10 ms·

FCC approves Amazon’s internet-from-space constellation of 3,236 satellites

71 points by kerng 6y ago

nerdbaggy 6y ago
I worry this is really going to mess up astronomy. Lots of the pictures we see of space are long exposure. Even now astronomers are having a hard time of doing a long term exposure and then it getting washed out by a bright close orbiting device. https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-astronomers-visibility-response.html https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-astronomers...
- dencodev 6y ago
  These satellites are temporary. Internet connectivity is a vital service these days and global connectivity will do a lot to lift a lot of people out of poverty. The ability for people to take pictures being diminished is unfortunate, but if I had to choose between the two options I'll choose the one that significantly increases a lot on people's standard of living Maybe in the future when we aren't ruled by capitalist overlords that make expanding traditional internet infeasible we can stop launching and replacing these satellites and can take pretty pictures again
  - HumblyTossed 6y ago
    How sad is it that it is easier to launch 3200 satellites into orbit than to change FCC's mind on Comcrap's stranglehold on the internet.
    - SkyPuncher 6y ago
      That's not the issue that satellites are solving. Huge portions of the world are simply so sparsely populated that running wires is cost prohibitive.
- mopsi 6y ago
  This feels a bit like "we'll all drown in horse manure by year 2000" kind of issue. Given the way SpaceX is going, we'll probably end up with a wide range of space-based observatories that offer much better tools than current ground-based observatories that are limited by Earth's atmosphere, noise from radio local transmissions, overflying satellites, etc.
  - penagwin 6y ago
    The reason why the largest telescope observatories are on earth is because it's I feasible to get them into orbit. And it's not a theoretical problem - there's plenty of people who have already had their work impacted Software to remove the satellites would be great, given that the satellites are already interfering with astrophotography, can someone point me to the software to remove the starlink satellites from my images?
    - LeifCarrotson 6y ago
      Sure, here are a couple examples: http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/userguide.htm http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/userguide.htm https://www.astronomie.be/registax/index.html https://www.astronomie.be/registax/index.html There are a few use cases/reasons to put telescope observatories on earth. One reason is because it's cheap enough for hobbyists. An ordinary enthusiast can go out in their backyard and point a couple hundred dollars worth of gear at the sky and get shockingly gorgeous images with little more than a webcam and a cheap scope. Software like what I linked above can help remove satellites from those images. Post-processing of images is a (nearly) cost-free but complexity-expensive way to remove noise, distortion, and other artifacts from the images produced by cheap gear, might as well remove satellites while you're at it! The second reason is because it's cheap enough for scientists and students. A few universities have their own observatories. They're abundantly aware that not only satellites but also air and light pollution get in the way of good seeing. There are all kinds of effort devoted to fixing the problems that air and light pollution cause, but the easiest fix is just to move the telescope. A university can contract time for its students with an observatory in a favorable location (low light pollution, clear skies, right latitude/hemisphere, high altitude, good seeing) and do science through that remote interface. These are, I think, the most important users to take care of with space-based telescopes. Maybe their Chilean observatory doesn't have the server hardware or network connection to do stacking and post-processing to remove satellites, and images taken by the old method of long exposure astrophotography are getting ruined by satellites. Time on a space-based telescope would, for many use-cases, be as good or better than time on a terrestrial observatory. And there are zero air or weather issues! The third is because it's the only place where we can put telescopes of the required size for a particular imaging task. Maybe they're in an interferometric array, maybe they're 3+ meters in diameter, who knows. There are only a couple dozen telescopes in this category in the world, the few astronomers using these telescopes don't need HN commenters to point them to software to remove satellites! I do acknowledge that processing for a hobbyist does increase the learning curve and reduce the raw awesomeness of the hobby a bit - "why not just go to nasa.gov and download someone else's preprocessed images" isn't the same as seeing something from your own backyard through nothing but a mirror and a piece of glass. I also acknowledge that there's a ton of money invested in terrestrial observatories, but everyone needs to keep up with the times.
- beezle 6y ago
  It is not just optical astronomy. Radio is also in danger https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3702/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3702/1
- ryankupyn 6y ago
  I'll add that my main hope is that the scale required for launching large satellite constellations will also make it cheaper to launch space-based telescopes, but it's far from clear that would be a major benefit (after all, launch costs will probably be on the order of 1% of the JWST's total ~$10B cost).
skwb 6y ago
