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SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

ilrwbwrkhv 8y ago
i think the price should be around 35 dollars per month
- mtgx 8y ago
  $29 (or less) for 1Gbps would probably give American ISP executives night sweats.
  - abledon 8y ago
    after hearing this news i've invested in the Vanguard adult diaper ETF.
  - taf2 8y ago
    I was hoping for $1 or less that opens the world up to unblocked high speed internet. Imagine the signal that is not blocked by any national firewalls
    - bhelkey 8y ago
      The satellites alone are expected to cost at least 10 billion USD [1]. Add in the antenna on the ground and it seems exceedingly unlikely that this will go for $1 a month. [1] - https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/05/block-5-spacex-increase-launch-cadence-lower-prices/ https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/05/block-5-spacex-incre...
  - lccarrasco 8y ago
    I live in Bolivia, South America, the impact a global ISP would have cannot be overstated, in developing countries internet prices are still extremely expensive, up until a month ago I was paying around USD 60 for 10Mbps, and that was the best price I could find in my city, the second largest in the country.
    - napsterbr 8y ago
      Yep, same here (Brazil). I suppose SpaceX plans to start with us-only offerings. I also suppose it will take a while until it reaches developing countries. Does anyone have a better take on this?
      - elihu 8y ago
        The satellites will be everywhere, so not having offerings outside the US seems like it would be leaving money on the table. I could imagine it might take them awhile just to manage the logistics of selling a product in many countries, though. Maybe they'll partner with established companies for that part?
      - Tuna-Fish 8y ago
        The satellites are not stationary, but go around the earth. This means that to get good coverage in the US, they actually have to provide good coverage everywhere near the same latitudes (on both sides of the equator). Since the satellites in the southern hemisphere will have nothing better to do and have less demand, they are probably going to start rolling out service everywhere they can at the same time. Most of Brazil is actually a bit out of luck in that it's too near the equator, so satellite density overhead will not be that great anywhere but the very southernmost areas until there are lot of the birds in the sky, so you won't have service immediately. But places like Chile and Argentina will have great access pretty quickly. However, as a caveat to that the receiving antennas will be expensive at the start and SpaceX still has to negotiate access to spectrum in every country separately, and in poorer countries this will most likely have to be paid for, so that will hike the prices up.
        baq 8y ago
        Frequencies aren’t free, spacex will need to buy the rights for each country separately and that costs serious money. Unless they somehow don’t have to do that for whatever reason...
        nickik 8y ago
- Tuna-Fish 8y ago
  At the beginning, it will be nowhere near that. The price of the receiving antenna alone will be in the range of $10k-$1k. So for the first phase they are mostly interested in providing backhaul for remote cell towers and the like, and service for the odd people living in the sticks who are willing to pay through the nose for the ability to have both great internet and live in the middle of nowhere. Then, once the antennas are in proper mass production and cheap enough, they have an investment of a couple of $B worth of satellites to pay for. So long as they can provide something no other ISP can (low-latency access in the middle of nowhere), I very much doubt their prices will be lower than those ISPs.
- tomatotomato37 8y ago
  For a ~$10 billion constellation with an individual satellite lifespan of 5 years, the system would need to average ~$170 million per month for something resembling break-even. Current US satellite internet adoption is at 6.7% percent; push that up to 10% so I have some number to work with when accounting for market penetration and the rest of the world, and you’re looking at 32.5 million users, which sets an absolute price floor of $5.25 a month. Give it margins that actually make this remotely profitable and $20 a month for service wouldn't be unrealistic; the upfront costs of the uplink would probably still kill you though. Edit: Did some more research on competitors. It seems ViaSat currently has 1.1 billion invested in its 2 active GEOs, plus whatever’s currently going in their next generation constellation. Their bargain bin plan goes for $70 a month (fun fact, they too pull the 3 month deal BS landline ISPs do) up to $200 a month. Since it only has a single real competitor it probably services 3% of the US population, so with their midplan of $150 a month over 9.75 million users into a satellite constellation with a lifespan of 8 years they are charging in the neighborhood of %12,700 over their satellite breakeven (1.46 billion month revenue over 11.46 million per month payback). Bringing that over to a $10 billion constellation with much more premium internet, yikes.
  - ryanmarsh 8y ago
    Current US satellite internet adoption is at 6.7% percent Current US satellite adoption doesn't matter in this case because the new product would not suck. Satellite internet is not a viable competitor today for the various reasons others have stated here. Starlink however would compete directly with my DSL service and since I (and pretty much everyone else) hate our telco, the sky is the limit as they say.
    - shaklee3 8y ago
      That's completely wrong. It's 100% not going to compete with DSL. It will be used by enterprise, or people who pay $100+/more to offset equipment costs. The reason satellite internet costs so much is equipment cost.
      - kartickv 8y ago
zjaffee 8y ago
Does anyone have any context on what sort of internet speeds satellite internet has been benchmarked to provide. I can't imagine the latency being anywhere near good enough to do many of the high bandwidth things people use the internet for today.
- CarVac 8y ago
  You're conflating bandwidth and latency. Not much needs both high bandwidth and low latency. The latency has the potential to be better than the current internet backbone when going intercontinental due to straighter paths, but it'll be higher when going to your local AWS, probably. Bandwidth is anyone's guess.
  - zw123456 8y ago
    The amount of BW is based on how much spectrum you have (see Shannon's Law). I am not sure how much they have. Also, I am not sure they will have enough power to provide in building service.
    - Tuna-Fish 8y ago
