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Rocketlab acquires Iridium

investors.rocketlabcorp.com

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Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#71

Post by bell-cot »

taneq wrote: post #60
proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

It’s already starting to be like that. If you get far enough out into the bush away from light pollution and watch the stars for a bit, you can see the grid of satellites orbiting. It’s kind of cool but also kind of depressing.

"Unobstructed view of the stars" will soon be how space tourism companies upsell their customers to higher orbits.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#72

Post by amluto »

piltdownman wrote: post #57
amluto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the market is moving to satellite service on regular phones. I don’t think there a unified “market” here. The fixed rooftop terminals and fixed-ish roaming terminals use high (tens of GHz) frequencies with correspondingly wide bandwidth, have excellent beamforming capabilities and some degree of MIMO to improve spectrum reuse, and consume an amount of power that would be outrageous for a phone. Phones don’t have re…

//I don’t think there a unified “market” here. You mean like the ASTS/Vodafone partnership that birthed the Satellite Connect Europe? https://www.vodafone.com/news/newsroom/technology/satellite-... https://www.vodafone.com/news/newsroom/technology/vodafone-a... Or like the US JV where they provide the infra for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260513491108/en/AST... //Phones don’t…

My claim is that these are not the same market as the traditional Starlink service.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#73

Post by stuxnet79 »

proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

On the positive side, clearing out all this space junk could end up being a meaningful contributor to global GDP. See also Planetes [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#74

Post by tonic_note »

proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

Satellite broadband stonks in shambles after the inevitable Kessler syndrome

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#76

Post by ralfd »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #54
s0rce wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a legitimate concern with space junk hitting useful stuff or even manned spacecraft but I think space is big and the sky won't appear bright soon. Not all satellites are that reflective and they need to reflect the sun, they don't just glow visibly.

At present, I don't believe there are industry standards / codes mandating minimization of reflectivity. My understanding is that SpaceX has engineered for this from their own internal requirements and "goodness of their hearts" (which may be related to avoidance of public pushback). As we anticipate a major scale-up of LEO in the future, it follows that "cost pressures" may (mal)incentivize players to skip this conc…

> "goodness of their hearts" (which may be related to avoidance of public pushback)

I hate this cynicism in everything. People didnt work there 10 years ago to be millionaires in a far away IPO, they worked there because they are Team Space.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#78

Post by Lendal »

proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

It's already a massive grid of moving dots. You can see it from the ground in certain dark-enough areas, but in order to see it in space you have to get outside LEO, like Artemis did. They don't have lights but they are shiny and they catch the sun, making them easily visible from certain angles, which the Artemis photos illustrated.
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