There was a really good recent interview with FCC Ajit Pai from the Neoliberal Project , where he discusses a lot of excitement of these small satellites to potentially enhance rural internet connectivity (an issue that seems close to his heart). He also mentions how evolving regulatory framework around small satellites, and how the FCC will become the de facto regulator for satellites despite the FCC primary mandate being the radio spectrum. Listening to him, you can tell he's like a lot of other crony type Trump appointees; he seems to genuinely care about enhancing communication technologies in the US. I'm not saying I see eye to eye with him on all issues, but I think it's important for federal regulators to see the costs and benefits of policies, even if we fervently disagree with the final conclusion. Link to the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUeNZsTajJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUeNZsTajJQ
- Veedrac 6y ago
  I think you meant > you can tell he's not like a lot of other crony type Trump appointees
  - skwb 6y ago
    Gah! You're right. Thank you for pointing out my prior typo.
falcolas 6y ago
Snark: Boy, it's a great thing those satellites will only ever orbit above the US! Or: Boy, those astronomers are going to be so grateful for the extra bandwidth in their remote observatories!
- simion314 6y ago
  I am curious what the comments would be like when China or other country will put thousands of satellites around the world. I expect one of the first comments to be "why not give money to X US company instead of reinventing the wheel" and other comment about spying.
  - jaybeeayyy 6y ago
    You're not kidding. I can only imagine the anger and outrage if North Korea, China, Russia etc. all launched 20,000+ satellites into space. I'd guess we'd have a few people trying to shoot them down from their back yard, actually.
  - kerng 6y ago
    I'd imagine China doing this soon, even if it's just because they can.
  - sneak 6y ago
    I will be happy when anyone in any country does it, because they will likely be paying SpaceX to perform the launches, and SpaceX, regardless of national origin, seems to be making the most progress toward a future where there is regular passenger service to the moon. I would very much like to live off of the Earth.
    - simion314 6y ago
      I think you forget other countries have rockets too, satellites and rovers that were not launched by SpaceX. There is no more a theoretical situation that US can have a country locked our of software or hardware so larger countries would not want to have this dependency or have NSA/CIA intercept your satellites before launch and backdoor them(that is their job will be the excuse).
kaiju0 6y ago
Yay for competition!
cordite 6y ago
Would it have the same limitations of the star link constellation? I recall a limited number of users per geographical space could use it. (Not high density areas) I can also expect space photographers complaining even more going forward.
- sneak 6y ago
  High density areas are areas in which it is already feasible to run fiber. > Amazon claims that Kuiper will “provide broadband services to unserved and underserved consumers, businesses in the United States, and global customers by employing advanced satellite and earth station technologies,” according to the FCC’s approval document. This is about getting internet to places where there is basically none at all now.
ideals 6y ago
Hopefully they don't launch their satellites like they do AWS services. By going GA with a buggy service and letting the oncalls smooth it out for the next year. More seriously though I think the race against time will be a real challenge. There are few caveats to Amazon’s FCC approval. The company must launch half of the constellation by 2026 to retain its FCC license, and then the remaining satellites by 2029. That is a lot of satellites to launch in 5 and half years which have to thread in with all the other scheduled launches and limited amount of launch sites to go from.
- wmf 6y ago
  It's 5 launches per year which it seems like existing launch providers (ahem) could easily accommodate.
  - TheNorthman 6y ago
    No it's not, it's (3226/2) launches over 5 years = ~269 launches per year.
    - objclxt 6y ago
      These are tiny satellites, you’re not sending them up one by one. Starlink launch 60 satellites at a time.
      - TheNorthman 6y ago
        That's a brain-fart on my part, sorry about that :)
apotatopot 6y ago
yay for a communications agency approving space trash.
unchocked 6y ago
Great news to have a viable competitor to Starlink. Most places on Earth still don't have internet access available, and these constellations are going to make it possible to bring everybody left behind online. It's easy to make snark about this or that, but inexpensive, global, high bandwidth internet access seems like one of the most consequential technologies of the 21st century so far. (Also, I wonder who will get the launch contract.)
tectonic 6y ago
Pros: competition with Starlink, more Internet connectivity for the world. Cons: this + Starlink + OneWeb make wide-field Earth-based astronomy much harder, making it less likely that we'll notice new astronomic phenomena or inbound city-killer near earth asteroids. SpaceX is testing a sunshield on one of their newest Starlink satellites. I hope we'll see Kuiper launch with those and other reflectivity mitigations from the beginning instead of being surprised by the whole problem like SpaceX (claims to be). Here's some coverage that we did in Orbital Index about the issue: https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2020-02-20-Issue-52/#starlink-4-and-a-dark-sky https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2020-02-20-Issue-52/#starli...
- viig99 6y ago
  This + remote work is a boon from gods, i will happily go enjoy life in the wilds.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    5G will also help some but it's become pretty clear that there isn't the public interest to generally bring broadband to rural areas the way telephone and electricity was (in the US among other places). The only real option today is conventional satellites, which for a lot of people are unacceptable because of latency/data limits/cost especially as video is increasingly not really optional. Of course, we'll have to see how good these efforts of relative to normal broadband but they do offer hope that you won't have to choose where to live based on the broadband options.
