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Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

reuters.com

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Re: Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

#41

Post by SubiculumCode »

nemo44x wrote: post #12

I'm amazed how little coverage Starlink, OneWeb, etc get. It's the next revolution and the most important tech since the smart phone. Think about the great firewall of China. It's dead after this. Having a cell provider and home internet provider. Gone. Poor bandwidth anywhere on Earth - a thing of the past. This is important and huge. Buy rural property that is undeveloped. In 10 years time you'll be able to power i…

Privacy? Gone! Everything can send their data out without going through your own network.

I mean this is really cool, but as more and more network access is available that can circumvent my own network control, the more I worry about the privacy implications. And while cellular antennas exist now, that network seems too expensive for mass adoption in every IoT device.

Re: Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

#42

Post by walrus01 »

shaklee3 wrote: post #33
walrus01 wrote: post #5

Starlink is highly ambitious. What they're trying to do is basically a miniature version of the o3b network MEO architecture, where every CPE terminal needs to track two satellites simultaneously. The difference is that an o3b terminal starts from about $30,000 , they're trying to build something with a CPE cost under $700. This is literally a "has never been done before" satellite communications challenge. The only…

There are a lot of "has not been done before" going on right now in the satellite industry. Musk is the only one getting press, though. And keep in mind that the cpe cost hasn't been justified anywhere I've seen. Phased array is still far from $700, so it's not clear how they plan to recoup that.

Yes I am also highly skeptical of what the CPE cost will be. Starlink has been over hyped in the non-satellite-industry technology press as if it will be a panacea for residential, rural internet access and for small business. But I'm thinking the rooftop terminal cost might be more like $3000-5000 of hardware, not totally outside the realm of possibility to recoup the cost for on 36 month contracts, but not something that's going to allow for $90/month residential broadband. More like a small-medium business product. Or $250-300/month.

If they can't do it economically and with enough gain, SNR and low noise factor using phased array (questionable), the rooftop CPE is going to have to look like an identical pair of motorized, two axis tracking 50cm compact cassegrain dishes, each with its own BUC+SSPA and Rx RF chain. Basically miniaturized o3b. Again not cheap.

Re: Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

#44

Post by riffraff »

murukesh_s wrote: post #40
nemo44x wrote: post #12

I'm amazed how little coverage Starlink, OneWeb, etc get. It's the next revolution and the most important tech since the smart phone. Think about the great firewall of China. It's dead after this. Having a cell provider and home internet provider. Gone. Poor bandwidth anywhere on Earth - a thing of the past. This is important and huge. Buy rural property that is undeveloped. In 10 years time you'll be able to power i…

> Buy rural property that is undeveloped Wish it was that simple. Maybe when there is a big enough community (then it would get expensive isn't it). I once wished for that but after getting married the priorities change 1) kids schooling 2) ours and kids social life 3) medical emergencies 4) window shopping and cheese burgers dammit :) I think we the average folks are enslaved

this. If you are interested in a place with cheap houses which already has sanitization, electricity, and basic internet connectivity, many areas on the mountains in central italy are good.

They are also mostly de-populating, because people want a ton of other things from the modern life, which a small community cannot sustain.

Re: Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

#45

Post by staticfloat »

shaklee3 wrote: post #36
grecy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm amazed how little coverage Starlink, OneWeb, etc get Most of what Musk is doing (if it works) will strip tens of billions (trillions?) of dollars from very, very established industries. Telco (Starlink), Auto (Tesla), Oil (Tesla), Transport (Boring), Power/oil/gas (SolarCity). There are extremely rich and powerful interests that have no interest in him doing that, and you can bet they don't want the media telli…

Please don't compare everything he's doing in the same bucket. Even if starlink were to succeed technically, it's not clear how they'd pay for the ground system. The satellite is the only piece talked about, but the ground system is betting on technology to take a massive cut off what it costs currently. It's more likely to will only be sold to enterprise/business customers, and not Joe schmo in rural Kansas. SpaceX…

In my antenna design course in graduate school, our Professor had insider information about the specifications the Starlink people were targeting for their mobile ground stations. He gave designing a similar antenna system as one of the final projects for the course. The exact numbers aren't important (nor are they really a tight secret; if you are well-versed in antenna design I imagine you could spend 10 minutes and come up with a list of specifications that are pretty close to what we were given in the course). We found that the mobile base station would be neither complex to construct, nor expensive (Conservatively The fundamental requirements were things like: at least X dB main lobe gain, electrically steerable to any point within a the cone 60 degrees off of azimuth, total physical size less than .5 m^2, operates at Y.YY GHz with resonant bandwidth of Z.ZZ GHz, etc... The design my team went with was an array of microstrip antennas with a network of phase shifters to electrically steer the signal via beamforming. It's actually quite amazing what you can do if you just get the right shape of metal to vibrate at the frequencies you pump into it. Antenna design is a wonderful confluence of mathematics, design and black magic.

