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So they're going to go from basically no maritime coverage to having the world's oceans fully covered within the next two quarters? That's pretty impressive, if

So they're going to go from basically no maritime coverage to having the world's oceans fully covered within the next two quarters? That's pretty impressive, if they can actually pull it off.

nathanyz 4y ago
Yeah, going from coastal waters only to full coverage seems like a herculean feat to pull off that quickly as I imagine the constraints keeping it to coastal waters at the moment would all need solved.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  It’s seems as if current coverage is ground stations, next phase will be supported by constellation laser links, and final coverage stage is more satellites in the necessary latitudes/orbital planes (as they’re currently constrained by F9 payload capacity and desperately need Starship lift capacity to more rapidly deploy the constellation).
  - rtkwe 4y ago
    Don't most of the satellites in the current constellation not have the laser links needed for intraconstellation communication? So they'd need to replace those too to keep consistent coverage.
    - bdonlan 4y ago
      Replace, or simply augment with enough additional satellites to provide adequate bandwidth over the oceanic areas.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        I can't believe the oceans would have anywhere near the usage you find in-land, so the links between satellites could be relatively small compared to the rest of the system.
        rtkwe 4y ago
        You wind up with the same satellite average satellite density across the middle latitudes anyways because the orbits are very low for satellites. Any particular satellite will eventually service every cell (except for those above the inclination of the main constellation iirc those will eventually (tm) be covered by separate satellites in more polar orbits) between 53N and 53S, which is the orbital inclination of the majority of the constellation. Because of this you don't really have any distinction in function between land and sea servicing satellites because any given satellite will be both.
        gpm 4y ago
        I haven't double checked this, but I strongly suspect they're bandwidth limited by the total amount of uplink/downlink they have, not the inter-satellite bandwidth. Inter satellite links are basically fiber, just without the fiber (instead they just point the laser in the right direction and rely on the fact that space is empty). Up and down has to use valuable radio spectrum, handle interference and atmospheric effects, etc.
        Skunkleton 4y ago
        Those same satellites will cover land as well, right? I would guess that they are hugely over provisioned for their maritime usecases in support of their main mission.
        rtkwe 4y ago
        Yeah to consistently cover land you'll have the same density over the ocean because they're LEO satellites so they're eventually covering the whole surface between the latitudes it flies over due to it's inclination.
    - xoa 4y ago
      >Don't most of the satellites in the current constellation not have the laser links needed for intraconstellation communication? Nope, all v1.5 sats have them, so everything launched since January 2021. They experimented with them earlier for polar orbit sats. At this point that's by far the majority of the constellation and either approaching or at critical mass for the mesh. They're probably testing it globally now. To sibling: they definitely need Starship, but not so much for pure launch numbers as the ability to launch v2.0 at all. F9 fairing isn't big enough. 2.0 will let them shrink cell sizes and improve density and performance which they need too (obviously now more in light of yesterday's announcement). More 1.5 sats wouldn't help as much with that, though the mesh will help relieve ground station chokes as well as ilenabling beyond station service.