      > Also, I am not sure they will have enough power to provide in building service. The issue for that is the wavelengths they are using. Their properties basically completely rule out any kind of in-building service, there needs to be a clear uninterrupted path between the receiver and the transmitter. (But they penetrate water well, so should not have a problem with clouds.)
      - zw123456 8y ago
        FCC-18-38A1.pdf say 10.7Ghz - 12.7Ghz, that's a lot of spectrum. Depending on the SINR they get, which depends on the power, antenna sizes etc. you could get some pretty good speeds, probably above 100Mbps. But at those frequencies not likely to have any in car or in building. You can penetrate a building with higher frequencies if you have high enough power levels, but not from a satellite. So to use it you will have to install an antenna on the roof of your house.
cronix 8y ago
This will probably be the first botnet in space, once some clever kid or nation state figures out how. That's a lot of firepower floating around.
Rebelgecko 8y ago
Is there anyone who knows more about radio stuff that can explain why they want to have both Ku and V band for users? It it just a matter of having more spectrum? Or are some bands more suited to crowded areas, like a city where there might be lots of customers sharing bandwidth? Do you need different hardware for using the different frequencies?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dr_orpheus 8y ago
  There are a few possible reasons for using multiple bands. With the higher frequency of the V band you can very high data rates down to the ground. However, higher frequency RF will be very attenuated by rainfall [0]. So the Ku band could be used as a backup to the V band. The V band (or optical links) will also likely be used for the inter-satellite communication. You do typically need different hardware for using the different frequencies. With some of the more advanced software defined radios, you could use both of the at the same baseband within the same radio. But you will still need some sort of frequency conversion [1]. You will likely need different antennas for each band as well. And to get an efficient system you also want to add filters for each band. [0] http://happy.emu.id.au/lab/rep/rep/9510/txtspace/9510_032.htm http://happy.emu.id.au/lab/rep/rep/9510/txtspace/9510_032.ht... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-noise_block_downconverter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-noise_block_downconverter
  - shaklee3 8y ago
    The higher data rates come from the fact that there is a lot more spectrum available in the v band. From what I remember there is about 4 to 5 gigahertz usable there. Ka-band has about 2-3GHz, and Ku about 1. as you mentioned, attenuation is one of the factors why you wouldn't use v band. Another reason is that it uses quite a bit more power, and the RF electronics are much more expensive and rare.
zaroth 8y ago
Too bad the public markets have given Elon such a lashing with Tesla, because I would love to buy into SpaceX. But then, I’m not the only one; “There is an unlimited amount of funding that the company could probably access globally in private markets," Hilmer said, adding that he has personally met many of "a diverse group" interested in SpaceX. Everywhere I travel around the world, investors of all types — individuals, family offices, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds or private equity — want to get into SpaceX," Hilmer said. "It's almost all investors I talk to." Of course at the same time I’m happy they aren’t public. The market couldn’t handle the time horizons that SpaceX operates under, nor the mission statement that drives them. [1] - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/equidate-spacex-27-billion-valuation-shows-unlimited-private-funding-available.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/equidate-spacex-27-billion-v...
- dv_dt 8y ago
  I read that as there is a lot of money that wants to piggyback on the success of SpaceX instead of fundamentally developing anything via their own investments.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    What do you think investment is exactly?
    - dv_dt 8y ago
      I think that systemic interest in investment in fundamental economic improvements has declined while systemic investment in financial vehicles (pardon the pun) is rampant. This would be ok if the financial vehicles were connected to economic well being, but that link is increasingly tenuous. It basically takes a crazy, put it all on the line billionaire to assemble technologies, but why doesn't the economic system regularly do this? Musk is great, but I think his skill, much like Jobs, is excellent integration of a number of existing technological possibilities. Why is Musk, as an individual, the one of the few that can do that at scale, vs industries that have in actuality more resources than Musk.
rdxm 8y ago
This is bad, plain and simple, for a variety of reasons. It's a regulatory failure based on the incompetence of the federal government (which at this point is playin gout on a daily basis)..
TenJack 8y ago
Do they need more than US approval to launch satellites into international space?
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Per the Outer Space Treaty, no. Under it, space is free for the use and exploration of all countries. The US is liable for SpaceX in-space fuckups, though - if they crash a satellite into something, the US is responsible.
- AimForTheBushes 8y ago
  Good question. I doubt the Russians or Chinese consult the FCC for launches.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  This FCC approval is to be able to talk between orbit and the ground in the US. SpaceX needs approval from other countries for the same, in order to offer service there. Launch approvals are a separate thing.
creeble 8y ago
Curious how this will pan out. It's a shocking contrast to be in or near a city and have broadband speeds, and then be just a few dozen miles outside one and have... literally nothing. I just loaned my Iridium phone to a friend who was going to the jungle, and although he was able to make the data connection work, even doing email at 2400 baud(!) proved useless. Inmarsat is faster, but vastly more expensive. Outside of those two, there is no global solution.
- aportnoy 8y ago
  Iridium already employs SpaceX for their launches.
  - dzhiurgis 8y ago
    What's perplexing is why Iridium is not doing way more. They are essentially just letting SpaceX to cannibalise them. Sure, they don't have fancy rockets, but still can scale their satellite net before Elon catches up with sat tech or outsource launches to even cheaper Indian launch provider. p.s. the story of Iridium and how they recovered is quite amazing.
    - Scoundreller 8y ago
