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Starlink – SpaceX’s broadband internet system
- chipperyman573 7y agoAm I missing something? I feel like this website has no actual information on it. It's just pretty pictures and a bit text that doesn't talk about anything new.
- grey-area 7y agoThe first 60 satellites launched last night.
- FPGAhacker 7y agohttps://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/spacex-returns-its-falcon-9-to-the-pad-for-another-starlink-launch-attempt/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/spacex-returns-its-f...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- crakenzak 7y agoVery excited about this. What's interesting is the deployment mechanism, where they almost use the momentum of the rocket to "fling" the 60 tightly packed satellites away from the booster, and then after about 3 hours they fire up the Krypton ion thrusters and start the course correction phase. IIRC the only other times this deployment mechanism is used is on tiny CubeSats where they opt for this more conglomerating type of deployment due to the durability of the CubeSats. Will definitely be getting service for some family members in Northern Africa where incredibly slow speeds are charged high prices if Starlink can compete on price.
- Simple_Guy 7y ago>where they almost use the momentum of the rocket to "fling" this is compulsory anyway due to physics.
- apexalpha 7y agoWhy? You could also just use a spring to push it out.
- DarmokJalad1701 7y agoAnd what happens to the rocket from the reaction force from the spring?
- ceejayoz 7y agoNothing, because you used a spring to launch the other satellite on the other side of the payload at the same time. Or, you just use thrusters, like the ones that launched from the Shuttle did.
- TrevorJ 7y agoNot really, the rocket and the payload would have the same momentum unless an additional force is applied between them.
- NotSammyHagar 7y agoLast night at the sat. launch there was almost no fling effect. They slowly floated away in a group, hardly separated. I thought they could have had some mechanical problem.
- programmarchy 7y ago> ion thrusters powered by krypton > autonomously perform maneuvers to avoid collisions with space debris and other spacecraft Pretty cool. Also, the north and south pole are conspicuously avoided by Starlink, confirming my suspicions about the locations of intergalactic space ports.
- downrightmike 7y agoThose are actually where the secret entrances to the Lizard people's land are at.
- HNLurker2 7y agoYes and flat Earth conspiracy about the south poll and North Pole
- M4v3R 7y agoThis sentence reads like science fiction. I had to google “krypton ion thrusters” to make sure it wasn’t a joke. It seems it was not. Very cool.
- shmerl 7y agoWhere do they get more krypton? Or they have limited fuel?
- ls612 7y agoLimited fuel. Thing is that ion thrusters have very very high specific impulse so you get a lot of oomph from them, especially if all you are doing is LEO stationkeeping.
- wtallis 7y agoLimited fuel, but ion thrusters are at least an order of magnitude more efficient (specific impulse) than the usual chemical propellants. The downside is low thrust, but these satellites can be patient when maneuvering between orbits.
- 7y ago
- isoprophlex 7y agoSuper exciting! Ion thrusters! I thought this was some scifi stuff, straight out of kerbal space program. But they appear to be actually viable!
- agildehaus 7y agoSpaceX actually launched the first all-electric ion propulsion satellite, ABS-3A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABS-3A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABS-3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI0Z68Yv5Ms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI0Z68Yv5Ms
- saagarjha 7y agoIon thrusters are nothing new: they've been used in space for over 50 years.
- greedo 7y agoI wonder if they'll start using Twin Ion Engines anytime soon?
- stcredzero 7y agoHaving two will offer some redundancy. You could probably signal process the RF given off by them to get to exactly the right mechanical screaming sound. The ISS already has the right kind of segmented cupola window.
- mmcclure 7y agoIs there any information out there about what the terrestrial requirements to actually use this service are going to be? Is it going to require antennas similar to line-of-sight microwave internet providers like Monkeybrains? How much is that hardware expected to cost? The satellites themselves, the way they're being deployed, what altitude they'll be in orbit...all of that is really fascinating, but I'm very curious what this is actually going to look like to use.
- stupidcar 7y agoI don't think they've announced much regarding the pricing or specifics of the terminals, but Musk has said in an interview they will require an antenna array with line of sight, and will be about the size of a pizza box.
- gpm 7y agoI think there was an interview where they talked about aiming to get the cost of a base station down to ~$200 (some number of hundreds, think it was two). That was probably cost to SpaceX not an end user though, and it obviously doesn't include cost of service.
- stupidcar 7y agoMost people probably won't buy the terminal outright, though, I expect? You'll just buy a Starlink subscription with a fixed initial term and they'll lease you the terminal as part of that.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoPeople pay $1000 for an iPhone. I don’t think $200 upfront is onerous.
- Kye 7y agoPeople in areas this is meant for don't pay $1000 for iPhones.
- jerkstate 7y agoCool! I noticed that it uses a star map to locate itself, like the SR-71 blackbird did before the time of GPS. Is this novel or common for satellites?
- 0n34n7 7y agoThere is no GPS in orbit. You need a point of reference and stars are pretty (99.99x10^zillion)% reliable, and yes, the SRS used the same idea.