Re: Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

#46

Post by Jedi72 »

nemo44x wrote: post #12

I'm amazed how little coverage Starlink, OneWeb, etc get. It's the next revolution and the most important tech since the smart phone. Think about the great firewall of China. It's dead after this. Having a cell provider and home internet provider. Gone. Poor bandwidth anywhere on Earth - a thing of the past. This is important and huge. Buy rural property that is undeveloped. In 10 years time you'll be able to power i…

Do you think its not going to have all the normal blocks on it just because its in the sky? A firewall is a firewall whether its in orbit or an exchange.

Re: Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

#47

Post by jon_richards »

burfog wrote: post #14
nemo44x wrote: post #12

I'm amazed how little coverage Starlink, OneWeb, etc get. It's the next revolution and the most important tech since the smart phone. Think about the great firewall of China. It's dead after this. Having a cell provider and home internet provider. Gone. Poor bandwidth anywhere on Earth - a thing of the past. This is important and huge. Buy rural property that is undeveloped. In 10 years time you'll be able to power i…

Iridium didn't escape national regulations. Why would this? If this system is to be operable in China, an agreement must be reached. That might mean a firewall for all people in China, all Chinese citizens everywhere, or both. Operating without permission from China would generate a complaint to the USA. The USA is obligated to enforce international RF restrictions on satellites operated by US companies.

It's going to be pirate radio all over again. How long do you think the USA will exert complete control over a privatised space industry? I'd bet the first satellite shootings will happen over copyright violations, not national security.

Re: Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

#48

Post by gonesilent »

jon_richards wrote: post #47
burfog wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iridium didn't escape national regulations. Why would this? If this system is to be operable in China, an agreement must be reached. That might mean a firewall for all people in China, all Chinese citizens everywhere, or both. Operating without permission from China would generate a complaint to the USA. The USA is obligated to enforce international RF restrictions on satellites operated by US companies.

It's going to be pirate radio all over again. How long do you think the USA will exert complete control over a privatised space industry? I'd bet the first satellite shootings will happen over copyright violations, not national security.

Yup I agree, wiki from space will get it taken out first.

Re: Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

#49

Post by gaius »

walrus01 wrote: post #26
nemo44x wrote: post #12

I'm amazed how little coverage Starlink, OneWeb, etc get. It's the next revolution and the most important tech since the smart phone. Think about the great firewall of China. It's dead after this. Having a cell provider and home internet provider. Gone. Poor bandwidth anywhere on Earth - a thing of the past. This is important and huge. Buy rural property that is undeveloped. In 10 years time you'll be able to power i…

the great firewall is not dead. Chinese authorities with spectrum analyzers could easily locate any rooftop customer premise radios. These things need to transmit. and they will need clear unobstructed view to the sky, nearly Horizon to Horizon. there are already a number of countries in the world where men with guns will come and take your rooftop equipment if you try to operate an unauthorized two-way, small satell…

being able to operate a 1.2 to 1.8m size small VSAT in Xinjiang province

Right; I think people are visualising this like a sort of Thuraya iPhone, which it very much will not be, because physics.

I mean Thuraya is amazing if you in the middle of the ocean, but no one under 40 has ever used a modem at that speed before...

Re: Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources

#50

Post by walrus01 »

gaius wrote: post #49
walrus01 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the great firewall is not dead. Chinese authorities with spectrum analyzers could easily locate any rooftop customer premise radios. These things need to transmit. and they will need clear unobstructed view to the sky, nearly Horizon to Horizon. there are already a number of countries in the world where men with guns will come and take your rooftop equipment if you try to operate an unauthorized two-way, small satell…

being able to operate a 1.2 to 1.8m size small VSAT in Xinjiang province Right; I think people are visualising this like a sort of Thuraya iPhone, which it very much will not be, because physics. I mean Thuraya is amazing if you in the middle of the ocean, but no one under 40 has ever used a modem at that speed before...

If they are successful with some sort of most-flat-panel phased array that can talk to two or three satellites simultaneously, I don't think it will be quite as obvious on a roof as a 1.2m cheap small VSAT... But it will still need to be big enough to have sufficient gain for a real link budget, and CNR ratios for complex modulations.

And its EIRP to Tx to a satellite >300km away at bitrates of 0.5 Mbps or better will be easy to find with portable spectrum analyzers hooked up to directional horn antennas.

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