands could be even cheaper.

The new generation of Starlink satellites have laser connections between them (which is what the article is discussing). They can send data to the other side of the globe to a friendly country for the ground link. (That’s a less efficient use of the inter-satellite bandwidth, of course, but worth doing for war.)

Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#302

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

vikingerik wrote: post #124
organsnyder wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually a somewhat useful visual.

Not really unless you're using 1 GB flash drives from fifteen years ago. 256 GB is now common, which would make that petabyte less than 1 football field. (It's only 4096 such drives.)

...how large is a football field?

is it supposed to be actual football one or the field for handegg?

Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#303

Post by bottlepalm »

mrb wrote: post #225

So that is "432 Mbit/s per laser, and 9000 lasers total". I don't know you guys but I find that statement much more relatable than "42 PB/day". Interestingly, they also say each laser "can sustain a 100Gbps connection per link" (although another part of the article even claims 200 Gbit/s). That means each laser is grossly underused on average, at 0.432% of its maximum capacity. Which makes sense since 100 Gbit/s is p…

Most customers aren't served by lasers, their data goes up to the satellite and down to the nearest gateway. Lasers serve customers out of range of a downlink gateway, and the traffic probably travels the minimum hops needed to get to one.

Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#304

Post by lucubratory »

mindwok wrote: post #285
techopoly wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not immune to missiles. Russia's already threatened to target Starlink satellites. Maybe they're bluffing, or not, but it does offer a reminder that these are just floating computers in the sky.

How feasible is it though once the network reaches a huge size? Starlink satellites are tiny, and they've been deploying thousands of them over the last few years. I imagine it would take enormous resources to shoot them down, especially if the US does treat them like a strategic resource and adds more for redundancy.

The huge size of the network is itself a risk. Kessler syndrome is something everyone is currently trying to avoid, but if you wanted to intentionally induce it you could just start launching giant payloads of tiny ball bearings into their orbits, or take down enough of them that the shrapnel becomes equivalent to that anyway. Starlink is low enough that the debris from even a full Kessler syndrome cascade will deorbit very rapidly, but we're still talking a 3-5 year timeframe, not months, and trying to rebuild capacity in that period will just worsen + extend the problem.

Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#305

Post by janalsncm »

mrb wrote: post #225

So that is "432 Mbit/s per laser, and 9000 lasers total". I don't know you guys but I find that statement much more relatable than "42 PB/day". Interestingly, they also say each laser "can sustain a 100Gbps connection per link" (although another part of the article even claims 200 Gbit/s). That means each laser is grossly underused on average, at 0.432% of its maximum capacity. Which makes sense since 100 Gbit/s is p…

There’s probably redundancy in the links. In other words, A sends a MB to B which sends it to C, that’s 1 MB of information transmitted to customers but 2 MB of laser transmission.

Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#306

Post by colordrops »

madeofpalk wrote: post #207
colordrops wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've got a laptop with a terrabyte drive, it would be 42,000 full laptops worth of data.

If you have a laptop with a petabyte drive, it would be 42 full laptops worth of data!

Might as well get a 42 petabyte drive.

Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#307

Post by cranberryturkey »

mrb wrote: post #225

So that is "432 Mbit/s per laser, and 9000 lasers total". I don't know you guys but I find that statement much more relatable than "42 PB/day". Interestingly, they also say each laser "can sustain a 100Gbps connection per link" (although another part of the article even claims 200 Gbit/s). That means each laser is grossly underused on average, at 0.432% of its maximum capacity. Which makes sense since 100 Gbit/s is p…

if you stream you use a lot more than 100gb/month. I use around 1tb with a family of 3.

Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#308

Post by MadnessASAP »

burnished wrote: post #170
why_at wrote: post #147

Random thought I just had: What are the odds of a rocket launch crossing through one of these laser links on its way to a higher orbit and disrupting traffic for a fraction of a second? I know space is really big and so the odds of a rocket hitting a satellite on its way up are incredibly low, but now we're talking about lots of lines between each satellite rather than just the satellites themselves. Are the odds sti…

Interesting question. It used to be zero, before the satellites and before the rockets, but now is probably not zero. I think you could take the time a rocket would be in the way and compare it to the time it would take any given satellite link pair to make an orbit to form an estimate of the chance of a single interference. Then multiply by rockets and satellite pairs to form an overall estimate.

I've done some research, I don't have a probability but from what I've found. A Falcon 9 shortly before stage 1 separation is around 50km altitude[0] doing ~2000 m/s. Preseperation the F9 is 70m tall, add 130m for plume[1] so 200m total. At 2000 m/s it'll cover it's own length and plume in 100ms. If the laser link is running at 100 Gbps that's 10Gb of data lost.

Which is actually a lot more then I estimated when I started this math, kinda puts into perspective more then 1 of the scales at play here.

Tl;dr Rockets are fast, data is apparently faster.

[0] Apparently on its longest distance link Starlink intersected 30km altitude

[1] Ref: my ass

Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#309

Post by Tempest1981 »

hprotagonist wrote: post #293
seemaze wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has 4-5 hrs a day to watch television? ..or am I completely out of touch?

watch, or leave running as background noise …

Any recommendations for shows that make good background noise? I wish they had more concerts.

Re: Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day

#310

Post by Hadriel »

mrb wrote: post #225

So that is "432 Mbit/s per laser, and 9000 lasers total". I don't know you guys but I find that statement much more relatable than "42 PB/day". Interestingly, they also say each laser "can sustain a 100Gbps connection per link" (although another part of the article even claims 200 Gbit/s). That means each laser is grossly underused on average, at 0.432% of its maximum capacity. Which makes sense since 100 Gbit/s is p…

i think even more relatable is how many customers they can handle at say 200 mbps
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