    - boardwaalk 6y ago
      I suppose by 5G helping you mean non-mmWave having more bandwidth to go around per tower? (If that’s true, I’m just guessing it is.) Which I suppose does help, but only for people who probably already have 4G. So, not very rural.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        Yes, primarily bandwidth--so that 5G will likely be a legitimate alternative to wired in some areas. And there's a pretty big build-out in general going on around 5G so maybe coverage gets better. But you're right. A lot of places that are pretty patchy or non-existent today for cell service, especially 4G, will likely have the same problem even after 5G rolls out.
t0mbstone 6y ago
I'm a big fan of the idea of competition when it comes to internet providers, so this is good news. I can't help but worry about where this ends though. 100,000 satellites orbiting the sky? Will our sky just be a bunch of moving dots, like you see in some sci-fi movies?
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  China will no doubt follow with tens of thousands. Maybe India, Japan etc too
- VectorLock 6y ago
  Could Kessler Syndrome become a real thing?
  - klohto 6y ago
    They're nowhere the altitude to do any harm.
  - penagwin 6y ago
    This is in LEO so the damage would be limited - these are designed to decay and fall out of orbit in a few years - and so would most debris. Most communication satellites (currently) have much higher altitudes, where such an event would be much worse as the debris would stay in orbit for much longer.
SubiculumCode 6y ago
M O N O P O L Y Vertical, not horizontal monopoly.
- joshstrange 6y ago
  Now all I can think about is what they will call the DC region that is in space... And when I can deploy lambdas at satellite edge locations.
foolfoolz 6y ago
all the complaints about “too many satellites” is the space version of NIMBY
lgats 6y ago
FCC authorization: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-102A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-102A1.pdf
ourmandave 6y ago
Do other nations have to agree on this? I assume not, but they're obviously not just blocking the sky over the US.
cletus 6y ago
This is history repeating itself. Many of you will be too young to remember this but there was a glut of these companies/constellations in the 1990s. For example, Teledesic [1]. For awhile 20 years ago we had Internet access of international flights. We have it again but there was 10-15 years in the middle where we didn't. The reason was that there just wasn't that much demand for LEO satellite Internet and the capacity way exceeded demand. We're at the beginning of another cycle like this. Not all these companies will survive. My money is on Starlink being one of the survivors because SpaceX, of any of these companies, is vertically integrated with the biggest cost: launches. Even better, their launch costs are the lowest. Maybe Amazon can do this since Bezos also is throwing big money at Blue Origin but, at best, I think Blue Origin is years behind SpaceX. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic
- supernova87a 6y ago
  From that era, wasn't the lesson: "the best way to make money on a satellite venture is to buy out a bankrupt satellite venture"?
- lsaferite 6y ago
  > The reason was that there just wasn't that much demand for LEO satellite Internet and the capacity way exceeded demand. I think you have to factor is the access cost though. There wasn't much demand at that cost.
  - cletus 6y ago
    Oh I get there are different economics now. To be clear, my point isn't that there isn't demand for things like Starlink. My point is merely that even with that demand, we'll end up building more capacity than we need and some won't survive, just like 20 years ago. I like the simplicity of the Starlink design, in that it's simply ground-to-satellite-to-ground. There are no satellite relays. I wonder if this will limit access in more remote places (eg Alaska, on the ocean, Antarctica). I guess SpaceX has decided this limitation is worth the cost-savings. I'm curious to know what the effective range is from subscriber to access point (via satellite). And also what if you can talk to multiple Starlink satellites but only some of them are within range of an access point? I'm sure they've thought about this. I'm just curious on the technical details.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Darmody 6y ago
I wonder who will launch them, Blue Origin or SpaceX.
Element_ 6y ago
What is the current state of the client ground antennas used to connect to these satellite constellations? My understanding is the tech is still too large for practical use? Is the consumer market for the larger antennas big enough to support the satellite costs?
- ganoushoreilly 6y ago
  Starlink dishes are smaller than DirectTV apparently. https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Starlink_UT_sunset.jpg?w=1390&crop=1 https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Starlink_U...
icedistilled 6y ago
I can't wait to switch to either spacex or amazon's satellite internet, especially if there is a price war. And be free of cox's monopoly price gouging as the sole provider of speeds over 5mb/s for my neighborhood, which is part of the second largest metropolitan area in the nation. If cox and the rest had provided decent service and decent prices instead of gouging and underinvesting, they wouldn't be faced with competition from satellite clouds anywhere near as soon as they are going to be.
- zzapplezz 6y ago
  Doubtful they'd be able to compete with any terrestrial provider on price. Perhaps on performance.
klohto 6y ago