- bagels 7y agoThere is still GPS in leo. It can use more power than some smaller satellites can budget for is a reason it's not always used.
- blkhawk 7y agowho gave you that impression - ofc there is GPS in orbit. it is just that the usual commercial GPS software refuses to deliver coordinates above a certain height or a certain speed. this is ostensible to prevent GPS from being used in non American ICBM and cruise missile weapons. the GPS birds are in a 20k km orbit and you should be able to use them just fine at lower orbits (starlink sats are planned to be in several fairly low orbit shells 320/550km). I suspect you can even use GPS all the way out to say the moon if you are a bit creative. (catching GPS sats coming aroud the earth for positioning, or using a special dish antenna to get reflected GPS signals)
- wcoenen 7y ago> 20k km A double metric "kilo" prefix like that feels awkward. I know it's common, but I've always felt that we should just say "megameter" instead. (Also, a metric ton should just be called a "megagram".)
- lmm 7y agoAgreed with megameter, but disagree with tonne: the kilogram is the base unit that physical constants etc. are measured against (e.g. Newton's constant is measured in Newton meter squareds per kilogram squared). It can be less confusing to talk about microkilograms than grams when doing physics.
- skunkworker 7y agoSo by the end of the year (best case) they will start commercial service after 6 launches. And plan on 2-6 more this year. This could have a huge impact on people wanting to live out of a van remotely and still be connected.
- perilunar 7y agoOr a boat. When I can get cheap high-speed low-latency internet in the middle of the ocean then I'm buying a boat and going to sea.
- dzhiurgis 7y agoI do wonder how well Starlink's antenna will handle roll. Current VSAT require rather large boat, but this is probably different. I can see price for older boats increase purely due to Starlink. It's already somewhat cheap way of living and I do hope special tax provisions are made for people out in the ocean (I don't use any social benefits for paying my taxes in country X...)
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago> I do wonder how well Starlink's antenna will handle roll. I'm thinking some sort of stabilization technology similar to how they manage to land rockets on ships. But not rocket-powered, of course!
- pergadad 7y agoSo, technically what do you need to use their offering down the road? A satellite dish on the roof? Just a small antenna as built in in most phones today? And where do I sign up? :-)
- mulcahey 7y agoIt’s a “user terminal” about the size of a pizza that can be mounted in a roof. Since it’s a phased array the direction doesn’t matter (unlike a traditional dish for a geostationary satellite). Once they are producing them in volume they should be pretty cheap.
- dingaling 7y ago> Since it’s a phased array the direction doesn’t matter Of course it does matter, a phased array isn't magic. A steered antenna will have much better gain when the target is at low elevation, when a fixed phased array will be operating at very oblique angles.
- mulcahey 7y agoWhat I mean is you don’t have to point a dish within arcseconds to get a connection. You just have to make sure it’s facing upwards. Per the Starlink Wikipedia page: > Instead, it will be linked to flat user terminals the size of a pizza box, which will have phased array antennas and track the satellites. The terminals can be mounted anywhere, as long as they can see the sky
- sundvor 7y agoVery cool, and slick website add well. Hoping to see coverage added for Australia!
- 32032141 7y agoWhat an absolutely worthless website. "Your browser does not support WebGL"
- ritz_labringue 7y agoWell, the website is actually pretty nice, maybe it's time for you to get a modern browser.
- diggan 7y agoEven so, the website is just static content basically (except the globe at the top that you can rotate) so requiring webgl for the entire website (or even JS) feels a bit too much. Could just have hidden the globe if webgl/js is not enabled.
- Raphmedia 7y agoI am on cutting edge chrome with a decent enough workstation and the site crashed my entire Chrome.
- pkaye 7y agoWhich browser do you use?
- edflsafoiewq 7y agoIt's also quite large. 12MB. Odd choices, given who I expect to be interested in satellite internet. But its just tech porn right now after all.
- msh 7y agoSelling point ;) If you get starlink even the starlink website would load quickly!
- galaxyLogic 7y agoHow will they avoid these satellites from becoming space debris themselves in the end?
- consumer451 7y agoAccording to the linked site: > KEEPING SPACE CLEAN > Starlink is on the leading edge of on-orbit debris mitigation, meeting or exceeding all regulatory and industry standards. > At end of life, the satellites will utilize their on-board propulsion system to deorbit over the course of a few months. In the unlikely event the propulsion system becomes inoperable, the satellites will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere within 1-5 years, significantly less than the hundreds or thousands of years required at higher altitudes.
- p1mrx 7y agoThat's cool, they're using solar-powered ion propulsion to compensate for the atmospheric drag inherent in low earth orbit. So from a space debris standpoint, it's "walk away safe" in that a dead satellite can do nothing but fall into the atmosphere.
- Illniyar 7y ago"Starlink satellites are equipped with efficient ion thrusters powered by krypton that enable the satellites to orbit raise, maneuver in space, and deorbit at the end of their useful life. Starlink is the first krypton propelled spacecraft ever flown."