      - rtkwe 4y ago
        Looks like June 2021 actually? [0] From the same page it looks like a bit under half at 44% are v1.5 birds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches
    - ortusdux 4y ago
      From what I can glean, it looks like about half of the units in orbit are V1.5 with laser links. I know that they had issues getting the links working, but it seems that they have worked the bugs out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches
- bergenty 4y ago
  Maybe the constraints are artificial. From a layman’s perspective it doesn’t seem all that hard. The satellites are already up there, so why would it be any different from providing coverage on land.
  - bri3d 4y ago
    It's entirely different. Right now Starlink is a bent pipe model. The customer's station connects to a satellite which relays data to the closest ground station. Therefore, the satellite must be in contact with both the customer station and a ground station at the same time. This is not possible over oceans. Newer Starlink satellites also have a satellite to satellite laser link which is intended to allow relay from consumer station -> satellite -> other satellite -> ground station to provide coverage over oceans, but this functionality has not yet been enabled and relies on enough satellite density that each satellite can see a neighbor.
hef19898 4y ago
So we get Starlink on our yachts at the same time our Teslas can drive use autonomously to the harbour? Great!
- ncmncm 4y ago
  You mean, into the harbor? Yes!
  - hef19898 4y ago
    I would take my Tesla to my private jet, we to try it for our yachts so!
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      I guess we have seen a Tesla crash into a plane already. Don't think it was a jet.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Better not taking any risks, right?
ncmncm 4y ago
Not so impressive. All they have to do is ping-pong packets from the first satellite, via other marine subscribers' terminals, to other satellites in range of those, until they get to a satellite in range of a shore hub. I.e., "it's only software." It will mainly depend on having enough marine subscriber terminals in place, scattered around the world on shipping routes, to ping-pong the packets through. Presumably they already have authority to route other subscribers' traffic through "your" terminal.
- moolcool 4y ago
  How is what you just described "not so impressive"? That sounds remarkably impressive.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Routing is impressive. But we do routing already.
- Tuna-Fish 4y ago
  Won't work, there are way too many areas where there aren't enough ships for that.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Yet. There are a hell of a lot of ships. They just need for them to be subscribers.
    - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
      There are a lot of ships, but there are also a lot of places on the ocean where there will never be a second ship close enough to forward your packets (areas of south pacific for instance), and they are still painting those areas as having coverage. I understand you are enamored with the idea of using ground repeaters. It is, however, not what SpaceX is doing. They have been very open from the start that they intend to move the entire transport layer to orbit, and they have launched more than a thousand satellites capable of doing that with laser links. That's what they are using.
HWR_14 4y ago
It's the difference between a satellite able to relay between two ground locations (e.g. ship and uplink) and series of satellites able to relay directly to each other. In the first case, you need both endpoints to be in same satellite's footprint. In the second, you need to just have any satellite overhead and any satellite in range of an uplink with a few intervening satellites. That is, that reflects a leap in technology, not an incremental growth from putting more satellites in orbit.

