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Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
- Jupe 4y agoCool, time to get one of these: https://www.concordaerospace.com/products/jewish-space-laser-activation-panel https://www.concordaerospace.com/products/jewish-space-laser... :)
- benj111 4y agoSPACE LASERS!!! Sorry. The inner child in me got far too excited by this.
- _Microft 4y agoAccording to its Wikipedia entry, McMurdo Station had a 20Mbit/s satellite link so far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station#Communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station#Communications
- smoldesu 4y agoI'd imagine the latency and per-installation cost is quite high.
- ortusdux 4y agoIt looks like it operates at 35,000 km and relays the signal between the base and Australia. The ping time seems to average a hair under 250ms. https://www.satellite-calculations.com/Satellite/170HourListings/170h_listing.php?29495 https://www.satellite-calculations.com/Satellite/170HourList... http://bhs.smokeping.ovh.net/smokeping?target=APAC.AS7474-1 http://bhs.smokeping.ovh.net/smokeping?target=APAC.AS7474-1 Starlink satellites are mostly in the 550km elevation range. Average pings seem to be in the 50ms range, but this would be single satellite performance. This should drop as more units are brought online and increase capacity. Also, the laser interconnects are theoretically faster than terrestrial fiber, so there are expected to be many long-hauls where starlink will be the fastest option. https://www.speedcheck.org/starlink-performance-2021/ https://www.speedcheck.org/starlink-performance-2021/
- iso1631 4y ago> It looks like it operates at 35,000 km and relays the signal between the base and Australia. The ping time seems to average a hair under 250ms. That would be impressive, as that would be 140,000km in 250ms, or about twice the speed of light Most satellite IP I use starts at about 650ms
- ortusdux 4y agoYeah that number seemed low, should have done the math. Going by the IPs, the link I posted is the delay between Quebec and the New South Wales ground station that the satellite links to. So it sounds like McMurdo to Quebec would be a 1 second delay on a good day.
- jackmott42 4y agoPings would be bad compared to fiber/cable from your location to somewhere close to you. Pings are potentially better than fiber/cable would be to locations far away from you, depending on the routing. Going up to LEO and then lasering around gets you faster signal propagation out of the atmosphere.
- wcfields 4y agoI had a buddy [1] that worked in the kitchen at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for a few seasons in 2012-2014. From what he told me: The internet works at certain times of the day at different bandwidths depending on the satellite. I think at that time there was 3 in orbit, and one of them was a retired Navy sat that had like dial-up speed. Also everything that goes to the station stays there so the vinyl collection is amazing, and they have a huge Betamax / VHS library and most importantly they have /The Thing/ on Betamax. [1] https://www.portlandmercury.com/Theater/2012/07/26/6564600/mikey-going-down https://www.portlandmercury.com/Theater/2012/07/26/6564600/m... Edit: Here's the satellite schedule for this week, https://www.usap.gov/technology/documents/SPSAT%2020220915.pdf?rnd=220909101921 https://www.usap.gov/technology/documents/SPSAT%2020220915.p... and you can sign up for a listserv of updates here: https://www.usap.gov/technology/1935/ https://www.usap.gov/technology/1935/ These are the available birds in orbit for Antarctica: Broadband: South Pole TDRSS Relay (SPTR) Satellite Broadband: Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) Broadband: Skynet Satellite Communications System Narrowband: Iridium Multi-Channel System (IMCS)
- CSMastermind 4y ago> Also everything that goes to the station stays there What's the reasoning behind that? Presumably people bring back clothes and other personal affects right?
- retrac 4y agoPersonal effects must be like 1% (approximately) of what they ship in, by weight. Consider things like the consumables and construction equipment.
- ceejayoz 4y agoGiven the cost of getting things there, it's probably polite to leave things like movies that you could easily replace back home, so others have them to watch.
- ctdonath 4y agoMost things are probably cheaper to replace than to bring back from the most remote area on Earth, and far cheaper to leave for someone else to use than make them bring their own. If unwanted, it’s trash - too expensive to move when there’s presumably an acceptable landfill right there (may sound environmentally unfriendly, but hauling trash back is likely worse).
- thelittleone 4y agoThe Thing now has Internet.
- cube2222 4y agoDoes this mean they've figured out satellite-to-satellite data transfer?
- thatcherc 4y agoYup, I think that's the implication of the "space laser network". The plan for Starlink has been to have laser crosslinks between the satellites to provide coverage in places where the satellites can't directly see a ground station.
- deelowe 4y agoThat's the plan, but it's an unimaginably difficult task. Many have speculated they wouldn't be able to pull it off at scale.
