3 ms·

How easy will star-link be to block, for example in Russia say or China?

wmf 7y ago
How badly do people want to keep their organs? How badly does Tesla want to sell cars in those countries?
modeless 7y ago
Not easy to block with technical means over a large area. But easy to block with legal means. The way Starlink works the system needs to know exactly where each terminal is, so SpaceX doesn't have plausible deniability about serving customers in areas that prohibit it. It would make much more sense for them as a business to try to provide censored service to China so that they could openly sell to the Chinese. Elon has business ties in China now with Tesla and I don't see him trying to be a rebel with SpaceX now. He needs that Chinese revenue to fund his Mars mission.
- mlindner 7y ago
  > Not easy to block with technical means over a large area. But easy to block with legal means. The way Starlink works the system needs to know exactly where each terminal is, so SpaceX doesn't have plausible deniability about serving customers in areas that prohibit it. That is incorrect. SpaceX doesn't need to know where a terminal is for it to work. The Terminal itself though will know where it is, as it needs that information to calculate the pointing angles of the phased array to the satellite orbits.
  - gruez 7y ago
    But you can proximate where the clients are based on where the satellite is. Since they're flying low, there can't be that much deviation in ground location between the client and the satellite. You could get plausible deniability if the satellite is flying over border regions, but there's very little excuse to not enforce chinese censorship regulations when flying over the middle of china.
  - modeless 7y ago
    The satellites have phased array antennas too. Aren't they also going to point their beams at the terminals?
yetihehe 7y ago
Easy for start, just blast satellites passing over with comparably big amounts of rf. Or just require spacex to not provide service in your territory "or else". If those phased antennas are very good, they may block point sources of jamming by "muting" that small area, but if you pump enough energy into rf, antenna will be overwhelmed and will degrade fully. But that requires tracking each of satellites passing overhead with some tracking antenna, so you would have to deploy several antennas (even hundred for territory the size of Russia). I speak only theoretically, don't know that much about currently operating phase antennas, I just know the theory and can extrapolate.
- branchan 7y ago
  That is definitely not how China would enforce it. You need a Starlink terminal in order to communicate with the satellite. China will most likely just block the sales of Starlink terminals in the country if they want to enforce a ban.
  - jfrankamp 7y ago
    That seems reasonable, but easier still is putting your thumb on the Gigafactory 3 from Tesla. As long as Tesla understands that things will go smoothly as long as Starlink happens to not work there, it won't.

wmf 7y ago

How badly do people want to keep their organs? How badly does Tesla want to sell cars in those countries?

Not easy to block with technical means over a large area. But easy to block with legal means. The way Starlink works the system needs to know exactly where each terminal is, so SpaceX doesn't have plausible deniability about serving customers in areas that prohibit it. It would make much more sense for them as a business to try to provide censored service to China so that they could openly sell to the Chinese. Elon has business ties in China now with Tesla and I don't see him trying to be a rebel with SpaceX now. He needs that Chinese revenue to fund his Mars mission.

mlindner 7y ago
> Not easy to block with technical means over a large area. But easy to block with legal means. The way Starlink works the system needs to know exactly where each terminal is, so SpaceX doesn't have plausible deniability about serving customers in areas that prohibit it. That is incorrect. SpaceX doesn't need to know where a terminal is for it to work. The Terminal itself though will know where it is, as it needs that information to calculate the pointing angles of the phased array to the satellite orbits.
- gruez 7y ago
  But you can proximate where the clients are based on where the satellite is. Since they're flying low, there can't be that much deviation in ground location between the client and the satellite. You could get plausible deniability if the satellite is flying over border regions, but there's very little excuse to not enforce chinese censorship regulations when flying over the middle of china.
- modeless 7y ago
  The satellites have phased array antennas too. Aren't they also going to point their beams at the terminals?

yetihehe 7y ago

Easy for start, just blast satellites passing over with comparably big amounts of rf. Or just require spacex to not provide service in your territory "or else". If those phased antennas are very good, they may block point sources of jamming by "muting" that small area, but if you pump enough energy into rf, antenna will be overwhelmed and will degrade fully. But that requires tracking each of satellites passing overhead with some tracking antenna, so you would have to deploy several antennas (even hundred for territory the size of Russia). I speak only theoretically, don't know that much about currently operating phase antennas, I just know the theory and can extrapolate.

branchan 7y ago
That is definitely not how China would enforce it. You need a Starlink terminal in order to communicate with the satellite. China will most likely just block the sales of Starlink terminals in the country if they want to enforce a ban.
- jfrankamp 7y ago
  That seems reasonable, but easier still is putting your thumb on the Gigafactory 3 from Tesla. As long as Tesla understands that things will go smoothly as long as Starlink happens to not work there, it won't.