I'm surprised by HN opinions on this. Astronomy misconception plus Kessler syndrome worries are two biggest faulty views on SpaceX and now Amazon. As one deleted comment stated: "Stacking images and object detection can pretty much nullify this problem. Worst case scenario you throw out a couple minutes of data. It might add an extra step to data processing which is unfortunate but in the vast majority of cases won't be a problem." Pretty much sums it up. This is a problem that has been blown out of proportions by media. Sure, amateur astronomy will take a slight hit, but it is nowhere the issue being presented. Kessler syndrome doesn't apply at altitude so low and all of the satellites are brought by gravity in few months, they need constant readjustments to stay in low orbit.
- dylan604 6y ago
  it's a problem now, yet it will only get worse at the entire Starlink fleet is fully deployed. There's only a few hundred of the thousands from Starlink alone. It will be impossible to get a single clean image. It's not the small problem you seem to suggest
  - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
    Lets do the math. We are talking about (at most - including other future companies) roughly 50,000 satellites in LEO, each about the size of a car, and they burn up in the atmosphere in a few years. Given LEO is at a higher altitude, the "surface area" at that orbit is larger, but lets pretend its only 510 million km^2 (i.e. Earth's surface area). If I evenly distributed 50,000 cars across 510 million km^2, you would need to search 10,200 km^2 to find 1 car. Even 1 satellite per 1 km^2 in LEO would not impede astronomy, and that future requires 500+ million such satellites. Amazon and SpaceX operating roughly 0.01 million satellites each is inconsequential.
- wmf 6y ago
  I don't know if you're seeing an accurate sample of HN opinion because of the "101" effect where every thread turns into a low-quality FAQ.
nashashmi 6y ago
Light pollution ended star gazing with the naked eye and required astronomers to move to dark environments. Low orbit constellations of satellites will end astronomy research from the ground and require high orbit telescopes. Is this really a future we want? Or Will there be room for establishing dark satellite terrains?
- libertine 6y ago
  What about regular people start gazing?
packet_nerd 6y ago
I've long dreamed of sailing the world. The biggest obstacle is being able to support myself while doing that, and looking at existing boat satellite service is really depressing. Does anyone here know if between this, Starlink, and OneWeb, it will ever become realistic to work remotely from a boat in, say, the middle of the South Pacific?
- zzapplezz 6y ago
  Yes. That use case would be enabled... at a commensurate price.
- cozzyd 6y ago
  Iridium Pilot already exists, albeit it's only 134 kbps (although maybe it's already been upgraded to 1 Mbps? I'm not sure). VSAT service may also work (although that might be spotty in the middle of the ocean).
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I do know people who manage with just satellite, including some in tech. But it's certainly a stretch and being basically unable to stream video is increasingly a liability.
  - packet_nerd 6y ago
    I see $4,000+ for the Iridium terminal and $500/m for a 100MB plan. Thats really really expensive for not a lot of data. Click the wrong link from HN front page and you could burn through half that in one click! I suppose it could be doable. You'd want to be setup with all your software and development environment before hand and just use the satellite connection for text-only email/chat. Maybe SSH to an outside server and use w3m for web browsing?
    - cozzyd 6y ago
      It's very expensive but doesn't scale linearly (random searches find 10 GB plans for $2400/m).
ColanR 6y ago
For everyone worried about these satellite's effect on astronomy, don't the new satellite launch capabilities that make "internet-from-space" suddenly feasible mean that telescopes could be more easily put in orbit too? It seems like that would solve the light pollution problem. I have no relevant background, though.
- em-bee 6y ago
  could 3000 little telescopes in orbit work together to replace a large one like hubble?
  - manmal 6y ago
    FWIW, the picture of that black hole that was taken last year was the product of a worldwide cooperation of observatories, combining the received signals with an insanely complex computation.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Hubble is not that large compared to the mirrors on ground based telescopes[0]. Ground based Subaru: 8.2m Gran Telescopio Canarias: 10.4m Space based Hubble: 2.4m James Webb: 6.5m (still on the ground) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_optical_telescope_primary_mirrors.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_optical_telesc...
angel_j 6y ago
I wish the space web was designed to be peer to peer from the start. That would create a new web.
- wmf 6y ago
  Ah, I remember when Hughes showed up at the O'Reilly P2P conference looking for killer apps for their satellite router. (They ended up using it as a dumb pipe for DirecTV HD channels.) Ultimately it's IP; it's up to you what to do with it.
  - angel_j 6y ago
    There aren't massive data centers in space, so it is all routing. Also, protocols alone don't grant users addresses that they own and can use publicly and directly P2P, which is how we end up with all these sign-ins to owners of data centers.
libertine 6y ago
There will be a time where the novelty of watching satellites passing once in a while will end, and you look up above and among starts you have satellite traffic ... why can't we have nice things...
- HumblyTossed 6y ago
  Eventually they'll all have bright LEDs. They'll start by showing an emoji, :), one time on some special day and we'll all go, "Awwww!" But eventually it'll turn into "10% off Amazon!"
  - markedathome 6y ago
    https://amsat-uk.org/2014/02/12/brown-university-led-cubesat/ https://amsat-uk.org/2014/02/12/brown-university-led-cubesat...
  - libertine 6y ago
    ...oh my god.
cozzyd 6y ago
Surely Iridium NEXT must be making tons of money to justify these ventures.
wdb 6y ago
Are those 3,236 satellites just to cover the US area or global? I can't imagine can approve this globally? Wouldn't European and Asian countries have any say in it?

