4 ms·

I wonder if there's a bit of a land grab going on right now to claim as much LEO and geosync spots as possible before they dry up and become too crowded to oper

I wonder if there's a bit of a land grab going on right now to claim as much LEO and geosync spots as possible before they dry up and become too crowded to operate in safely. Maybe a secondary market of orbital slots will open up where current operators sell their huge chunks to new entrants. Just like good old ipv4.

diamondo25 9y ago
There's not really a land grab, and you better be sure to have propulsion on board in the coming years, as youll most likely have to evade other defunct satellites. The ISS is actually in a bad position, as satellites tend to go to earth, and the ISS is between earth and most LEO sats (400km vs 600-800km).
- snrplfth 9y ago
  The ISS is in a great position, because it's in an altitude with such high drag that small objects and uncontrolled fragments deorbit very quickly. Even the ISS loses 50 - 90 m of altitude a day. Satellites passing through the ISS's orbit do not tend to spend that many orbits there.
azernik 9y ago
In LEO it's not about orbital slots - it's about frequency bands. Claims on frequency bands in orbit are governed by the ITU; because of its international nature, there aren't agreed-upon policies for frequency assignments, so instead the rules are simple and competitive. The first entity to get a satellite in orbit using a specific frequency band gets the exclusive rights to that band, so there's a lot of pressure to get a symbolic bird up early to stake your claim.
jandrese 9y ago
GEO sats have been slot limited for decades. The birds need to be spaced roughly 1 degree apart in the sky to avoid the need for massive ground antennas to talk to them. A few birds get slotted in half degree slots, but they aren't popular. You can have two birds share a slot if they operate on different bands (L vs. Ku for example), but there are basically only three popular bands currently in use (L, Ku, and Ka) and using a different one would mean custom designing hardware and negotiating with the FCC and nobody wants to deal with that. Ka is also a bit exotic currently, although it's way more widespread now than it was a few years ago. This is why some of the biggest satellites we launch are GEO bound communication sats. They're like luxury condos in a high priced neighborhood. Because the land (orbital slot) is so expensive the developers want to make the most of it. Things can be a lot more amateur down in LEO where your freespace loss is so low you can talk to your bird over an omni antenna. There your bigger concern is just getting bandwidth on a usable frequency.

diamondo25 9y ago

There's not really a land grab, and you better be sure to have propulsion on board in the coming years, as youll most likely have to evade other defunct satellites. The ISS is actually in a bad position, as satellites tend to go to earth, and the ISS is between earth and most LEO sats (400km vs 600-800km).

snrplfth 9y ago
The ISS is in a great position, because it's in an altitude with such high drag that small objects and uncontrolled fragments deorbit very quickly. Even the ISS loses 50 - 90 m of altitude a day. Satellites passing through the ISS's orbit do not tend to spend that many orbits there.

azernik 9y ago

In LEO it's not about orbital slots - it's about frequency bands. Claims on frequency bands in orbit are governed by the ITU; because of its international nature, there aren't agreed-upon policies for frequency assignments, so instead the rules are simple and competitive. The first entity to get a satellite in orbit using a specific frequency band gets the exclusive rights to that band, so there's a lot of pressure to get a symbolic bird up early to stake your claim.

jandrese 9y ago

GEO sats have been slot limited for decades. The birds need to be spaced roughly 1 degree apart in the sky to avoid the need for massive ground antennas to talk to them. A few birds get slotted in half degree slots, but they aren't popular. You can have two birds share a slot if they operate on different bands (L vs. Ku for example), but there are basically only three popular bands currently in use (L, Ku, and Ka) and using a different one would mean custom designing hardware and negotiating with the FCC and nobody wants to deal with that. Ka is also a bit exotic currently, although it's way more widespread now than it was a few years ago. This is why some of the biggest satellites we launch are GEO bound communication sats. They're like luxury condos in a high priced neighborhood. Because the land (orbital slot) is so expensive the developers want to make the most of it. Things can be a lot more amateur down in LEO where your freespace loss is so low you can talk to your bird over an omni antenna. There your bigger concern is just getting bandwidth on a usable frequency.