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SpaceX just launched two of its space internet satellites
- alphydan 9y ago> 40 million subscribers to the service by 2025, amounting to $30 billion in revenue that year. $30,000/40/12 ≈ $63/mo For internet in a remote location of the world? Where do I sign up?
- shmerl 9y agoMore interestingly, how will Internet work on Mars?
- tntn 9y agoIt will probably have its own satellite network that serves as the Mars internet, with a high-latency intermittent bridge to the Earth internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet
- robin_reala 9y agoWhere high-latency is a ping of somewhere between 364,000ms and 2,684,000ms depending on the date.
- jlebrech 9y agoon Mars a NAS is must have.
- mixmax 9y agoTcp seems like a really bad protocol for this.
- aaomidi 9y agoThere already is a bunch of RFCs in place for high latency protocols.
- robin_reala 9y agoFamously RFC1149: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149 . I suspect that wouldn’t fly in an interplanetary scenario though.
- shabble 9y agoI think https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1217 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1217 might be more appropriate, and even touches on the relevant topic in section 5(e).
- jacquesm 9y agoWe should call it the InterPlaNet if that ever happens.
- kristofferR 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlaNet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlaNet
- jacquesm 9y agoHeh, cool :) Thank you for that link.
- kristofferR 9y ago$63/month is the average though, so it seems like it will be really expensive for customers in developed countries. As far as I understand you also need a relatively large antenna on your roof for it to work.
- Retric 9y agoDepends on how they expect growth to go. They may design things for a break even of 100 million users with minor 'subsidies' to assist growth.
- rory096 9y agoIt also doesn't include revenue from backbone services that the same projections planned to form the bulk of Starlink's business. Consumer revenues (and thus average prices) are lower.
- Nokinside 9y agoCurrently you can get Iridium satellite phone with unlimited data minutes for 125/month. The connection speed is less than 10kbit/s. $63/month 1Gb/s for a remote village, island or a ship with 10-500 users who share the bandwidth is not that bad. 40 million subscribers might serve 100-500 million people.
- turrini 9y agoPlease check this comparison: http://www.globalmarinenet.com/compare-iridium-inmarsat-and-fbb-satellite-email-and-web-speeds/ http://www.globalmarinenet.com/compare-iridium-inmarsat-and-...
- the_grue 9y agoI wonder what the latency is going to be, in particular for intercontinental traffic. Will it be better or worse than with the submarine cables we use today?
- corrigible 9y agoProbably around ~50ms (see https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/spacex-plans-worldwide-satellite-internet-with-low-latency-gigabit-speed/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/space...)
- imglorp 9y agoYeah important note, per Ars, is these are very much low orbit, at ~800mi altitude, not geostationary which is ~22,500mi where Hughes is parked for example. So, good latency if you do 2 x 800/c. This is great if you happen to own a rocket company and have tons of low, cheap launches instead of one big expensive launch.
- pjkundert 9y agoOf course, they did no such thing. Side note: will we ever have real journalists again? They launched a pair of temporary test satellites to prove some of the concepts they plan to use. These will remain on orbit only for a short time. I was at Vandenberg on Wednesday morning for the scrubbed launch - drat!!
- eganist 9y ago> These will remain on orbit only for a short time. This statement is directly contradicted by the FCC filing: https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.html?id=185534&x https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.html?id=185534&x > The designed lifetime of each satellite is six months. If this lifetime is exceeded, SpaceX plans to continue operation until such time as the primary mission goals can no longer be met, at which point the spacecraft will be deorbited. The text in this particular filing, if read plainly, would indicate that SpaceX could easily let Microsat-2a and 2b stay in the air potentially through production deployment of Starlink if feasible.
- pjkundert 9y agoNowhere near the target design lifetime of the actual system satellites. No production functionality beyond test-bed. Of course they will use them as long as they can; that’s consistent with what the FCC was told.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- HappyRobot 9y ago(Comment on the side note) It's all the editors. The journalism and content is there, its the silly click-bait title (normally editors job?) that muddles the journalism.
- datguacdoh 9y agoCome on, they said this in the actual article. "But the vehicle will also have two additional satellites hitchhiking along for the ride: prototype probes built by SpaceX to test out the technology needed to beam down internet from space. Sending up these two test spacecraft — named Microsat-2a and Microsat-2b — is a big first step in SpaceX’s long-term plans to create satellite internet." Sure, headlines nowadays tend to the buzzworthy but this article seems well written otherwise.
- jimnotgym 9y ago> but the vehicle won’t be attempting a landing after takeoff. (SpaceX has not given a reason for that.) From watching the stream of the launch it seems it was an old model rocket that they don't need any more. I guess there is a cost to recovery
- dole 9y agoBlock 3 booster that was already launched once.
- foxyv 9y agoI think it was mainly because they were going for a polar orbit.