71 points by kerng 6y ago

I worry this is really going to mess up astronomy. Lots of the pictures we see of space are long exposure. Even now astronomers are having a hard time of doing a long term exposure and then it getting washed out by a bright close orbiting device. https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-astronomers-visibility-response.html https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-astronomers...

dencodev 6y ago
These satellites are temporary. Internet connectivity is a vital service these days and global connectivity will do a lot to lift a lot of people out of poverty. The ability for people to take pictures being diminished is unfortunate, but if I had to choose between the two options I'll choose the one that significantly increases a lot on people's standard of living Maybe in the future when we aren't ruled by capitalist overlords that make expanding traditional internet infeasible we can stop launching and replacing these satellites and can take pretty pictures again
- HumblyTossed 6y ago
  How sad is it that it is easier to launch 3200 satellites into orbit than to change FCC's mind on Comcrap's stranglehold on the internet.
  - SkyPuncher 6y ago
    That's not the issue that satellites are solving. Huge portions of the world are simply so sparsely populated that running wires is cost prohibitive.
mopsi 6y ago
This feels a bit like "we'll all drown in horse manure by year 2000" kind of issue. Given the way SpaceX is going, we'll probably end up with a wide range of space-based observatories that offer much better tools than current ground-based observatories that are limited by Earth's atmosphere, noise from radio local transmissions, overflying satellites, etc.
- penagwin 6y ago
  The reason why the largest telescope observatories are on earth is because it's I feasible to get them into orbit. And it's not a theoretical problem - there's plenty of people who have already had their work impacted Software to remove the satellites would be great, given that the satellites are already interfering with astrophotography, can someone point me to the software to remove the starlink satellites from my images?
  - LeifCarrotson 6y ago
    Sure, here are a couple examples: http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/userguide.htm http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/userguide.htm https://www.astronomie.be/registax/index.html https://www.astronomie.be/registax/index.html There are a few use cases/reasons to put telescope observatories on earth. One reason is because it's cheap enough for hobbyists. An ordinary enthusiast can go out in their backyard and point a couple hundred dollars worth of gear at the sky and get shockingly gorgeous images with little more than a webcam and a cheap scope. Software like what I linked above can help remove satellites from those images. Post-processing of images is a (nearly) cost-free but complexity-expensive way to remove noise, distortion, and other artifacts from the images produced by cheap gear, might as well remove satellites while you're at it! The second reason is because it's cheap enough for scientists and students. A few universities have their own observatories. They're abundantly aware that not only satellites but also air and light pollution get in the way of good seeing. There are all kinds of effort devoted to fixing the problems that air and light pollution cause, but the easiest fix is just to move the telescope. A university can contract time for its students with an observatory in a favorable location (low light pollution, clear skies, right latitude/hemisphere, high altitude, good seeing) and do science through that remote interface. These are, I think, the most important users to take care of with space-based telescopes. Maybe their Chilean observatory doesn't have the server hardware or network connection to do stacking and post-processing to remove satellites, and images taken by the old method of long exposure astrophotography are getting ruined by satellites. Time on a space-based telescope would, for many use-cases, be as good or better than time on a terrestrial observatory. And there are zero air or weather issues! The third is because it's the only place where we can put telescopes of the required size for a particular imaging task. Maybe they're in an interferometric array, maybe they're 3+ meters in diameter, who knows. There are only a couple dozen telescopes in this category in the world, the few astronomers using these telescopes don't need HN commenters to point them to software to remove satellites! I do acknowledge that processing for a hobbyist does increase the learning curve and reduce the raw awesomeness of the hobby a bit - "why not just go to nasa.gov and download someone else's preprocessed images" isn't the same as seeing something from your own backyard through nothing but a mirror and a piece of glass. I also acknowledge that there's a ton of money invested in terrestrial observatories, but everyone needs to keep up with the times.
beezle 6y ago
It is not just optical astronomy. Radio is also in danger https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3702/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3702/1
ryankupyn 6y ago
I'll add that my main hope is that the scale required for launching large satellite constellations will also make it cheaper to launch space-based telescopes, but it's far from clear that would be a major benefit (after all, launch costs will probably be on the order of 1% of the JWST's total ~$10B cost).

skwb 6y ago

There was a really good recent interview with FCC Ajit Pai from the Neoliberal Project , where he discusses a lot of excitement of these small satellites to potentially enhance rural internet connectivity (an issue that seems close to his heart). He also mentions how evolving regulatory framework around small satellites, and how the FCC will become the de facto regulator for satellites despite the FCC primary mandate being the radio spectrum. Listening to him, you can tell he's like a lot of other crony type Trump appointees; he seems to genuinely care about enhancing communication technologies in the US. I'm not saying I see eye to eye with him on all issues, but I think it's important for federal regulators to see the costs and benefits of policies, even if we fervently disagree with the final conclusion. Link to the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUeNZsTajJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUeNZsTajJQ

