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One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

earthsky.org

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Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#311

Post by refulgentis »

quotemstr wrote: post #254
ecommerceguy wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll refrain my usual snark and just link the same link from the linked article you apparently read. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024JD04...

So you're doing the same thing? Either make a meaningful argument or stop insinuating through omission that there's a real problem here. You're not only insulting the intelligence of your readers but also, thereby, undermining your cause. The article you linked is garbage. Its authors find (of course not controlling for multiple comparisons) an effect that looks statistically significant if you p-hack it just right,…

What?

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#312

Post by gitaarik »

reactordev wrote: post #212
varenc wrote: post #130

This article has a somewhat alarmist tone, but isn't this just Starlink working as intended? It seems much better for an old non-functional Starlink satellite to burn up in the atmosphere instead of continuing in an uncontrolled orbit. I believe most burn-ups are controlled intentional deorbits.

Indeed, working as intended. SpaceX said at the beginning that this was how they would “clean up” older gen sats.

Is this a common approach? Seems strange this happens on such a scale now without much scrutiny.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#313

Post by lxgr »

Fischgericht wrote: post #226
Fischgericht wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are very wrong here: Right now Starlink claims to be operating a mesh, but they are not. If they would want to build a mesh, Inter-sat links for NOT be used used to pipe through bandwidth to the "best" base station. It would be used for shared state to be able to prepare a handover. Synching state obviously is much easier and more stable if the neighboring sats can talk directly, instead of sharing it over their…

Can not reply to your anymore, guess we are nested too deep now? I think we are simply talking about two different things here. I mentioned 802.11r not due to the key exchange implementation details, but to point to the general point: Seamless handover requires shared state between cells. This is not about static vs dynamic routing, you are thinking on the wrong layer here. We are in L1+L2 land. On Starlink, the last…

I really can't tell if you're deep into motivated reasoning here to protect your foregone conclusions or are just trolling.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#314

Post by lxgr »

Fischgericht wrote: post #196
wmf wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sat-to-sat laser links are used to provide connectivity on the open ocean and in remote parts of Australia and Argentina that are beyond the range of any ground station. They're definitely working but AFAIK they are only used when necessary so if you're within range of a ground station your traffic will never use laser links.

Oops, forgot one important thing: Sure, why do additional hops if you can see the base station. But what about shared state? Why do you definitely still get a completely new session when moving to the next sat? If the laser links are working, that state should be shared between neighboring sats.

Inter-satellite links simply provide additional (time-variant) paths, which doesn't inherently relate to shared state.

You seem to be under the impression that inter-satellite links somehow imply a self-organizing mesh topology that preserves terminal-to-gateway associations at any cost (including that of extra in-space hops), but that does not necessarily follow from the existence of ISLs.

In other words, your observation of occasional routing instability causing higher-layer issues is perfectly compatible with working ISLs.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#315

Post by lxgr »

Fischgericht wrote: post #147
hughes wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you believe the inter-satellite links are not working?

[Due to the part of the spectrum I am on, I do not have believes or opinions.] The laser based inter-links still not working has been subject on various conferences like AngaCOM etc. But in my case: I have simply tried it *). And every Starlink user can do it, too: Use traceroute. And if you think "they might be hiding the hop-to-hops between Sats!", you can dig deeper using MTR behind the modem or simply rooting the…

You're equating occasional dropouts (which can happen for all kinds of reasons even in bent-pipe topologies) with the absence of inter-satellite links. That makes no sense.

The empirical way to test for the existence of ISLs would be to go to the middle of an ocean, safely out of reach of any ground station, and see what happens. If you get a connection, that can only be due to ISLs.

It seems like your actual complaints are with network/routing stability, and you're drawing invalid conclusions from there.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#316

Post by lxgr »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #186
niwtsol wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link to a blog or writeup regarding the inter-links not working? Hard to find it without getting lost in "Troubleshoot your starlink device" SEO hell.

> Do you have a link to a blog or writeup regarding the inter-links not working? The simpler answer is intra-constellation communication is a bleeding-edge technology. It's an extraordinary challenge for which extraordinary proof is needed to show success, not the other way around. SpaceX has solved most of the gating technical problems. But getting it to work reliably enough that it becomes more economic than ground…

> intra-constellation communication is a bleeding-edge technology

Iridium has been successfully doing it for a quarter of a century now.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#317

Post by lxgr »

Fischgericht wrote: post #281
inemesitaffia wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've pointed out where you can get the data from a professor. You can also fly to one of the many Islands (or Iqaluit) I've mentioned and do your testing. https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlinks-laser-system-is-beaming... It's quite fascinating, there's people who's only (or first) experience with Starlink is via lasers and there's people on the Internet who'll tell you it doesn't work (I forgot to mention Georgia and K…

You are aware that you are giving more weight to photos done of a powerpoint presentation over actual data points? Sorry, that's not a path I am willing to follow. Religion is not my cup of tea.

Serious question: If you are not willing to entertain anybody else's data or observations, why should anyone entertain yours?

Is there any input whatsoever that could change your foregone conclusions? If not, what's the point of this discussion?

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#318

Post by Fischgericht »

lxgr wrote: post #314
Fischgericht wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops, forgot one important thing: Sure, why do additional hops if you can see the base station. But what about shared state? Why do you definitely still get a completely new session when moving to the next sat? If the laser links are working, that state should be shared between neighboring sats.

Inter-satellite links simply provide additional (time-variant) paths, which doesn't inherently relate to shared state. You seem to be under the impression that inter-satellite links somehow imply a self-organizing mesh topology that preserves terminal-to-gateway associations at any cost (including that of extra in-space hops), but that does not necessarily follow from the existence of ISLs. In other words, your obser…

Accepted.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#320

Post by dloy »

nurettin wrote: post #300
quotemstr wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're doing the same thing? Either make a meaningful argument or stop insinuating through omission that there's a real problem here. You're not only insulting the intelligence of your readers but also, thereby, undermining your cause. The article you linked is garbage. Its authors find (of course not controlling for multiple comparisons) an effect that looks statistically significant if you p-hack it just right,…

A lot of people including you were oblivious to this significant re-entry event until it appeared in the news. So off-hand dismissals and taking this personal will not help your case. Also, since you brought him up, where are the studies of the environmental impact of satellite launches and space debris funded by Elon Musk? Is the argument "planet big satellite small defund NASA"? In that case I'm going with the arti…

Are we going to debate him on his argument or only on his character? Shoot the messenger I guess.
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