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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

#401

Post by wongarsu »

aetimmes wrote: post #396
robbiep wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past performance is a piss poor indicator of future performance. You can’t deny (I don’t think) that the things he’s done are amazing. He’s in the zone where he’s smelt too many of his farts though, and believes he can do no wrong, which is historically a very bad place to be. I hope, for all of the awesome things he’s said he’d like to do, that they don’t come agutsa due to that

> the things he's done are amazing The things he's _purchased_ are amazing.

The things he purchased were fine. They became revolutionary under him.

The man has a lot of flaws and since covid drifted into ideologies I don't agree with. I also wouldn't buy a Tesla. But there is no denying that both Tesla and SpaceX revolutionized their respective industries. And it seems safe to say that neither would have managed to do this without Musk. And at least SpaceX manages to sustain a substantial lead over the competition and continues revolutionizing industries.

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

#402

Post by wongarsu »

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.

Pretty feasible for anyone who has enough ballistic missiles to target about 5000 targets, or is willing to invest a couple billion into stocking 5000 overpowered fighter-launched missiles. Starlink isn't that high up, and in military terms 5000 targets isn't that much.

The effort of getting a ballistic trajectory that peaks at 500km is a lot smaller than reaching a stable orbit of that height. And just like WWII aircraft you don't need to hit them, just produce enough shrapnel in their vague vicinity.

The biggest hurdle is the universal international condemnation you would receive for such an act

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

#405

Post by beejiu »

psd1 wrote: post #372
beejiu wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that Starlink always "landed" to a base station back in the same jurisdiction? I think relaying through space could open a regulatory can of worms.

What kind of worms?

All countries have strict regulations on radio waves, whether that's sending or receiving. The UK for example requires a license for base stations that stipulates things like geographical boundaries, etc.

You can't freely blast radio waves into a country without falling subject to its varying regulations, but the regulations for "pre Starlink" satellite broadband/phones/etc are fairly well established.

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

#406

Post by macspoofing »

qayxc wrote: post #104
latchkey wrote: post #88

I sit in my hot tub at night and see 1-2+ satellites go over every single time I'm out there. Which also makes me wonder how many of the shooting stars I've seen recently are just old starlinks burning up.

> Which also makes me wonder how many of the shooting stars I've seen recently are just old starlinks burning up. Probably close to none. The lifetime of the satellites is about 5 years give or take. According to this page [1], a total of 355 satellites have deorbited over the past roughly 5 years. That's an average of about 71 per year or about one every 5 days. Since planned disposals are done over uninhabited area…

>The lifetime of the satellites is about 5 years give or take. According to this page [1], a total of 355 satellites have deorbited over the past roughly 5 years.

Wow ... is it economical to replace the entire constellation every 5 years? How does the business side work? Or is it just a great money-burning party?

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

#407

Post by mensetmanusman »

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…

My parents moved in and, being old, stream TV all day (instead of cable) and end up using about 40 GB per day with 1080p. We keep hitting our max of 1.2 TB set by our cable company (because there are others in the home!).

I should probably see if my router can bandwidth limit their mac addresses...

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

#408

Post by mensetmanusman »

robbiep wrote: post #385
loceng wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's likely a bad idea at this point to bet against Elon - he seems to make more good decisions than bad decisions, and is able to attract and keep the talent that is enabling his companies to snowball exponentially towards reaching the abundance of the universe. My deepest hope currently is that the riches of the universe now on the horizon of being relatively easily accessible, in a systematic and efficient…

Past performance is a piss poor indicator of future performance. You can’t deny (I don’t think) that the things he’s done are amazing. He’s in the zone where he’s smelt too many of his farts though, and believes he can do no wrong, which is historically a very bad place to be. I hope, for all of the awesome things he’s said he’d like to do, that they don’t come agutsa due to that

Past performance is the only data available to help predict the future.

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

#409

Post by lucioperca »

beejiu wrote: post #405
psd1 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of worms?

All countries have strict regulations on radio waves, whether that's sending or receiving. The UK for example requires a license for base stations that stipulates things like geographical boundaries, etc. You can't freely blast radio waves into a country without falling subject to its varying regulations, but the regulations for "pre Starlink" satellite broadband/phones/etc are fairly well established.

Well maybe it makes sense for US costumer to send their traffic down from Starlink in Canada and then via fiber to the USA? I do not really see the problem if the traffic is encrypted and forwarded.

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

#410

Post by _0ffh »

sephamorr wrote: post #190
nomel wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general , how is the initial alignment performed? Is there rough pointing, followed by some rastering, until the sensor gets a hit? Maybe with some slight beam widening first? My assumption is that you would want exactly one laser, one sensor module, and probably a fixed lens on each? Is the sensor something like a 2x2 array, or pie with three pieces, to allow alignment? Or is it one big sensor that uses perturb a…

Alas there is no 'in general'. Acquisition is often the secret sauce due to, among other challenges, the extremely tight alignment requirement -- thermal shifts, satellite wobbling, etc, are all critical to manage. On wavelengths, if you're trying to hit 100gbit+, you're probably having to use coherent optics, and there aren't many technology options or wavelengths on the market.

You got it exactly right! I worked on a simulation model of the complete optical setup of a laser terminal with movable mirrors and all including the fricking servo motors and a simple orbital model for the relative satellite positions. Plus an interface to drop in the actual acquisition and tracking code used on the embedded control system. All of that just to be able to do reasonably realistic simulations for verification and tuning of the secret sauce.
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