Veedrac 6y ago
I think you meant > you can tell he's not like a lot of other crony type Trump appointees
- skwb 6y ago
  Gah! You're right. Thank you for pointing out my prior typo.

falcolas 6y ago

Snark: Boy, it's a great thing those satellites will only ever orbit above the US! Or: Boy, those astronomers are going to be so grateful for the extra bandwidth in their remote observatories!

simion314 6y ago
I am curious what the comments would be like when China or other country will put thousands of satellites around the world. I expect one of the first comments to be "why not give money to X US company instead of reinventing the wheel" and other comment about spying.
- jaybeeayyy 6y ago
  You're not kidding. I can only imagine the anger and outrage if North Korea, China, Russia etc. all launched 20,000+ satellites into space. I'd guess we'd have a few people trying to shoot them down from their back yard, actually.
- kerng 6y ago
  I'd imagine China doing this soon, even if it's just because they can.
- sneak 6y ago
  I will be happy when anyone in any country does it, because they will likely be paying SpaceX to perform the launches, and SpaceX, regardless of national origin, seems to be making the most progress toward a future where there is regular passenger service to the moon. I would very much like to live off of the Earth.
  - simion314 6y ago
    I think you forget other countries have rockets too, satellites and rovers that were not launched by SpaceX. There is no more a theoretical situation that US can have a country locked our of software or hardware so larger countries would not want to have this dependency or have NSA/CIA intercept your satellites before launch and backdoor them(that is their job will be the excuse).

kaiju0 6y ago

Yay for competition!

cordite 6y ago

Would it have the same limitations of the star link constellation? I recall a limited number of users per geographical space could use it. (Not high density areas) I can also expect space photographers complaining even more going forward.

sneak 6y ago
High density areas are areas in which it is already feasible to run fiber. > Amazon claims that Kuiper will “provide broadband services to unserved and underserved consumers, businesses in the United States, and global customers by employing advanced satellite and earth station technologies,” according to the FCC’s approval document. This is about getting internet to places where there is basically none at all now.

ideals 6y ago

Hopefully they don't launch their satellites like they do AWS services. By going GA with a buggy service and letting the oncalls smooth it out for the next year. More seriously though I think the race against time will be a real challenge. There are few caveats to Amazon’s FCC approval. The company must launch half of the constellation by 2026 to retain its FCC license, and then the remaining satellites by 2029. That is a lot of satellites to launch in 5 and half years which have to thread in with all the other scheduled launches and limited amount of launch sites to go from.

wmf 6y ago
It's 5 launches per year which it seems like existing launch providers (ahem) could easily accommodate.
- TheNorthman 6y ago
  No it's not, it's (3226/2) launches over 5 years = ~269 launches per year.
  - objclxt 6y ago
    These are tiny satellites, you’re not sending them up one by one. Starlink launch 60 satellites at a time.
    - TheNorthman 6y ago
      That's a brain-fart on my part, sorry about that :)

apotatopot 6y ago

yay for a communications agency approving space trash.

unchocked 6y ago

Great news to have a viable competitor to Starlink. Most places on Earth still don't have internet access available, and these constellations are going to make it possible to bring everybody left behind online. It's easy to make snark about this or that, but inexpensive, global, high bandwidth internet access seems like one of the most consequential technologies of the 21st century so far. (Also, I wonder who will get the launch contract.)

tectonic 6y ago

Pros: competition with Starlink, more Internet connectivity for the world. Cons: this + Starlink + OneWeb make wide-field Earth-based astronomy much harder, making it less likely that we'll notice new astronomic phenomena or inbound city-killer near earth asteroids. SpaceX is testing a sunshield on one of their newest Starlink satellites. I hope we'll see Kuiper launch with those and other reflectivity mitigations from the beginning instead of being surprised by the whole problem like SpaceX (claims to be). Here's some coverage that we did in Orbital Index about the issue: https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2020-02-20-Issue-52/#starlink-4-and-a-dark-sky https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2020-02-20-Issue-52/#starli...

viig99 6y ago
This + remote work is a boon from gods, i will happily go enjoy life in the wilds.
- ghaff 6y ago
  5G will also help some but it's become pretty clear that there isn't the public interest to generally bring broadband to rural areas the way telephone and electricity was (in the US among other places). The only real option today is conventional satellites, which for a lot of people are unacceptable because of latency/data limits/cost especially as video is increasingly not really optional. Of course, we'll have to see how good these efforts of relative to normal broadband but they do offer hope that you won't have to choose where to live based on the broadband options.
  - boardwaalk 6y ago
    I suppose by 5G helping you mean non-mmWave having more bandwidth to go around per tower? (If that’s true, I’m just guessing it is.) Which I suppose does help, but only for people who probably already have 4G. So, not very rural.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Yes, primarily bandwidth--so that 5G will likely be a legitimate alternative to wired in some areas. And there's a pretty big build-out in general going on around 5G so maybe coverage gets better. But you're right. A lot of places that are pretty patchy or non-existent today for cell service, especially 4G, will likely have the same problem even after 5G rolls out.