- syncsynchalt 9y agoThey've landed cores out of Vandenberg before (ie. polar orbits). These landings were all on ships, as I guess their landing pad is not complete or not approved.
- maxxxxx 9y agoI saw the launch by accident this morning while walking the dogs. I watched the first stage separating and was waiting for it to fire again but nothing happened.
- madamelic 9y agoIt's actually surprising Ajit Pai would publicly support competition when his entire schtick seems to be locking down on it.
- cryptonector 9y agoMaybe... you've misunderstood him?
- shmerl 9y agoIt probably indicates he thinks the project is a pipe dream. Since otherwise, it's a major threat to his monopolistic bosses.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> it's a major threat to his monopolistic bosses I don't think he's being this cynical, but in what world is SpaceX competition to Verizon et al? SpaceX's satellites won't beam Internet to your phone. They'll beam it to the towers.
- shmerl 9y ago> but in what world is SpaceX competition to Verizon et al? In the world of their fiber optic networks, which they refuse to build out.
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- thebigspacefuck 9y ago11,941 to go!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kodablah 9y agoI've seen numbers on proposed download speed (~1gbps) and latency (~35ms) [0], but I can't find anything on proposed upload speed. Any ideas? I know offerings like Hughes net have claimed 3mbps. 0 - https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/spacex-plans-worldwide-satellite-internet-with-low-latency-gigabit-speed/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/space...
- dawnerd 9y agoIsn't it similar to existing tech being rolled out on airplanes? Edit: Just read that it is using the same bands. Maybe it'll mean gogo will finally have some solid competition.
- gpickett00 9y agoThe article doesn't mention what I find to be the most interesting part of this mission: From Ars Technica: There is heightened interest in this launch because, for the first time, SpaceX will attempt to "catch" one of the two payload fairings that enclose the satellite at the top of the rocket. The value of these fairings is about $6 million, and recovering and reusing them would both save SpaceX money and remove another roadblock on their production line for Falcon 9 rockets. These fairings will separate from the rocket at about three minutes after launch and are "steerable" in the sense that SpaceX hopes to guide them back to a target located in the ocean. "Going to try to catch the giant fairing (nosecone) of Falcon 9 as it falls back from space at about eight times the speed of sound," SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on Instagram Thursday morning. "It has onboard thrusters and a guidance system to bring it through the atmosphere intact, then releases a parafoil and our ship with basically a giant catcher’s mitt welded on tries to catch it." https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/spacex-to-try-again-to-launch-a-rocket-and-catch-a-payload-fairing/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/spacex-to-try-again-... They didn't 100% succeeed in their first attempt at this, but got really close! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/966692641533390848 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/966692641533390848
- aphextron 9y agoI love this so much. The way Musk described it makes perfect sense. It's as if you had big bag of cash with a million dollars just falling from the sky, you'd probably go out there and try to catch it. It's the same thing.
- larrydag 9y agoPrivatization of the space industry is going to lead to all sorts of efficiencies. I believe its also going to lead to some new areas of innovation that would never have been considered. For instance, this flight is putting 2 satellites in very LEO for internet service testing. Currently satellite internet service is at a much higher orbit which results in greater latencies.
- SEJeff 9y ago
- barbegal 9y agoI don't understand how this network will work in practise. I can broadly understand the physical layer. There will be a big increase in bandwidth over other systems. More satellites and higher frequencies means more data in the system overall. The link layer and the routing layer however are going to be key to how this system will deliver at such a large scale and with low latency. Negotiating links and routing is currently done with huge, power hungry switches in giant data centres. And those only have to deal with relatively static routes, with a satellite constellation, routes and constantly changing. My best guess is that for the most part, traffic will go via intermediaries rather than from handheld devices. Having fixed base stations that communicate with the satellites means fewer links to maintain and easier negotiation if they maintain a fixed location. Does anyone have any more technical information beyond what is provided by a paper by Samsung [1] on a similar space network? [1] https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1508/1508.02383.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1508/1508.02383.pdf
- doikor 9y agoThis isn't meant for handheld devices. Musk has mostly been talking about pizza box sized dish.
- stcredzero 9y agoHow practical would it be for radar stealthed balloons to act as floating cell towers? I wonder if such devices could be used to provide internet to regions under totalitarian control?
- hobofan 9y agoI think a receiver the size of a pizza box can still use the traditional pragmatic approach of hiding it on a rooftop.
- aaomidi 9y agoYou can still track signals originating from rooftops using drones and then prosecuting the people doing that for spying. Iran is one of those countries that really don't like two way satellite internet.
- dzhiurgis 9y agoLaunched with so much success, Elon is giving away thousands of dollars in ethereum /s https://twitter.com/eiiilonmusk/status/966844047032832000 https://twitter.com/eiiilonmusk/status/966844047032832000 backup: https://imgur.com/a/8OsbX https://imgur.com/a/8OsbX (this is a third or fourth one I've noticed so far)