      I think the more amazing part of Iridium’s story is that they got the money to launch their constellation in the first place. It’s crushing debt and inevitable bankruptcy with the assets being acquired for something like 1/20th of a cent on the dollar was to be expected really.
      - manquer 8y ago
        Iridium is around now. Both their next gen and the old gen. SpaceX will take atleast 5-7 years to get full coverage. The customer base of iridium is very different than what SpaceX is targeting.. there should be room for more than one player
- stcredzero 8y ago
bargl 8y ago
This is such a cool problem. We already have a ton of Geo sat which can do this kind of communication but they are super expensive and have a limited bandwidth. These satellites will actually have a ton of limitations in how much data they can send around and how they'll have to balance out their signals. Geo are easier to point to because, well they don't move. But these are going to be moving and changing all the time so you'll have to connect to multiple satellites every day. I'm spit balling here but they'll probably be overhead for 10 minutes? Think about switching your router every 10 minutes. Or you get a rainy day and your signal clarity goes down. Or you are over the equator in a band that is used strictly for GEO. This is going to be a super cool problem to solve. And I'm sure I don't even understand the half of it. Edit: Sorry example of router is pretty bad. It's more like running your phone but you have to specifically aim your antenna at each tower that you're passing while driving. The complexity is moving nature of the network and the targeting nature of the antennas. I have 0 clue if phone signals are targeted but I believe they are radial signals and more like a beacon than a laser. Load balancing these can be a pain as well because if you get too much signal on an antenna it can actually block all signal.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Or you are over the equator in a band that is used strictly for GEO. It's my understanding that this constellation is going to be significantly lower than GEO, so that's not a problem. Also, the dead zones are toward the poles, but those are mitigated in phase two.
  - bargl 8y ago
    There is another constellation system (I forget the name) and they're going to have a partnership with GEO to beam signals for customers as the satellites pass over the equator.
- tgtweak 8y ago
  With about a thousand being in your horizon at any given time I don't think it'll be an issue to roam between them. In a Metropolitan area it's not rare to be around dozens of cell sites. Likewise cellular roaming is quite transparent.
airnomad 8y ago
Why do they need approval for this? It's not like Space is owned by anyone?
- DowsingSpoon 8y ago
  The radio spectrum is limited, and belongs to the people. Careful regulation ensures it remains usable. Likewise, regulating orbits is important. For example, to limit potential damage from space debris.
- Rooster61 8y ago
  Why do owners of airplanes need approval to fly? It's not like the air is owned by anyone? Just because someone doesn't own something doesn't mean you can just launch stuff up there with no regard for other such things to be launched/already in the air. Things can and do collide, and the ramifications of that are actually much more dangerous when you don't have an atmosphere to pull the pieces down in the event of a collision.
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  For the communications, not the launch.
- vkou 8y ago
  When nobody owns something, we collectively own it. This means that we need to make sure that one bad, or reckless actor does not ruin it for everyone else. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
- count 8y ago
  But the path into space from the US is.
- randyrand 8y ago
  Political power comes from the barrel of a gun, and SpaceX is well within many country's sights. e.g. that's the law.
  - 8y ago
detritus 8y ago
This is probably a stupid thing to ask, but: Could this setup be hacked to provide a loose form of GPS?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Not stupid. Sort of. The term you're looking for multilateration (edit: i'm twisting the term a bit for my own use here, it's not exactly multilateration but it's not exactly triangulation either). Without looking at the RF specd in the FCC docs or the satellite hardware part list, I'm not sure if you could do it on the receiver, but it would be straightforward for the constellation visible to the receiver to triangulate a receiver's position and provide it over a maintenance channel to the terminal.
  - phkahler 8y ago
    The answer is probably yes, but it would be a side-effect since data transmission will be the primary purpose. Actually it may turn out to be pre-condition for getting the best throughput - i.e. knowing when and where the sats are and when your transmission window is to within a tight tolerance will be necessary and that's what you need for GPS.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - detritus 8y ago
    Thanks! I didn't know the term ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration ). I was thinking of WW2 radio pinging when I asked. I'm sort of imagining a software simulation that has real-time updates of sat positions - I assume more than 3 in any useful domain - that checks delay/ping against where the sats actually are.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- 8y ago
LastZactionHero 8y ago
According to Bloomberg, since there are currently fewer than 2,000 operating satellites, SpaceX’s new additions will dominate space. This number surprised me, much lower than I expected. Looked it up and I'm seeing varying numbers, but generally in the 1k-4k ballpark.
- dr_orpheus 8y ago
  This is for operating satellites, but the Air Force currently tracks ~21,000 pieces of debris in orbit (about anything larger than a baseball) around the earth.
- imperio59 8y ago
  SpaceX satellites will be much, much smaller though.
Rooster61 8y ago
This scares me a bit. The idea of having LEO internet is great and all, but the idea of quadrupling the number of functioning satellites, all operating in different orbits but at a similar altitude seems incredibly dangerous to me. The article mentions the movie Gravity, which is a bit unrealistic as it portrays multiple large bodies in orbit all being at about the same altitude (which isn't the case in reality). That is not the case with this web of satellites. If a chain reaction of collisions does occur, it would cause a field of tiny, fast, deadly debris all orbiting on a similar orbital "plane". It would pretty much blanket the planet. Wouldn't this cause a large issue for anything attempting to reach orbit? What am I missing here? EDIT: A lot of replies here mentioning the fact that LEO spacecraft decay more quickly than higher orbits. Please note that not all LEO orbits are low enough to guarantee a quick decay without powered retrograde thrust. Stuff can hang up there in LEO a long, long time depending on the actual altitude.
