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True, they aren't upgrading the satellites to the v2 ones that are 10x more powerful in total throughput and number of subscribers. They also aren't launching m

• dan1234 4y ago
  Don’t the next gen satellites require the new Starship for deployment, which is still nowhere near ready for launch (they aim for a first test launch by the end of this year, IIRC)?
• ncmncm 4y ago
  They have launched exactly zero of those "more powerful" satellites. And they are not launching at near the replacement rate for the final constellation. Higher-bandwidth birds just moves the bottleneck.
  • Tepix 4y ago
    It appears you are doubting that they will eventually launch their 2.0 satellites with an order of magnitude more bandwidth. It's not like they haven't delivered in the past... The constellation is still growing quickly, they just passed 3000 launched Starlink satellites. By the time they go past the 9.000 satellites or so they should have Starship ready and kick their launch volume into overdrive. Have the 30,000 extra satellites (on top of the 12,000 already approved ones) even been approved yet? > Higher-bandwidth birds just moves the bottleneck. What does that even mean? There is no reason to believe they can't launch enough powerful satellites to reach faster speeds in those rural areas.
    • ncmncm 4y ago
      Not getting it? Putting faster routers on the satellites has absolutely no effect on the radio bandwidth available between sat and terminal.
      • virtuallynathan 4y ago
        If each new satellite can put down more spot beams, you can cover more cells for longer. With the spectrum they have, they could put 8 beams on a cell with 100% duty cycle, which is probably around 3.2-4Gbps.
      • Tepix 4y ago
        Use narrower beams and you increase the availble bandwidth. Same as using more wireless access points using lower transmission power each.
      • SEJeff 4y ago
        They’ve already applied to the FCC for the 2Ghz spectrum. They’re already launching the larger 1.5 satellites that include lasers to limit ground stations. They just had a successful test fire of a starship with the engines mounted this week. What makes you doubt the company that made reusable rockets that land on boats and reflux 13+ times won’t do this? The ENTIRE industry said it was impossible but it was fully within the realm of physics. They pulled it off because it was possible.
        • ncmncm 4y ago
          NOBODY said it was impossible. People doubted they could make it pay, but the US kept handing over money until it did.
          • SEJeff 4y ago
            Oh Starlink is still losing massive amounts of money. There’s absolutely no feasible way they’re profitable at this stage. That said. I’m sure the US Department of Defense will effectively write SpaceX a blank check after seeing how quickly they switched to spread spectrum frequency hopping to prevent Russian jamming of comms in Ukraine.
  • mlindner 4y ago
    > They have launched exactly zero of those "more powerful" satellites. And they are not launching at near the replacement rate for the final constellation. You can't deny that they're going to launch the more powerful satellites while simultaneously relying on those more powerful satellites for your calculations of the size of the final constellation... They're launching at much faster than the rate needed for replacement for the existing planned constellation for the version 1/1.5 satellites.