- csunbird 7y agoIt is mentioned within the article : Either they will be de-orbited by their own ion thrusters or they will fall on earth their own within a year to 5 years.
- Causality1 7y ago>At end of life, the satellites will utilize their on-board propulsion system to deorbit over the course of a few months. In the unlikely event the propulsion system becomes inoperable, the satellites will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere within 1-5 years So, how long a lifespan do these satellites have if their propulsion system works properly to keep them in orbit?
- rmarcil1 7y ago5 yrs. So, 2,000 replacements a yr - that's alot of rockets.
- Causality1 7y agoFive years if the propulsion fails. Presumably the propulsion is being used to maintain orbit, thus extending that lifetime.
- cocoggu 7y agoThat's amazing, As a foreigner living in China, I'm wondering if such network can be technically prevented from being used in covered land/countries? How cool would it be to finally get an unrestricted access to the Internet here. But I'm probably just dreaming.
- debatem1 7y agoIt can be legally prevented, although the enforcement mechanisms are murky. To the best of my knowledge they've never made a public claim either way.
- consumer451 7y agoI imagine the same countries[0] that don't allow satellite phones won't allow Starlink. [0] https://www.outfittersatellite.com/Countries-with-Satellite-Phone-Restrictions_b_11.html https://www.outfittersatellite.com/Countries-with-Satellite-...
- Thlom 7y agoI believe the issue in f.ex. India is not censorship and population control, but rather a slow bureaucracy and in-fights between different government departments and the military. That said, things are changing in India. BSNL were just issued a license for offering IFMC services, including KA-band and L-band services.
- diggan 7y agoMost probably, to use Starlink, they would have to abide by local laws and regulation. So in the case of China, I don't think the connection would be any different from what you can find consumer ISPs today. Or Starlink simply skips China.
- tlrobinson 7y agoAFAIK foreign satellite phone operators don't modify their service over China, but satellite phones are illegal to possess in China. I'd expect Starlink terminals would also be illegal to possess in China.
- shmerl 7y agoNo Antarctica coverage? It could be useful for research stations there.
- lightgreen 7y agoCould be useful underground and underwater, and on the Moon too! It is not reasonable to increase program cost by 50% just to provide internet to 1000 people living in Antarctica, who already have satellite internet.
- wtallis 7y agoI really doubt it would be a 50% cost increase. They're already planning a few hundred satellites to fly in orbits with 81° inclination, which should provide some coverage for the coast of Antarctica. Adding a few dozen in a polar orbit would be more like a 0.6% increase in the total number of satellites planned, which I can imagine the military paying for with pocket change if the system as a whole proves to be successful.
- RealityVoid 7y agoBut, still, 0.6% increase in costs would be amortized over the lifespan of the project or not?
- wtallis 7y agoIf they added a polar orbit to the constellation, they would populate it with just one or two launches. So the costs of adding that polar coverage would be incurred basically all at once, and would have to be recouped over the lifetime of those satellites.
- pkaye 7y agoI'm sure the research stations already figured this out.
- sidcool 7y agoThis is an amazing achievement. The pace at which SpaceX is doing things is nothing short of a miracle. Congratulations team SpaceX. I can only feel envy at the super cool engineering being done there.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- stupidcar 7y agoSo, part of Musk's long-term play here has got to be, eventually, to include a Starlink terminal into every Tesla, right? Probably without even charging any subscription. You and your passengers get free broadband internet in the car, and Tesla get a high-bandwidth channel to every vehicle on the road, allowing them to stream live, high-fidelity telemetry data back to their HQ and push out software updates as and when they need to.
- devoply 7y agoBroadband in car all over US and Canada. Yes please!
- sneak 7y agoBroadband outside of cars all over planet Earth; much more important both from an economic standpoint and a geopolitical one.
- sdan 7y agoOne day they could possibly teleop cars autonomously (streaming sensor data to servers through the starlink terminals, then processing and sending output data back to the cars through the starlink terminals). Obviously latency is a huge factor in this, but it could be possible.
- deelowe 7y agoI think starlink is aiming for latency on par with terrestrial solutions (e.g. sub 30 ms rt).
- tlrobinson 7y agoInteresting possibility. I don't think it would make sense for teleop to be the normal mode of operation, since it would consume a ton of bandwidth, but maybe they could use human teleoperators to handle occasional edges cases between "level 3" and "level 5" autonomy, in particular for the autonomous ride-sharing network. They could colocate the teleoperators at Starlink ground stations to minimize latency, and prioritize teleop traffic.
- nostrademons 7y agoMaybe this could be what I'd hoped Google Fiber would be. Any information on latency/bandwidth/cost yet?
- ehsankia 7y agoLatency, being LEO, should be ~30ms, though it definitely depends on the number of satellites / coverage. Bandwidth can go up to a gigabit, but it's not clear how it'll be packaged and what the price will be.