- wufufufu 8y ago
  This is a well informed answer to your question: https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-satellites-crash-into-each-other https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-satellites-crash-into-each-ot...
  - Rooster61 8y ago
    Thank you for the article, but it really doesn't answer my question. That thread's answers assume that we are talking about the current situation we have around the Earth. We have no precedent for this many satellites orbiting at the same altitude, but at different latitudes/longitudes (which negates the safeguard that they are moving at the same speed, it doesn't matter if they can intersect). The satellites would all need to be moving at both the same speed AND the same direction to not have a risk of collisions (which would of course be a circle, useless to this application).
    - ubercore 8y ago
      First, check out the video explaining the orbits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4&app=desktop https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4... Doing some quick math, the shell in which they'll be orbiting has a surface area of 373,367,808km. With ~7000 satellites, an even distribution would leave them 533,382 km between satellites. All the satellites have station keeping thrusters to keep them in LEO with drag. Keeping them from running into each other is probably pretty simple, in comparison to the other challenges they'll need to solve.
elteto 8y ago
This video [0] really puts into perspective what SpaceX is trying to accomplish. Incredible stuff if they pull it off! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4&app=desktop https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4...
- jessriedel 8y ago
  FYI, the constellation was revised and an updated video was made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU&feature=youtu.be
  - russellbeattie 8y ago
    That is amazing. Seeing the complexity of the grid is mind blowing - and the realization the blocks representing the satellites are the size of cities makes you realize how big space is. That said, future launches are going to have to run a gauntlet...
    - jonplackett 8y ago
      It seems like that doesn't it, but space is MASSIVE. Imagine if there were only 7000 people spread out on the face of the earth, would you be worried you'd accidentally run into one of them? These things are up another few hundred miles so are even more spaced out than that.
      - jessriedel 8y ago
        This is true but not as useful an intuition as it first appears. The major difference for satellites is that everything in low-Earth orbit is traveling at ~8 km/s, so the spatial volume they traverse in any amount of time can be surprisingly large. A cubic-meter satellite traverses 250 cubic kilometers of volume in a year. (If you want to get an order-of-magnitude estimate for collision frequency, you imagine one satellite occupies it's normal volume and the other occupies the traversal volume, and then just ask what the chance is that those volumes overlap, given the amount of space above the Earth within the altitude range of the orbits.) And indeed, there has already been an accidental satellite-satellite collision (not just satellite-debris collision). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision The Iridium constellation has about ~80 satellites, and one passes within 5km of another satellite about 50 times/day.
thinkcontext 8y ago
The fact that SpaceX can piggyback on its own customers' launches to put these in orbit is a significant advantage over competing communication constellations. Depending on the cost of their satellites it might make sense to use launching them as a means of testing the upper limits of reusability of their rockets. IE, they might not want to risk a customer payload on a rocket that has made 10 launches. But if they are going to build 7,518 satellites the marginal cost is likely to be rather low so it might be worth it to push the risk threshold to stretch the number of trips per rocket. Also, it could be a good opportunity to clear out their inventory of pre-block 5 Falcon 9s.
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  I would be surprised if they launch many of the satellites on customer launches. They have some very specific orbits, and are planning on dropping the satellites off in orbits much lower than where they will actually be operating. It would probably be more fuel efficient to drop off a bunch of them in the right inclination all at once, then boost them up into spaced out orbits.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    It's possible that they will use reflown Falcon 9s that have exceeded their reuse capability (~10 launches) to deliver these satellites. You're only paying for the propellant, the oxidizer, the second stage, and your fixed operations cost; the rest of the vehicle has been amortized through paying customer flights.
    - soperj 8y ago
      They only reuse the first stage at this point, so still a lot of cost there.
- wolf550e 8y ago
  All pre block 5 boosters are either retired or had been disposed of. https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/cores https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/cores
porscheburnaby 8y ago
goodbye, great firewall of china...
- nickik 8y ago
  Why. China can just force SpaceX to turn off over China. Unless this is part of a political 'Radio Free Europe' style operation China will control this as much as everything else.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Why. China can just force SpaceX to turn off over China. How? By shooting down satellites?
    - mrep 8y ago
      Yes, they can do that [0]. However, the easier option is to just scan for the right EM waves on the ground and go after the people using the illegal network. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...
      - stcredzero 8y ago
        Yes, they can do that [0]. But it's a crappy enough move, it's not certain they would. However, the easier option is to just scan for the right EM waves on the ground and go after the people using the illegal network. So someone just has to figure out a way to hide the uplink.
        greedo 8y ago
        "not certain they would." This is a country that has the GF. One that routinely oppresses its citizens. One that gives its citizens a social rating that can prevent them from traveling etc etc. If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that the CCP will find a way of stopping access to this. If it takes hacking into SpaceX, shooting down 12K satellites, etc, it will. Maintaining power is what the CCP does. "hide the uplink" Kind of hard to hide EM transmitters that aren't going to be designed for special ops teams...
XJOKOLAT 8y ago
Space pollution.