t0mbstone 6y ago

I'm a big fan of the idea of competition when it comes to internet providers, so this is good news. I can't help but worry about where this ends though. 100,000 satellites orbiting the sky? Will our sky just be a bunch of moving dots, like you see in some sci-fi movies?

onetimemanytime 6y ago
China will no doubt follow with tens of thousands. Maybe India, Japan etc too
VectorLock 6y ago
Could Kessler Syndrome become a real thing?
- klohto 6y ago
  They're nowhere the altitude to do any harm.
- penagwin 6y ago
  This is in LEO so the damage would be limited - these are designed to decay and fall out of orbit in a few years - and so would most debris. Most communication satellites (currently) have much higher altitudes, where such an event would be much worse as the debris would stay in orbit for much longer.

SubiculumCode 6y ago

M O N O P O L Y Vertical, not horizontal monopoly.

joshstrange 6y ago
Now all I can think about is what they will call the DC region that is in space... And when I can deploy lambdas at satellite edge locations.

foolfoolz 6y ago

all the complaints about “too many satellites” is the space version of NIMBY

lgats 6y ago

FCC authorization: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-102A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-102A1.pdf

ourmandave 6y ago

Do other nations have to agree on this? I assume not, but they're obviously not just blocking the sky over the US.

cletus 6y ago

This is history repeating itself. Many of you will be too young to remember this but there was a glut of these companies/constellations in the 1990s. For example, Teledesic [1]. For awhile 20 years ago we had Internet access of international flights. We have it again but there was 10-15 years in the middle where we didn't. The reason was that there just wasn't that much demand for LEO satellite Internet and the capacity way exceeded demand. We're at the beginning of another cycle like this. Not all these companies will survive. My money is on Starlink being one of the survivors because SpaceX, of any of these companies, is vertically integrated with the biggest cost: launches. Even better, their launch costs are the lowest. Maybe Amazon can do this since Bezos also is throwing big money at Blue Origin but, at best, I think Blue Origin is years behind SpaceX. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic

supernova87a 6y ago
From that era, wasn't the lesson: "the best way to make money on a satellite venture is to buy out a bankrupt satellite venture"?
lsaferite 6y ago
> The reason was that there just wasn't that much demand for LEO satellite Internet and the capacity way exceeded demand. I think you have to factor is the access cost though. There wasn't much demand at that cost.
- cletus 6y ago
  Oh I get there are different economics now. To be clear, my point isn't that there isn't demand for things like Starlink. My point is merely that even with that demand, we'll end up building more capacity than we need and some won't survive, just like 20 years ago. I like the simplicity of the Starlink design, in that it's simply ground-to-satellite-to-ground. There are no satellite relays. I wonder if this will limit access in more remote places (eg Alaska, on the ocean, Antarctica). I guess SpaceX has decided this limitation is worth the cost-savings. I'm curious to know what the effective range is from subscriber to access point (via satellite). And also what if you can talk to multiple Starlink satellites but only some of them are within range of an access point? I'm sure they've thought about this. I'm just curious on the technical details.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Darmody 6y ago

I wonder who will launch them, Blue Origin or SpaceX.

Element_ 6y ago

What is the current state of the client ground antennas used to connect to these satellite constellations? My understanding is the tech is still too large for practical use? Is the consumer market for the larger antennas big enough to support the satellite costs?

ganoushoreilly 6y ago
Starlink dishes are smaller than DirectTV apparently. https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Starlink_UT_sunset.jpg?w=1390&crop=1 https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Starlink_U...

icedistilled 6y ago

I can't wait to switch to either spacex or amazon's satellite internet, especially if there is a price war. And be free of cox's monopoly price gouging as the sole provider of speeds over 5mb/s for my neighborhood, which is part of the second largest metropolitan area in the nation. If cox and the rest had provided decent service and decent prices instead of gouging and underinvesting, they wouldn't be faced with competition from satellite clouds anywhere near as soon as they are going to be.

zzapplezz 6y ago
Doubtful they'd be able to compete with any terrestrial provider on price. Perhaps on performance.

klohto 6y ago

I'm surprised by HN opinions on this. Astronomy misconception plus Kessler syndrome worries are two biggest faulty views on SpaceX and now Amazon. As one deleted comment stated: "Stacking images and object detection can pretty much nullify this problem. Worst case scenario you throw out a couple minutes of data. It might add an extra step to data processing which is unfortunate but in the vast majority of cases won't be a problem." Pretty much sums it up. This is a problem that has been blown out of proportions by media. Sure, amateur astronomy will take a slight hit, but it is nowhere the issue being presented. Kessler syndrome doesn't apply at altitude so low and all of the satellites are brought by gravity in few months, they need constant readjustments to stay in low orbit.