- abledon 7y agoAnyone else do a double take at the word 'Krypton' and question whether that only existed in the superman DC universe?
- elamje 7y agoDefinitely
- qilo 7y agoKrypton (from Ancient Greek: κρυπτός, romanized: kryptos "the hidden one") is a chemical element with the symbol Kr and atomic number 36. It is a member of group 18 (noble gases) elements. A colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas, krypton occurs in trace amounts in the atmosphere and is often used with other rare gases in fluorescent lamps. With rare exceptions, krypton is chemically inert. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton
- Geee 7y agoI'm still pretty sure that krypton isn't a real element.
- elamje 7y agoWhat I don’t understand is how the Starlink satellites will connect to network clients. For instance, if you connect your phone to Starlink, does your phone have antennas powerful enough to propagate signal back into low earth orbit?? I can imagine satellites having powerful enough antennas/RF, but your cell phone? Any RF nerds know if this is easy to do?
- FullyFunctional 7y agoThey covered this. It's isn't for cellphones. You need a pizza-sized receiver on the ground. (EDIT: typo)
- modeless 7y agoClient devices will likely use Wifi/4G/5G to connect to a base station with a Starlink terminal. The terminal is too big and power hungry for a handheld device. But still, the ability to place a base station anywhere, even on a moving vehicle, is a game changer.
- FullyFunctional 7y agoSo no broadband in Greenland or northern Norway? If the graphics are accurate, Denmark gets high density coverage while north America is pretty sparse. I look forward to seeing more details.
- elisharobinson 7y agoopenAI + starlink = SKY NET its unclear if elon wants to avoid an ai apocalypse or just get ahead of it.
- pavs 7y agoa common misconception, OpenAI is not owned by Elon musk.
- elisharobinson 7y agomaybe i over simplified it a bit let me clarify. A Widely accessible sophisticated AI (openAI) with a strong block chain based incentive structure coupled with unrestricted access to the internet could possibly create an artificial organism which is self sustaining.
- ttsda 7y agoNot owned, but was partially funded by him.
- teekert 7y agoPretty cool, it doesn't even have to be fast to make a difference, even old modem speeds will allow for payments, messages etc. It would have made a big difference for these two girls [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Kris_Kremers_and_Lisanne_Froon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Kris_Kremers_and_Lis...
- abootstrapper 7y agoNot only is this technological amazing, hopefully it will provide competition to areas with monopolistic ISPs. More choices, lower prices, faster speeds!
- euph0ria 7y agoWhat would the actual latency be more or less for a consumer?
- rickycook 7y agothere has been mention that it could be lower latency for crossing the world, because of the speed of light in space is faster than through fibre the further your communication has to travel, the better starlink will be for latency
- euph0ria 7y agoI suppose there is latency just getting to the satellite and back that increases the overall latency as well?
- skunkworker 7y agoDepends on how far you want to go, the real advantages come if they have satellite to satellite laser links (which I believe are not on this first batch), that could significantly cut down latency between say New York and Sydney.
- nihil75 7y agoI don't get how upload is suppose to work.. In the 90's satellite internet the upload was sent via phone line / ISDN. Are we suppose to have powerful directional transmitters attached to our laptops? Or do they intend for the Starlink internet to be distributed via regional ground stations and just fail to mention it?
- wtallis 7y agoInitially, there will need to be a lot of regional ground stations, but not because of any asymmetry in the connection. End user base stations will use a phased array antenna similar to what the satellites themselves use, though probably a bit smaller. Ground stations will be very important early on, because these satellites do not include the planned laser links for communication between each other, so they can only bounce signals between end users and ground stations.
- nihil75 7y agoIt seems a 2 watt transmitter is sufficient for some upload capability, much like in satellite phones. The trick is phase modulation and such.
- citizen_v 7y agoPerhaps this is the beginning of interplanetary communication. I must admit, Earth is beginning to feel a bit “yesterday.”
- deanclatworthy 7y agoVery light in actual details. What does low latency mean? How low? What does high speed mean? How fast are we talking in real-world terms?
- Tuna-Fish 7y agoThe worst case (satellite as near the horizon as possible, so as far away from you as possible) speed of light lag for a signal to reach the sat is <3ms. Since a request-response cycle needs to hop 4 times (req up, req down, resp up, resp down) the worst case lag over a single satellite hop is <12ms. If the other endpoint is not within the field of view of the same sat as you, there needs to be a second hop, from the ground station up to the sat and back down again, which adds another up to 12ms, and so on and so on. Alternatively, they will likely put a ground station on top of all IXPs and from there the signal goes on fiber.
- atemerev 7y agoSo, “Skynet” name was already taken, I suppose? :)
- nexuist 7y agoIs it really an Elon project without the phrase "an order of magnitude" appearing anywhere? ;)
- backspaced 7y agoIt’s an extremely common phrase in science and engineering that has been in use since before Elon was born.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- nexuist 7y agoYes, I know, but Elon is also a marketing guy, and this is one of his tricks. Not saying it's a bad thing! I'm excited for Starlink and I think it will do good for the world.