i think the price should be around 35 dollars per month

mtgx 8y ago
$29 (or less) for 1Gbps would probably give American ISP executives night sweats.
- abledon 8y ago
  after hearing this news i've invested in the Vanguard adult diaper ETF.
- taf2 8y ago
  I was hoping for $1 or less that opens the world up to unblocked high speed internet. Imagine the signal that is not blocked by any national firewalls
  - bhelkey 8y ago
    The satellites alone are expected to cost at least 10 billion USD [1]. Add in the antenna on the ground and it seems exceedingly unlikely that this will go for $1 a month. [1] - https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/05/block-5-spacex-increase-launch-cadence-lower-prices/ https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/05/block-5-spacex-incre...
- lccarrasco 8y ago
  I live in Bolivia, South America, the impact a global ISP would have cannot be overstated, in developing countries internet prices are still extremely expensive, up until a month ago I was paying around USD 60 for 10Mbps, and that was the best price I could find in my city, the second largest in the country.
  - napsterbr 8y ago
    Yep, same here (Brazil). I suppose SpaceX plans to start with us-only offerings. I also suppose it will take a while until it reaches developing countries. Does anyone have a better take on this?
    - elihu 8y ago
      The satellites will be everywhere, so not having offerings outside the US seems like it would be leaving money on the table. I could imagine it might take them awhile just to manage the logistics of selling a product in many countries, though. Maybe they'll partner with established companies for that part?
    - Tuna-Fish 8y ago
      The satellites are not stationary, but go around the earth. This means that to get good coverage in the US, they actually have to provide good coverage everywhere near the same latitudes (on both sides of the equator). Since the satellites in the southern hemisphere will have nothing better to do and have less demand, they are probably going to start rolling out service everywhere they can at the same time. Most of Brazil is actually a bit out of luck in that it's too near the equator, so satellite density overhead will not be that great anywhere but the very southernmost areas until there are lot of the birds in the sky, so you won't have service immediately. But places like Chile and Argentina will have great access pretty quickly. However, as a caveat to that the receiving antennas will be expensive at the start and SpaceX still has to negotiate access to spectrum in every country separately, and in poorer countries this will most likely have to be paid for, so that will hike the prices up.
      - baq 8y ago
        Frequencies aren’t free, spacex will need to buy the rights for each country separately and that costs serious money. Unless they somehow don’t have to do that for whatever reason...
        nickik 8y ago
Tuna-Fish 8y ago
At the beginning, it will be nowhere near that. The price of the receiving antenna alone will be in the range of $10k-$1k. So for the first phase they are mostly interested in providing backhaul for remote cell towers and the like, and service for the odd people living in the sticks who are willing to pay through the nose for the ability to have both great internet and live in the middle of nowhere. Then, once the antennas are in proper mass production and cheap enough, they have an investment of a couple of $B worth of satellites to pay for. So long as they can provide something no other ISP can (low-latency access in the middle of nowhere), I very much doubt their prices will be lower than those ISPs.
tomatotomato37 8y ago
For a ~$10 billion constellation with an individual satellite lifespan of 5 years, the system would need to average ~$170 million per month for something resembling break-even. Current US satellite internet adoption is at 6.7% percent; push that up to 10% so I have some number to work with when accounting for market penetration and the rest of the world, and you’re looking at 32.5 million users, which sets an absolute price floor of $5.25 a month. Give it margins that actually make this remotely profitable and $20 a month for service wouldn't be unrealistic; the upfront costs of the uplink would probably still kill you though. Edit: Did some more research on competitors. It seems ViaSat currently has 1.1 billion invested in its 2 active GEOs, plus whatever’s currently going in their next generation constellation. Their bargain bin plan goes for $70 a month (fun fact, they too pull the 3 month deal BS landline ISPs do) up to $200 a month. Since it only has a single real competitor it probably services 3% of the US population, so with their midplan of $150 a month over 9.75 million users into a satellite constellation with a lifespan of 8 years they are charging in the neighborhood of %12,700 over their satellite breakeven (1.46 billion month revenue over 11.46 million per month payback). Bringing that over to a $10 billion constellation with much more premium internet, yikes.
- ryanmarsh 8y ago
  Current US satellite internet adoption is at 6.7% percent Current US satellite adoption doesn't matter in this case because the new product would not suck. Satellite internet is not a viable competitor today for the various reasons others have stated here. Starlink however would compete directly with my DSL service and since I (and pretty much everyone else) hate our telco, the sky is the limit as they say.
  - shaklee3 8y ago
    That's completely wrong. It's 100% not going to compete with DSL. It will be used by enterprise, or people who pay $100+/more to offset equipment costs. The reason satellite internet costs so much is equipment cost.
    - kartickv 8y ago

Does anyone have any context on what sort of internet speeds satellite internet has been benchmarked to provide. I can't imagine the latency being anywhere near good enough to do many of the high bandwidth things people use the internet for today.