So they're going to go from basically no maritime coverage to having the world's oceans fully covered within the next two quarters? That's pretty impressive, if they can actually pull it off.

nathanyz 4y ago

Yeah, going from coastal waters only to full coverage seems like a herculean feat to pull off that quickly as I imagine the constraints keeping it to coastal waters at the moment would all need solved.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
It’s seems as if current coverage is ground stations, next phase will be supported by constellation laser links, and final coverage stage is more satellites in the necessary latitudes/orbital planes (as they’re currently constrained by F9 payload capacity and desperately need Starship lift capacity to more rapidly deploy the constellation).
- rtkwe 4y ago
  Don't most of the satellites in the current constellation not have the laser links needed for intraconstellation communication? So they'd need to replace those too to keep consistent coverage.
  - bdonlan 4y ago
    Replace, or simply augment with enough additional satellites to provide adequate bandwidth over the oceanic areas.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      I can't believe the oceans would have anywhere near the usage you find in-land, so the links between satellites could be relatively small compared to the rest of the system.
      - rtkwe 4y ago
        You wind up with the same satellite average satellite density across the middle latitudes anyways because the orbits are very low for satellites. Any particular satellite will eventually service every cell (except for those above the inclination of the main constellation iirc those will eventually (tm) be covered by separate satellites in more polar orbits) between 53N and 53S, which is the orbital inclination of the majority of the constellation. Because of this you don't really have any distinction in function between land and sea servicing satellites because any given satellite will be both.
      - gpm 4y ago
        I haven't double checked this, but I strongly suspect they're bandwidth limited by the total amount of uplink/downlink they have, not the inter-satellite bandwidth. Inter satellite links are basically fiber, just without the fiber (instead they just point the laser in the right direction and rely on the fact that space is empty). Up and down has to use valuable radio spectrum, handle interference and atmospheric effects, etc.
      - Skunkleton 4y ago
        Those same satellites will cover land as well, right? I would guess that they are hugely over provisioned for their maritime usecases in support of their main mission.
        rtkwe 4y ago
        Yeah to consistently cover land you'll have the same density over the ocean because they're LEO satellites so they're eventually covering the whole surface between the latitudes it flies over due to it's inclination.
  - xoa 4y ago
    >Don't most of the satellites in the current constellation not have the laser links needed for intraconstellation communication? Nope, all v1.5 sats have them, so everything launched since January 2021. They experimented with them earlier for polar orbit sats. At this point that's by far the majority of the constellation and either approaching or at critical mass for the mesh. They're probably testing it globally now. To sibling: they definitely need Starship, but not so much for pure launch numbers as the ability to launch v2.0 at all. F9 fairing isn't big enough. 2.0 will let them shrink cell sizes and improve density and performance which they need too (obviously now more in light of yesterday's announcement). More 1.5 sats wouldn't help as much with that, though the mesh will help relieve ground station chokes as well as ilenabling beyond station service.
    - rtkwe 4y ago
      Looks like June 2021 actually? [0] From the same page it looks like a bit under half at 44% are v1.5 birds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches
  - ortusdux 4y ago
    From what I can glean, it looks like about half of the units in orbit are V1.5 with laser links. I know that they had issues getting the links working, but it seems that they have worked the bugs out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches
bergenty 4y ago
Maybe the constraints are artificial. From a layman’s perspective it doesn’t seem all that hard. The satellites are already up there, so why would it be any different from providing coverage on land.
- bri3d 4y ago
  It's entirely different. Right now Starlink is a bent pipe model. The customer's station connects to a satellite which relays data to the closest ground station. Therefore, the satellite must be in contact with both the customer station and a ground station at the same time. This is not possible over oceans. Newer Starlink satellites also have a satellite to satellite laser link which is intended to allow relay from consumer station -> satellite -> other satellite -> ground station to provide coverage over oceans, but this functionality has not yet been enabled and relies on enough satellite density that each satellite can see a neighbor.

hef19898 4y ago

So we get Starlink on our yachts at the same time our Teslas can drive use autonomously to the harbour? Great!

ncmncm 4y ago
You mean, into the harbor? Yes!
- hef19898 4y ago
  I would take my Tesla to my private jet, we to try it for our yachts so!
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    I guess we have seen a Tesla crash into a plane already. Don't think it was a jet.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Better not taking any risks, right?

ncmncm 4y ago

Not so impressive. All they have to do is ping-pong packets from the first satellite, via other marine subscribers' terminals, to other satellites in range of those, until they get to a satellite in range of a shore hub. I.e., "it's only software." It will mainly depend on having enough marine subscriber terminals in place, scattered around the world on shipping routes, to ping-pong the packets through. Presumably they already have authority to route other subscribers' traffic through "your" terminal.

moolcool 4y ago
How is what you just described "not so impressive"? That sounds remarkably impressive.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Routing is impressive. But we do routing already.
Tuna-Fish 4y ago
Won't work, there are way too many areas where there aren't enough ships for that.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Yet. There are a hell of a lot of ships. They just need for them to be subscribers.
  - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
    There are a lot of ships, but there are also a lot of places on the ocean where there will never be a second ship close enough to forward your packets (areas of south pacific for instance), and they are still painting those areas as having coverage. I understand you are enamored with the idea of using ground repeaters. It is, however, not what SpaceX is doing. They have been very open from the start that they intend to move the entire transport layer to orbit, and they have launched more than a thousand satellites capable of doing that with laser links. That's what they are using.

HWR_14 4y ago

It's the difference between a satellite able to relay between two ground locations (e.g. ship and uplink) and series of satellites able to relay directly to each other. In the first case, you need both endpoints to be in same satellite's footprint. In the second, you need to just have any satellite overhead and any satellite in range of an uplink with a few intervening satellites. That is, that reflects a leap in technology, not an incremental growth from putting more satellites in orbit.