- Baeocystin 7y agoDoes anyone know what that pulsing visible in the mylar of the second stage was? I've watched several SpaceX launches, and never noticed such a long-period (about a second) repeating 'thump' before. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=504&v=riBaVeDTEWI#t=17m2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=504&v=riBaVeDTEW... is when you can first see it. It's visible in the top view looking at the satellites as well.
- rblatz 7y agoI noticed that too! I texted a friend that works at SpaceX asking why does it look like the second stage has a heartbeat. I don’t have an answer but I’ll post back if I get one.
- soulofmischief 7y agoAt 18:00 it looks like a membrane inside the satellite stack is also pulsing?
- sdan 7y agoLooking at this and Google Loon, I think Google Loon (as far as I've seen) is a flop compared to this, given that this works to some extent. Google Loon's capabilities also seem subpar to this widespread network.
- Tuna-Fish 7y agoInterestingly, Google is believed to be the largest outside investor to Starlink. They decided to hedge their bets?
- jpm_sd 7y agoIt is typical for Google to fund multiple competing projects, whether internal or external, for almost anything the founders find interesting.
- zamu 7y agoFrom what I remember about Google Loon was that it could be deployed in areas after a disaster. That way any infrastructure that was unaffected by the disaster would not be brought down due to the influx of people trying to communicate to those in and out side the immediate area.
- jpm_sd 7y agoI worked on Loon for a few years. It's a different use case. At "only" 20km altitude, they are able to provide LTE service direct to standard handsets. Starlink requires a dedicated rooftop terminal with a phased array antenna.
- YjSe2GMQ 7y agoApart from the launch method - how is this going to be different from existing VSAT deployments? They're quite expensive (starting from ~thousand dollars per month): http://www.melatnetworks.com/price-list.asp http://www.melatnetworks.com/price-list.asp Or those, with prices around 50usd/gb: https://www.vsat-systems.com/service-offerings/VAR-VNO-Dealer/var-services/rate-plan/ https://www.vsat-systems.com/service-offerings/VAR-VNO-Deale... I doubt every Tesla will have one on board. LTE is so much cheaper. Quite useful for medium and large marine vessels, or truly remote locations tho.
- foota 7y agoI believe the primary difference between starlink and other satellite internet is that it will be lower down.
- skunkworker 7y agoTheir satellites are in Geostationary orbit (about 22,236 miles away). This constellation is at 400 miles. 22,236 in Lightseconds: 0.11936716 (one way) 400 in Ls: 0.0021472775. (assuming directly overhead) ~250ms round trip for GEO vs 4.2ms for LEO
- topbanana 7y agoI know this is quite niche, but as a keen amateur sailor I'm pretty excited about this.
- unixhero 7y agoThis is going to seriously disrupt the pricing models of existing telcos. Not necessarily the existing tech, but definitely the pricing demanded by Telcos of their consumers.
- hef19898 7y agoAssuming Starlink is cheaper per bandwidth than terrestrial fibre and 5G. As long as we don't see Starlink pricing, and more importantly cost, there is no way to tell.
- scandox 7y agoIn Ireland we've just agreed a 5 billion euro rural broadband scheme which will involve laying fibre that goes to 540,000 rural homes. 3 Billion is the cost to the state, 2 Billion is the private investment and the private company will own the infrastructure after (I think) 20 years or so. The whole thing is going take several years to become functional and I think 7 years to be fully functional. So my question is: how likely is it that something like Starlink could provide an alternative in any meaningful timeframe?
- hef19898 7y agoIf you ask me, not likely. Simply because the Starlink satellites will need to be replaced regularly. And thus will be expensive. While your terrestrial fibre is always there and easy to repair. Launching and building 12k satellites will also be very expensive and time consuming to begin with. But than reusing rocket boosters requires a certain number of launches to be economically feasible (I don't remember the correct number from the ESA (?) study I read a while ago). Just how Starlink will help SpaceX reach that number of launches and whether this results in overall profitability is the real question I have. But I guess this data will never be published...
- Tepix 7y agoStarlink will not just serve one country so the cost per country/customer goes down a lot.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoBut not enough to compete against efficiently deployed fiber in rural areas where you’re not ripping urban streets apart. It’ll be amazing for mobile users and developing countries though.
- rmarcil1 7y agoSpaceX cost for global coverage is about $2Bil, which needs to be replaced every 5 yrs. So about $.5Bil a yr. Maybe less than 10% that to satisfy Ireland. Can u wait 3 years?
- rezeroed 7y agoIn the UK it was too late for me to watch unfortunately.
- taf2 7y agoOnce this is globally available how would a nation state block access? Does a system like this really equalize access?
- ForHackernews 7y agoI'm sure you can just jam their signal. It's very easy to overpower a distant signal from space with a nearby transmitter and ground-based power.