CarVac 8y ago
You're conflating bandwidth and latency. Not much needs both high bandwidth and low latency. The latency has the potential to be better than the current internet backbone when going intercontinental due to straighter paths, but it'll be higher when going to your local AWS, probably. Bandwidth is anyone's guess.
- zw123456 8y ago
  The amount of BW is based on how much spectrum you have (see Shannon's Law). I am not sure how much they have. Also, I am not sure they will have enough power to provide in building service.
  - Tuna-Fish 8y ago
    > Also, I am not sure they will have enough power to provide in building service. The issue for that is the wavelengths they are using. Their properties basically completely rule out any kind of in-building service, there needs to be a clear uninterrupted path between the receiver and the transmitter. (But they penetrate water well, so should not have a problem with clouds.)
    - zw123456 8y ago
      FCC-18-38A1.pdf say 10.7Ghz - 12.7Ghz, that's a lot of spectrum. Depending on the SINR they get, which depends on the power, antenna sizes etc. you could get some pretty good speeds, probably above 100Mbps. But at those frequencies not likely to have any in car or in building. You can penetrate a building with higher frequencies if you have high enough power levels, but not from a satellite. So to use it you will have to install an antenna on the roof of your house.

cronix 8y ago

This will probably be the first botnet in space, once some clever kid or nation state figures out how. That's a lot of firepower floating around.

Rebelgecko 8y ago

Is there anyone who knows more about radio stuff that can explain why they want to have both Ku and V band for users? It it just a matter of having more spectrum? Or are some bands more suited to crowded areas, like a city where there might be lots of customers sharing bandwidth? Do you need different hardware for using the different frequencies?

deleted 8y ago
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dr_orpheus 8y ago
There are a few possible reasons for using multiple bands. With the higher frequency of the V band you can very high data rates down to the ground. However, higher frequency RF will be very attenuated by rainfall [0]. So the Ku band could be used as a backup to the V band. The V band (or optical links) will also likely be used for the inter-satellite communication. You do typically need different hardware for using the different frequencies. With some of the more advanced software defined radios, you could use both of the at the same baseband within the same radio. But you will still need some sort of frequency conversion [1]. You will likely need different antennas for each band as well. And to get an efficient system you also want to add filters for each band. [0] http://happy.emu.id.au/lab/rep/rep/9510/txtspace/9510_032.htm http://happy.emu.id.au/lab/rep/rep/9510/txtspace/9510_032.ht... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-noise_block_downconverter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-noise_block_downconverter
- shaklee3 8y ago
  The higher data rates come from the fact that there is a lot more spectrum available in the v band. From what I remember there is about 4 to 5 gigahertz usable there. Ka-band has about 2-3GHz, and Ku about 1. as you mentioned, attenuation is one of the factors why you wouldn't use v band. Another reason is that it uses quite a bit more power, and the RF electronics are much more expensive and rare.

zaroth 8y ago

Too bad the public markets have given Elon such a lashing with Tesla, because I would love to buy into SpaceX. But then, I’m not the only one; “There is an unlimited amount of funding that the company could probably access globally in private markets," Hilmer said, adding that he has personally met many of "a diverse group" interested in SpaceX. Everywhere I travel around the world, investors of all types — individuals, family offices, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds or private equity — want to get into SpaceX," Hilmer said. "It's almost all investors I talk to." Of course at the same time I’m happy they aren’t public. The market couldn’t handle the time horizons that SpaceX operates under, nor the mission statement that drives them. [1] - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/equidate-spacex-27-billion-valuation-shows-unlimited-private-funding-available.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/equidate-spacex-27-billion-v...

dv_dt 8y ago
I read that as there is a lot of money that wants to piggyback on the success of SpaceX instead of fundamentally developing anything via their own investments.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  What do you think investment is exactly?
  - dv_dt 8y ago
    I think that systemic interest in investment in fundamental economic improvements has declined while systemic investment in financial vehicles (pardon the pun) is rampant. This would be ok if the financial vehicles were connected to economic well being, but that link is increasingly tenuous. It basically takes a crazy, put it all on the line billionaire to assemble technologies, but why doesn't the economic system regularly do this? Musk is great, but I think his skill, much like Jobs, is excellent integration of a number of existing technological possibilities. Why is Musk, as an individual, the one of the few that can do that at scale, vs industries that have in actuality more resources than Musk.

rdxm 8y ago

This is bad, plain and simple, for a variety of reasons. It's a regulatory failure based on the incompetence of the federal government (which at this point is playin gout on a daily basis)..

TenJack 8y ago

Do they need more than US approval to launch satellites into international space?

ceejayoz 8y ago
Per the Outer Space Treaty, no. Under it, space is free for the use and exploration of all countries. The US is liable for SpaceX in-space fuckups, though - if they crash a satellite into something, the US is responsible.
AimForTheBushes 8y ago
Good question. I doubt the Russians or Chinese consult the FCC for launches.
greglindahl 8y ago
This FCC approval is to be able to talk between orbit and the ground in the US. SpaceX needs approval from other countries for the same, in order to offer service there. Launch approvals are a separate thing.

creeble 8y ago

Curious how this will pan out. It's a shocking contrast to be in or near a city and have broadband speeds, and then be just a few dozen miles outside one and have... literally nothing. I just loaned my Iridium phone to a friend who was going to the jungle, and although he was able to make the data connection work, even doing email at 2400 baud(!) proved useless. Inmarsat is faster, but vastly more expensive. Outside of those two, there is no global solution.