dylan604 6y ago
it's a problem now, yet it will only get worse at the entire Starlink fleet is fully deployed. There's only a few hundred of the thousands from Starlink alone. It will be impossible to get a single clean image. It's not the small problem you seem to suggest
- yazaddaruvala 6y ago
  Lets do the math. We are talking about (at most - including other future companies) roughly 50,000 satellites in LEO, each about the size of a car, and they burn up in the atmosphere in a few years. Given LEO is at a higher altitude, the "surface area" at that orbit is larger, but lets pretend its only 510 million km^2 (i.e. Earth's surface area). If I evenly distributed 50,000 cars across 510 million km^2, you would need to search 10,200 km^2 to find 1 car. Even 1 satellite per 1 km^2 in LEO would not impede astronomy, and that future requires 500+ million such satellites. Amazon and SpaceX operating roughly 0.01 million satellites each is inconsequential.
wmf 6y ago
I don't know if you're seeing an accurate sample of HN opinion because of the "101" effect where every thread turns into a low-quality FAQ.

nashashmi 6y ago

Light pollution ended star gazing with the naked eye and required astronomers to move to dark environments. Low orbit constellations of satellites will end astronomy research from the ground and require high orbit telescopes. Is this really a future we want? Or Will there be room for establishing dark satellite terrains?

libertine 6y ago
What about regular people start gazing?

packet_nerd 6y ago

I've long dreamed of sailing the world. The biggest obstacle is being able to support myself while doing that, and looking at existing boat satellite service is really depressing. Does anyone here know if between this, Starlink, and OneWeb, it will ever become realistic to work remotely from a boat in, say, the middle of the South Pacific?

zzapplezz 6y ago
Yes. That use case would be enabled... at a commensurate price.
cozzyd 6y ago
Iridium Pilot already exists, albeit it's only 134 kbps (although maybe it's already been upgraded to 1 Mbps? I'm not sure). VSAT service may also work (although that might be spotty in the middle of the ocean).
- ghaff 6y ago
  I do know people who manage with just satellite, including some in tech. But it's certainly a stretch and being basically unable to stream video is increasingly a liability.
- packet_nerd 6y ago
  I see $4,000+ for the Iridium terminal and $500/m for a 100MB plan. Thats really really expensive for not a lot of data. Click the wrong link from HN front page and you could burn through half that in one click! I suppose it could be doable. You'd want to be setup with all your software and development environment before hand and just use the satellite connection for text-only email/chat. Maybe SSH to an outside server and use w3m for web browsing?
  - cozzyd 6y ago
    It's very expensive but doesn't scale linearly (random searches find 10 GB plans for $2400/m).

ColanR 6y ago

For everyone worried about these satellite's effect on astronomy, don't the new satellite launch capabilities that make "internet-from-space" suddenly feasible mean that telescopes could be more easily put in orbit too? It seems like that would solve the light pollution problem. I have no relevant background, though.

em-bee 6y ago
could 3000 little telescopes in orbit work together to replace a large one like hubble?
- manmal 6y ago
  FWIW, the picture of that black hole that was taken last year was the product of a worldwide cooperation of observatories, combining the received signals with an insanely complex computation.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Hubble is not that large compared to the mirrors on ground based telescopes[0]. Ground based Subaru: 8.2m Gran Telescopio Canarias: 10.4m Space based Hubble: 2.4m James Webb: 6.5m (still on the ground) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_optical_telescope_primary_mirrors.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_optical_telesc...

angel_j 6y ago

I wish the space web was designed to be peer to peer from the start. That would create a new web.

wmf 6y ago
Ah, I remember when Hughes showed up at the O'Reilly P2P conference looking for killer apps for their satellite router. (They ended up using it as a dumb pipe for DirecTV HD channels.) Ultimately it's IP; it's up to you what to do with it.
- angel_j 6y ago
  There aren't massive data centers in space, so it is all routing. Also, protocols alone don't grant users addresses that they own and can use publicly and directly P2P, which is how we end up with all these sign-ins to owners of data centers.

libertine 6y ago

There will be a time where the novelty of watching satellites passing once in a while will end, and you look up above and among starts you have satellite traffic ... why can't we have nice things...

HumblyTossed 6y ago
Eventually they'll all have bright LEDs. They'll start by showing an emoji, :), one time on some special day and we'll all go, "Awwww!" But eventually it'll turn into "10% off Amazon!"
- markedathome 6y ago
  https://amsat-uk.org/2014/02/12/brown-university-led-cubesat/ https://amsat-uk.org/2014/02/12/brown-university-led-cubesat...
- libertine 6y ago
  ...oh my god.

cozzyd 6y ago

Surely Iridium NEXT must be making tons of money to justify these ventures.

wdb 6y ago

Are those 3,236 satellites just to cover the US area or global? I can't imagine can approve this globally? Wouldn't European and Asian countries have any say in it?