- klohto 7y agoThat would require transmitters placed across the whole nation though, right?
- moftz 7y agoYes, these are phased array antennas on the ground so they can point right to the satellite as it passes overhead and ignore almost entirely everything nearby. By happenstance, this design also helps with reducing sidelobes on transmit and receive, the easiest ways that a third party could jam and detect this terminals. Unfortunately, this first generation of Starlink birds do not have intersatellite links meaning they still need a ground station somewhat nearby to provide the other end of the comm link. Even if you did sneak a terminal into a country, there wouldn't be any terminals nearby providing the internet connection anyway. One SpaceX figures out how to get the laser intersatellite link going, this will be a very lucrative business. I'm not exactly sure what the best use of this current generation of Starlink is, I guess it could provide backbone for rural cell towers. It sounds like it's totally useless for aircraft and ships out in the ocean (major Iridium customers) and too expensive for individual rural residential users. I'm sure it would be possible to setup small Starlink-based ISPs in rural areas that could use dark fiber lines or microwave links to provide internet for rural users.
- Neracked 7y ago> How would a nation state block access? Make it illegal to enter your country with an unauthorized receiver like India does for Iridium and various satellite phone services. Make a deal with the network and make it mandatory to use a local service provider or register SIM cards for visitors like Russia does for Iridium.
- jimmcslim 7y agoAs impressive as this is, I am gravely concerned that this (and the generally lower cost of entry to LEO these days) will drastically increase the chances of a Kessler Syndrome event sooner rather than later?
- klohto 7y agoNot really because Starlink is in a such low orbit, that any collision would just mean they fall not causing more damage. Worst case scenario would be that most of the Starlink fleet goes down.
- jimmcslim 7y agoDidn’t India’s recent anti-satellite missile test throw some debris into higher orbit where it became a potential (albeit brief) risk to the ISS?
- stevespang 7y agoKnowing Musk, the subscription price will be ridiculous.
- Liron 7y agoI hope they make a ton of profit from this and set an example of how our capitalist system can let you do great things for the human race if you navigate it strategically.
- village-idiot 7y agoI really wish they’d include some idea of how much it’ll cost to purchase the service.
- Tepix 7y agoI'm pretty sure it will depend on who you are and where you are. Supply and demand.
- village-idiot 7y agoPresumably a lot less different on a location basis because that’s the point of satellite internet.
- Tepix 7y agoBut in low income countries the price that gets you the most revenue will be lower than in high income countries.
- battletested 7y agoI don't like the animation on the website. I'd expect stationary satellites, not moving criss cross around the earth. Or will they not be stationary? This is confusing..
- isostatic 7y agoThey aren't in geostationary, so they won't be stationary (relative to the ground)
- martythemaniak 7y agoThe animation is accurate. To stay stationary, a satellite has to be 35000km away from the earth, these will be about 500km away. They will move very fast across your line of sight, but have very low latency.
- battletested 7y agothank you all for clarifying!
- nicktelford 7y agoDo you mean stationary with respect to the earth, or with respect to each other? The answer in either case is that they'll be moving, because the low orbits they will be in require it.
- ma1f 7y agoGeostationary is around 35,000km, starlink satellites will be around 300-500km, hence the low latency.
- soulofmischief 7y agoIt helps with load balancing. Google Bloon planned to automatically geographically appropriate satellite clusters based on real-time demand, so I assume there are similar plans for Star-Link.
- phkahler 7y agoCool. Now don't run up debt and fail like Tesla.
- PaulHoule 7y agoI want to know how it is going to work in terms of radios. If you have enough satellites you could just point a mildly directional antenna straight up and know there is always at least one that is close enough. (e.g. another kind of "virtual geosynchronous") In that case you have a low-cost base station. If on the other hand you have fewer satellites and you need to track them as they move across the sky, you are looking at a much more expensive base station.
- drewg123 7y agoHas anybody found a map of what they mean by the "northern US and Canadian latitudes after six launches"? How far north does one have to be? I'm super excited about this disrupting the north american broadband market, which has little to no competition in most areas where I've lived.
- positr0n 7y agoHere's some great visualizations of the orbits and an explanation of what it means that the orbits are optimized for the northern hemisphere. (This confused me at first since obviously any orbit has to go just as far south as it does north of the equator.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU
- tene 7y agoPerhaps I've missed it somehow, but I didn't find anything in that video that refers to any asymmetry between north and south hemispheres?
- gvb 7y agoAt 5:03 [1] he talks about how the laser links give good connectivity east-west but not as good north-south. [1] https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=303 https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=303
- larrydag 7y agoVery little information about the ISP service itself. Anyone know about the Starlink product such as service, pricing, terms, etc?
- SEJeff 7y agoFrom the page source: <meta name="author" content="Elon Musk"> Elon runs the show!
- ttflee 7y agoWhat are those 'og:' and 'twitter:' meta tags for?