aportnoy 8y ago
Iridium already employs SpaceX for their launches.
- dzhiurgis 8y ago
  What's perplexing is why Iridium is not doing way more. They are essentially just letting SpaceX to cannibalise them. Sure, they don't have fancy rockets, but still can scale their satellite net before Elon catches up with sat tech or outsource launches to even cheaper Indian launch provider. p.s. the story of Iridium and how they recovered is quite amazing.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    I think the more amazing part of Iridium’s story is that they got the money to launch their constellation in the first place. It’s crushing debt and inevitable bankruptcy with the assets being acquired for something like 1/20th of a cent on the dollar was to be expected really.
    - manquer 8y ago
      Iridium is around now. Both their next gen and the old gen. SpaceX will take atleast 5-7 years to get full coverage. The customer base of iridium is very different than what SpaceX is targeting.. there should be room for more than one player
stcredzero 8y ago

bargl 8y ago

This is such a cool problem. We already have a ton of Geo sat which can do this kind of communication but they are super expensive and have a limited bandwidth. These satellites will actually have a ton of limitations in how much data they can send around and how they'll have to balance out their signals. Geo are easier to point to because, well they don't move. But these are going to be moving and changing all the time so you'll have to connect to multiple satellites every day. I'm spit balling here but they'll probably be overhead for 10 minutes? Think about switching your router every 10 minutes. Or you get a rainy day and your signal clarity goes down. Or you are over the equator in a band that is used strictly for GEO. This is going to be a super cool problem to solve. And I'm sure I don't even understand the half of it. Edit: Sorry example of router is pretty bad. It's more like running your phone but you have to specifically aim your antenna at each tower that you're passing while driving. The complexity is moving nature of the network and the targeting nature of the antennas. I have 0 clue if phone signals are targeted but I believe they are radial signals and more like a beacon than a laser. Load balancing these can be a pain as well because if you get too much signal on an antenna it can actually block all signal.

reaperducer 8y ago
Or you are over the equator in a band that is used strictly for GEO. It's my understanding that this constellation is going to be significantly lower than GEO, so that's not a problem. Also, the dead zones are toward the poles, but those are mitigated in phase two.
- bargl 8y ago
  There is another constellation system (I forget the name) and they're going to have a partnership with GEO to beam signals for customers as the satellites pass over the equator.
tgtweak 8y ago
With about a thousand being in your horizon at any given time I don't think it'll be an issue to roam between them. In a Metropolitan area it's not rare to be around dozens of cell sites. Likewise cellular roaming is quite transparent.

airnomad 8y ago

Why do they need approval for this? It's not like Space is owned by anyone?

DowsingSpoon 8y ago
The radio spectrum is limited, and belongs to the people. Careful regulation ensures it remains usable. Likewise, regulating orbits is important. For example, to limit potential damage from space debris.
Rooster61 8y ago
Why do owners of airplanes need approval to fly? It's not like the air is owned by anyone? Just because someone doesn't own something doesn't mean you can just launch stuff up there with no regard for other such things to be launched/already in the air. Things can and do collide, and the ramifications of that are actually much more dangerous when you don't have an atmosphere to pull the pieces down in the event of a collision.
amanaplanacanal 8y ago
For the communications, not the launch.
vkou 8y ago
When nobody owns something, we collectively own it. This means that we need to make sure that one bad, or reckless actor does not ruin it for everyone else. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
count 8y ago
But the path into space from the US is.
randyrand 8y ago
Political power comes from the barrel of a gun, and SpaceX is well within many country's sights. e.g. that's the law.
- 8y ago

detritus 8y ago

This is probably a stupid thing to ask, but: Could this setup be hacked to provide a loose form of GPS?

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Not stupid. Sort of. The term you're looking for multilateration (edit: i'm twisting the term a bit for my own use here, it's not exactly multilateration but it's not exactly triangulation either). Without looking at the RF specd in the FCC docs or the satellite hardware part list, I'm not sure if you could do it on the receiver, but it would be straightforward for the constellation visible to the receiver to triangulate a receiver's position and provide it over a maintenance channel to the terminal.
- phkahler 8y ago
  The answer is probably yes, but it would be a side-effect since data transmission will be the primary purpose. Actually it may turn out to be pre-condition for getting the best throughput - i.e. knowing when and where the sats are and when your transmission window is to within a tight tolerance will be necessary and that's what you need for GPS.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- detritus 8y ago
  Thanks! I didn't know the term ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration ). I was thinking of WW2 radio pinging when I asked. I'm sort of imagining a software simulation that has real-time updates of sat positions - I assume more than 3 in any useful domain - that checks delay/ping against where the sats actually are.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
8y ago

LastZactionHero 8y ago

According to Bloomberg, since there are currently fewer than 2,000 operating satellites, SpaceX’s new additions will dominate space. This number surprised me, much lower than I expected. Looked it up and I'm seeing varying numbers, but generally in the 1k-4k ballpark.

dr_orpheus 8y ago
This is for operating satellites, but the Air Force currently tracks ~21,000 pieces of debris in orbit (about anything larger than a baseball) around the earth.
imperio59 8y ago
SpaceX satellites will be much, much smaller though.

