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A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

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Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#81
post #59

The mass of the starlink satellites has doubled twice since V1. It is not hard to assume that there is a significant DoD rideshare payload involved on the existing commercial satellites. Having a sensor platform on every single one would be incredible. The satellites that have been officially branded as Starshield (~183 we know of) could be part of cover or a more "kinetic" mission profile. If I was in charge at the…

> would permit a commercial spaceflight vendor to perform as many launches as SpaceX has performed without some kind of arrangement like this in place.

I’m sure SpaceX is happy to take the DoD’s money, doubt there’s any strong arming needed.

Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#82
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with terrestrial wireless links is that you just aren't going to cover every inch of Earth's surface with terrestrial wireless links. At the same time: coverage comes cheap to Starlink. Which makes it perfect for serving areas no one wants to serve. Such as rural areas, anything outside the largest cities in underdeveloped countries, the open ocean, and so it goes.

Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient and shrinking TAM. The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.

> Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient [TAM]

Insufficient for what?

> and shrinking TAM.

Starlink has made quite an impact on planning around servicing commercially non-viable or marginal customers in government and telcos where I am from. It is IMO quite likely that some existing cell towers in remote areas that are very expensive to operate and maintain will eventually be shut down. So that could actually expand the "TAM".

> The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.

No, they also don't want to serve places where it costs more.

Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#83
post #14

This reeks of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar), and we know Starshield sats carry custom sensor payloads that normal Starlinks don't have.

I've been a pretty harsh critic of Starlink. I don't think it's going to compete well against terrestrial wireless links, specifically 5G FWA. But if they can actually do something interesting with distributed SAR in a large constellation, that's one of those national security breakthroughs that's worth every penny.

I’m surprised there are technologists that are harsh critics of low earth orbit satellites.

Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#84
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with terrestrial wireless links is that you just aren't going to cover every inch of Earth's surface with terrestrial wireless links. At the same time: coverage comes cheap to Starlink. Which makes it perfect for serving areas no one wants to serve. Such as rural areas, anything outside the largest cities in underdeveloped countries, the open ocean, and so it goes.

Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient and shrinking TAM. The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.

The two places that I'm fairly confident will never get covered by terrestrial wireless are the Pacific ocean and Atlantic ocean. Whether yacht owners, cruise ships, and airplanes are enough to sustain the business by some future time when terrestrial customers churn, who knows, but those customers aren't going to go away any time soon.

Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#85
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with terrestrial wireless links is that you just aren't going to cover every inch of Earth's surface with terrestrial wireless links. At the same time: coverage comes cheap to Starlink. Which makes it perfect for serving areas no one wants to serve. Such as rural areas, anything outside the largest cities in underdeveloped countries, the open ocean, and so it goes.

Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient and shrinking TAM. The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.

5G fixed wireless makes sense in urban and suburban areas because a single tower can serve many customers. But in rural areas, the number of customers per tower is much lower. To be profitable, the cost to build & maintain the tower must be covered by the customers in the area. Google says a 5G tower can cost anywhere from $150k-$300k, with maintenance costs being around 10% of that per year. In rural areas, the cost is likely on the high end because power and fiber lines will be longer. Each 5G tower has a range of 5ish miles, meaning it can serve an area of 75-80 square miles. A rural county like Ferry County, Washington has 2 households per square mile. So in that county, a tower can serve 150-160 households. Assuming 100% of households are customers, that means each must pay $200-400 per year for the tower to break even after a decade. The actual numbers are fuzzier. Obviously you won't have 100% adoption, but cell towers also serve cell phones.

In comparison, each Starlink satellite costs around $1 million to manufacture and launch, and each satellite lasts at least 5 years. So cost per satellite per year is $200k. They currently have 7,600 satellites serving 7 million customers, meaning on average, each satellite serves almost 1,000 customers. At $200k per satellite per year, each customer needs to pay $200 per year for them to break even. It seems likely that launch costs will go down in the future, meaning this number will decrease.

There's also the complication that each new Starlink satellite improves coverage & bandwidth for the entire globe, while each new 5G tower improves coverage & bandwidth in a specific area. A county may have a population density of 2-4 households per square mile, but many of those households are clustered together. The less dense areas are not likely to be covered by cell towers any time soon, as it's less economically viable. Another disadvantage of cell towers is service failures. A single Starlink satellite failure means a slight degradation of service, while a single cell tower failure means everyone in the region is taken offline. In areas where both services are available, people would be likely to prefer the more reliable option.

Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#86

I'm curious if you could destroy a SpaceX Satelite with a basic laser pointers. Easily enough for normal state actors and some university or engineering lab. You need only to track it and shoot your laser up there (its only 500km) and if it can't dissipate the energy fast enough, it would overheat.

A simple way would be to send up a satellite filled with "bullets" in the orbit. At the opportune moment, the satellite will fire these bullets and they will place themselves in the paths of these satellites (no need to track and target the satellites, the satellites will fly towards the bullets as their paths are fixed), boom space debris and subsequent chain reaction.

Already done 40+ years ago by Soviet Russia - the Salyut-3 carried a self-defence gun that fired in orbit called the Almaz Space Cannon: https://www.russianspaceweb.com/almaz_ops2.html

Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#87
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Starlink, maybe. However, I'm sure nuclear submarines operating in the arctic (and the US Navy in general) as well as forward operating US bases, would love and be willing to pay for Starshield to cover everywhere.

Pretty sure they don't have any comms signals and wouldn't connect to that unless absolutely necessary emergent situation. I thought they operate in the dark.

Subs do pop up to make status reports or check-ins. They do operate independently in that command knows what area they patrolling but not exact locations at any given time.

Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a viable alternative? SpaceX is the only launch provider and satellite operator that is progressing at a rapid pace and driving costs down.

No need for the satellite manufacturer to be the same as the launch provider, and there's nothing at all special about short-lived commodity satellites for LEO constellations. SpaceX is going to be cost-effective at building them given their experience with Starlink, but cost isn't typically a major concern of the US govt, and certainly not a higher priority than concerns about the satellite operator frequently sugge…

> but cost isn't typically a major concern of the US govt

tell that to any project that has had their budget slashed or out right canceled because somebody thought their project was a waste of money. every contractor is bidding unless your name is Halliburton. what's the famous astronaut quote about sitting on top of a rocket built by the lowest bidding contractor?

Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your laser pointer has a hard upper Watt limit? Consumer grade / privat buyable laser can easily be bought. And would i destroy a soda can by overheating it slowly and steadily because the can has no easy way of dissipating heat and has electronics in it which are not heat resistent?

Delivering that kind of power through all of the atmosphere between you and satellite is going to be a problem. And it's not sticking around overhead waiting for you to heat it up slowly.

The through the atmosphere bit is what brought us DLP TVs/projectors!

Re: A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

#90
post #72
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the case with Starlink (and presumably Starlink) satellites. The ground stations use directional phased arrays. They can do it, because they keep good track of where each satellite is at any given moment, and do trajectory adjustments as needed.

Yes, groundstations are virtually always highly directional, except for, like, radio hams sometimes. (Even hams usually use yagis.) Possibly you didn't notice this, but I'm talking about the antennas on the satellites, which are the ones that could suffer interference (since they're the ones receiving the uplink frequencies we're discussing), not the groundstation antennas. You always have to keep track of where each…

Ah sorry, I misread you. I meant “presumably Starshield”, I think autocorrect replaced it with Starlink.
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