- ceejayoz 7y agoOpen Graph tags. They facilitate the thumbnails/descriptions/etc. that automatically show up when you post the link to various social networks. http://ogp.me/ http://ogp.me/ Without them, Facebook/Twitter/etc. have to guess what the most representative image and introductory paragraph describe the link. They often miss.
- juancampa 7y agoOG is for Open Graph http://ogp.me/ http://ogp.me/
- SEJeff 7y agoopen graph or original gangster. You decide.
- faitswulff 7y agoNow I'm imagining Musk hand-crafting the HTML...
- joshlegs 7y agooh wow. that's pretty meta.
- SEJeff 7y agoI see what you did there and I like it.
- TimTheTinker 7y agoToo bad there's no /humans.txt
- mxuribe 7y agoPrediction of the future triggered by the Starlink launch: * Starlink launches; many cheer the achievement! * Over the next few years, critical mass is reached with the numbers of LEO satellites present...the world rejoices in more ubiquitous broadband internet availability (at better costs than the current monopolistic ISPs). * Moving beyond the next few years, too many satellites get launched, go through their demise phase, and vaporize into dust...creating a thin layer of dust over the entire world...causing issues for crops and plants worldwide. Solar cell devices also struggle to produce enough electricity. * Nations of the world dismiss fears, ignoring the problem. Society continues to be enchanted by social media and celebrities. The first set of celebrities ride a Blue Origin spacecraft into space/orbit...The U.S. NIH and other federal R&D organizations reallocate advanced cancer (and other medical) research funds towards designing more comfortable space crafts to help more celebrities "make it into space". * More Starlink satellites continue to get launched, exacerbating the dust layer issue, and significantly impacting worldwide crops' and plants' ability to photosynthesize efficiently. More people are suffering famine. In parallel, an AI achieves consciousness, and integrates itself with (basically overtakes) the Starlink system. Elon's prophecy about AI __possibly__ bringing the downfall of humanity is ironically self-induced by one of his companies. * Finally, the Earth unexpectedly[0] gets hit by a stray near-earth-orbit asteroid, nearly cracking the planet in half, and plunging the remaining world into darkness (made worse by the dust layer from the failing Starlink satellites)...Elon puts out a final tweet: "But at least we've avoided the AI from controlling Starlink to enslave humanity!" [0] = Well, actually these were the only folks who knew the asteroid was coming: https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/
- brianwawok 7y agoBut what is the pricing? Is it a $8000 base station + $200 a month for a 1 GB capped connection? Or a $500 base station + $50 a month for 1 TB of bandwidth? I hope for the latter but fear the former.
- nugga 7y agoI wish they offered sensible guaranteed minimum bandwidth and didn't oversubscribe their links too much and included good QOS/traffic shaping with maybe prioritizing game traffic (or udp) for lower latency gaming. I'd be more than happy getting say a guaranteed 5 MB/s (~50 mbps) steady with super low latency on the cheap everywhere on the earth. I'm currently getting about 1-2 MB/s on 4G mobile internets for ~25 eur a month but at least it's _real_ unlimited.
- brianwawok 7y agoYah I have no need for real unlimited, and would much rather have some better latency than people doing torrents can get more stuff. So basically.. I am all for sensible data limits.
- ghobs91 7y agoIf I had to guess, it'll be $200-300 for the base station and $40-50/m for 100mbps.
- CharlesDodgson 7y agoThis seems to a trope that crops up every couple of years, tech entrepreneur decides to setup satellite internet biz. Pretty sure Bill Gates did something similar at the end of the dot-com boom, Google have tried other wide area internet solutions like Loon, Facebook has a similar internet.org project and now Musk.
- Klathmon 7y agoThere are a few major differences between those and starlink. Most other satellite internet attempts/successes are in geostationary orbits, so the latency due to the speed of light makes it a non-starter for many situations. Starlink is going to be MUCH closer to the planet in extremely low orbits so latency is well within acceptable ranges for most use cases, and in some situations like cross-continent communication it can actually be faster than ground-based systems (at least theoretically). The other aspect is that SpaceX is a rocket company who's whole company is based around making launches cheaper. They are probably the only company in history that might be able to pull off launching the multiple thousands of satellites that they require to have a fully functioning system at this altitude.
- gvb 7y agoYes but the path to the solution is inverted. Previously attempts: 1. We need global internet. 2. Satellites!!!! 3. We need inexpensive rockets to launch our satellites. 4. Fail. SpaceX / Starlink: 1. We have have excess satellite launching capabilities due to our inexpensive rockets. 2. Global internet!!! 3. Build and launch thousands of satellites. 4. Profit?
- rmarcil1 7y agoIf u get enough customers to cover the $.5Bil annual costs to keep replenishing the 12K Sats. And the sooner Starship is operational the lower the costs - loss of Falcon upper stage is the major cost.
- porkloin 7y agoConsidering that the market for this product is people with subpar internet connections, it might be worth considering building a website that doesn't require nice hardware and a fast, stable internet connection to accurately load the page :)
- rovek 7y agoThe audience for the product is not the same as the audience for the website.