Rooster61 8y ago

This scares me a bit. The idea of having LEO internet is great and all, but the idea of quadrupling the number of functioning satellites, all operating in different orbits but at a similar altitude seems incredibly dangerous to me. The article mentions the movie Gravity, which is a bit unrealistic as it portrays multiple large bodies in orbit all being at about the same altitude (which isn't the case in reality). That is not the case with this web of satellites. If a chain reaction of collisions does occur, it would cause a field of tiny, fast, deadly debris all orbiting on a similar orbital "plane". It would pretty much blanket the planet. Wouldn't this cause a large issue for anything attempting to reach orbit? What am I missing here? EDIT: A lot of replies here mentioning the fact that LEO spacecraft decay more quickly than higher orbits. Please note that not all LEO orbits are low enough to guarantee a quick decay without powered retrograde thrust. Stuff can hang up there in LEO a long, long time depending on the actual altitude.

wufufufu 8y ago
This is a well informed answer to your question: https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-satellites-crash-into-each-other https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-satellites-crash-into-each-ot...
- Rooster61 8y ago
  Thank you for the article, but it really doesn't answer my question. That thread's answers assume that we are talking about the current situation we have around the Earth. We have no precedent for this many satellites orbiting at the same altitude, but at different latitudes/longitudes (which negates the safeguard that they are moving at the same speed, it doesn't matter if they can intersect). The satellites would all need to be moving at both the same speed AND the same direction to not have a risk of collisions (which would of course be a circle, useless to this application).
  - ubercore 8y ago
    First, check out the video explaining the orbits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4&app=desktop https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4... Doing some quick math, the shell in which they'll be orbiting has a surface area of 373,367,808km. With ~7000 satellites, an even distribution would leave them 533,382 km between satellites. All the satellites have station keeping thrusters to keep them in LEO with drag. Keeping them from running into each other is probably pretty simple, in comparison to the other challenges they'll need to solve.

elteto 8y ago

This video [0] really puts into perspective what SpaceX is trying to accomplish. Incredible stuff if they pull it off! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4&app=desktop https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4...

jessriedel 8y ago
FYI, the constellation was revised and an updated video was made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU&feature=youtu.be
- russellbeattie 8y ago
  That is amazing. Seeing the complexity of the grid is mind blowing - and the realization the blocks representing the satellites are the size of cities makes you realize how big space is. That said, future launches are going to have to run a gauntlet...
  - jonplackett 8y ago
    It seems like that doesn't it, but space is MASSIVE. Imagine if there were only 7000 people spread out on the face of the earth, would you be worried you'd accidentally run into one of them? These things are up another few hundred miles so are even more spaced out than that.
    - jessriedel 8y ago
      This is true but not as useful an intuition as it first appears. The major difference for satellites is that everything in low-Earth orbit is traveling at ~8 km/s, so the spatial volume they traverse in any amount of time can be surprisingly large. A cubic-meter satellite traverses 250 cubic kilometers of volume in a year. (If you want to get an order-of-magnitude estimate for collision frequency, you imagine one satellite occupies it's normal volume and the other occupies the traversal volume, and then just ask what the chance is that those volumes overlap, given the amount of space above the Earth within the altitude range of the orbits.) And indeed, there has already been an accidental satellite-satellite collision (not just satellite-debris collision). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision The Iridium constellation has about ~80 satellites, and one passes within 5km of another satellite about 50 times/day.

thinkcontext 8y ago

The fact that SpaceX can piggyback on its own customers' launches to put these in orbit is a significant advantage over competing communication constellations. Depending on the cost of their satellites it might make sense to use launching them as a means of testing the upper limits of reusability of their rockets. IE, they might not want to risk a customer payload on a rocket that has made 10 launches. But if they are going to build 7,518 satellites the marginal cost is likely to be rather low so it might be worth it to push the risk threshold to stretch the number of trips per rocket. Also, it could be a good opportunity to clear out their inventory of pre-block 5 Falcon 9s.

Rebelgecko 8y ago
I would be surprised if they launch many of the satellites on customer launches. They have some very specific orbits, and are planning on dropping the satellites off in orbits much lower than where they will actually be operating. It would probably be more fuel efficient to drop off a bunch of them in the right inclination all at once, then boost them up into spaced out orbits.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  It's possible that they will use reflown Falcon 9s that have exceeded their reuse capability (~10 launches) to deliver these satellites. You're only paying for the propellant, the oxidizer, the second stage, and your fixed operations cost; the rest of the vehicle has been amortized through paying customer flights.
  - soperj 8y ago
    They only reuse the first stage at this point, so still a lot of cost there.
wolf550e 8y ago
All pre block 5 boosters are either retired or had been disposed of. https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/cores https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/cores

porscheburnaby 8y ago

goodbye, great firewall of china...

nickik 8y ago
Why. China can just force SpaceX to turn off over China. Unless this is part of a political 'Radio Free Europe' style operation China will control this as much as everything else.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Why. China can just force SpaceX to turn off over China. How? By shooting down satellites?
  - mrep 8y ago
    Yes, they can do that [0]. However, the easier option is to just scan for the right EM waves on the ground and go after the people using the illegal network. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      Yes, they can do that [0]. But it's a crappy enough move, it's not certain they would. However, the easier option is to just scan for the right EM waves on the ground and go after the people using the illegal network. So someone just has to figure out a way to hide the uplink.
      - greedo 8y ago
        "not certain they would." This is a country that has the GF. One that routinely oppresses its citizens. One that gives its citizens a social rating that can prevent them from traveling etc etc. If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that the CCP will find a way of stopping access to this. If it takes hacking into SpaceX, shooting down 12K satellites, etc, it will. Maintaining power is what the CCP does. "hide the uplink" Kind of hard to hide EM transmitters that aren't going to be designed for special ops teams...

XJOKOLAT 8y ago

Space pollution.