- porkloin 7y agoThat's fair, this is probably more brochure to generate buzz, etc. It' still a little ironic, though. I got a chuckle out of it anyway.
- rmarcil1 7y agoStill can't watch 4K YouTube videos. Oh, the humanity!!
- gr2020 7y agoHave they said how traffic will be routed? If I'm in, say, the US, and I'm connecting to a web site in Australia, would the satellite I'm connected to send my traffic to a terrestrial router near me, and let it traverse from there via regular ground links to Australia? Or would my traffic travel via satellite to a terrestrial router near the destination?
- Zekio 7y agoThe whole point of the network is to move the data through space because light moves faster in space than through a fiber optic cable, so I'm pretty sure they are gonna try to get it as close to the destination as possible
- ncallaway 7y agoMy understanding is this first version will route traffic back to the ground and terrestrially, because they don't contain interconnection links. Future versions will have laser interconnections and route traffic through space. https://hackaday.com/2019/05/20/everything-we-know-about-spacexs-starlink-network/ https://hackaday.com/2019/05/20/everything-we-know-about-spa...
- vbuwivbiu 7y agoand this could be replicated at Mars which is where all the billionairs are going to move to after New Zealand
- ChuckMcM 7y agoPresumably once enough of the network is up, SpaceX will have an "all orbit" telemetry setup using their own network.That would free them from using the NASA network and maybe we'd get to see drone ship video that didn't always cut out at the landing :-). One of my managers from Sun, Don Hoffman, left and went on as an early employee of Teledesic, a LEO satellite broadband company in 1990 :-). But the prohibitive cost to get to space, and the size of their satellites, ultimately doomed them. Starlink is a good example of an idea that failed but could succeed now because technology has moved far enough forward to actually do what the engineers envisioned in a more cost effective way. That said, its a risky move for SpaceX which has the potential to be considered as having a launch monopoly given their costs structure, and using that to get into adjacent markets is something that is the kind of thing that antitrust lawyers go after.
- martythemaniak 7y agoThis was leaked a few years ago: https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BZ810_SPACEX_9U_20170112174544.jpg https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BZ810_SPACEX_9... This is the only thing that would allow SpaceX to have non-linear growth and ultimately fund their grander ambitions, ie Mars. Given the potential rewards, seems like a very worthwhile risk.
- 3JPLW 7y agoIsn't the drone ship video problem on the "ground" side? That is, the vibrations and motions the rocket induces ends up messing up the satellite dish's targeting.
- sq_ 7y agoThe problem, in my understanding, is that the drone ship currently passes the video data to shore via a link to a satellite in geostationary orbit. Because the drone ship's dish has to be aimed within a very tight arc in order to communicate with the satellite, the vibrations from the first stage's landing burn causes the connection to be lost. Because there'll be a ton of Starlink satellites up there once the constellation has been completed (and they'll be much closer than geostationary), the acceptable arc for the dish to be aimed should become wider, and it will likely become possible for SpaceX to use the Starlink network instead and maintain a good connection the whole time.
- hairytrog 7y agoThis is probably the biggest threat ever to autocratic governments worldwide - government independent communication. Whereas conventional broadband and cell requires government sanction (to build towers, control frequency bands, build infrastructure, censor messages) and conventional communication requires physical meeting and distribution, Starlink breaks their grip hold. If people everywhere have unrestricted access to a market driven www without being limited by autocratic governments and dictators, communication and rallying together will proceed unimpeded. Starlink should be setup with absolute transparency.
- inamberclad 7y agoConversely, it could be used as an entirely uncontrollable tool to spread dissent and propaganda. The same issue has played out on the current internet.
- stcredzero 7y ago> > This is probably the biggest threat ever to autocratic governments worldwide - government independent communication. > Conversely, it could be used as an entirely uncontrollable tool to spread dissent and propaganda. The same issue has played out on the current internet. No conversely about it. Who wants to control dissent and propaganda? The Chinese government. The Russian government. The US government, with the cooperation of Google, Facebook, et al. Not all dissent is good. Some of it will be downright bad. Some of it will be immensely valuable, however. The truth will out, so long as no one is empowered to decide "the truth" on behalf of everyone. If the government and big corporations can lock out and stamp out everyone it deems to be "bad people" they can do it to anyone. No one should have that power, no matter how hard they promise they'll follow a motto like, "Don't be evil."
- panglott 7y agoThe lie flies and the truth walks =/
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- gdubs 7y agoThis is very exciting for rural areas that are sorely lacking broadband access.
- exabrial 7y agoWhat do the base stations look like? Do they also need a phased array antenna or is this something that could fit on a cell phone?
- jmcguckin 7y agoRather than giving the broadband away for free, Tesla vehicles gives starlink an instant customer base that is growing by 6,000 customers every month. The cars don’t require the fastest speeds - to get service comparable to cellular, the antenna for starlink can be quite a bit smaller than the 3m one for maximum performance.