- minhazm 4y agoForgive my ignorance but I don't understand why it's an unimaginably difficult task. The satellites are operating in a vacuum with no weather interference or anything and have line of sight to each other. I would think that it should actually be easy to pull off, and actually should get easier at scale since the distances between individual satellites would shrink and would be easier to align the laser links.
- samatman 4y agoI see it as one of those enormously difficult and yet practical things, like photolithography. The human sweat to produce this system is surely measured in decades, if not centuries depending on whose effort we want to count.
- count 4y agoThey're also moving in different, independent directions on different planes at extremely high speeds...
- 4y ago
- hollander 4y agoHow about providing free internet to China and Russia, to give the people there proper information without government oversight?
- wmf 4y agoHow about getting Tesla banned from China and possibly starting an orbital war that triggers the Kessler syndrome?
- espadrine 4y agoWhat would be banned are the dishes. China doesn’t need to send a missile to LEO (which would be unnecessarily costly for them).
- MichaelCollins 4y agoChina wouldn't need anti-satellite weapons to punish Elon Musk, since he has business interests in China. Hence "ban Teslas".
- gpm 4y agoChina has previously demonstrated anti-satellite weapons multiple times just to demonstrate they have them (and maybe make sure they work), I doubt they'd be that worried about the cost to demonstrate that they mean it and are willing to use them.
- wcoenen 4y agoRussia has done the same demonstration last year [1]. And yet they have not destroyed starlink, even though SpaceX donated many dishes to Ukraine[2]. So there still seems to be some restraint around the concept of shooting down foreign satellites. I guess it's a "mutual assured destruction" type situation: once you shoot down a satellite, you'd better be prepared to lose your own. [1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_188780.htm https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_188780.htm [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/22/elon-musk-spacex-thousands-of-starlink-satellite-dishes-sent-to-ukraine.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/22/elon-musk-spacex-thousands-o...
- madspindel 4y agoOne step closer to Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoIt's now the Space Development Agency's (SDA) National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA). But yes, Starlink looks a hell of a lot like the Transport Layer of the NDSA, which is meant to be a mesh network comprising of thousands of satellites in LEO. Either Starlink is the Transport Layer of NDSA, or it proves that SpaceX has the technical ability to create the Transport Layer (no other company does.)
- Dylan16807 4y agoI really wouldn't put it that way, though. The core part of SDI, the missile defense, isn't part of NDSA. And the "transport layer" is something new to NDSA as far as I can tell.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoIt depends on which version of SDI you're talking about, there were numerous proposed architectures using different technologies, updated through the years as technology changed. In several of the proposals, orbital Boost Surveillance and Tracking Systems (BSTS) would communicate with orbital interceptors using inter-satellite laser links. Brilliant Pebbles particularly called for thousands of orbital interceptors with IR sensors to track missiles, but to arrange an intercept in time a Pebble would need to receive track information from the BSTS, or other pebbles. The challenge of doing that with thousands of pebbles was one of the factors that sank the proposal (the other big problem being the difficulty of actually launching thousands of interceptors into LEO.) The mesh network aspect of NDSA / Starlink is new insofar as they've now figured out how to do what they wanted to do back then. Space-based interceptors are missing from NDSA as it's described in public. But all the technical challenges have been resolved, what remains is the political challenge. Since the space-based interceptors are the politically contentious part, if they were going to do this it would make sense for them to build the 'benign' parts first while not talking about the rest.
- wffurr 4y agoDoes this mean Starlink maritime service now works at sea and not just in coastal areas?
- mlindner 4y agoIt has the potential to yes, assuming there's enough capacity now.
- chrisjc 4y agoI thought that laser connectivity wasn't going to be available until V2 of the satellite went in to operation/orbit, and that's not going to happen until SpaceX gets Starship or the modified Falcon off the ground?
- wmf 4y agoNo, they've been promising laser links with (IIRC) v1.5 for a while.
- _joel 4y agoI very much doubt v2 will be on F9, they're much bigger so the 47 they can fly now will drop significantly (if it can even fit in the extended fairing, I'm not sure it can). They've got a 'pez dispenser' already worked out too for starship, just need to light that candle now. Ramped up testing again last week so I'm hoping it'll be soon (said that 12 months ago)
- guardiangod 4y agoNo need to doubt. https://spacenews.com/spacex-adds-falcon-9-back-to-second-gen-starlink-launch-plan/ https://spacenews.com/spacex-adds-falcon-9-back-to-second-ge...
- _joel 4y agoI mean, I know they've been taking the financial hit for the starlink launches as they ramp up the subscriber base, but this seems really ineffective.
- mlindner 4y agoNo, they've been on all v1.5 satellites that have been launching for a little over a year now.
- rpmisms 4y agoMan, I love when sci-fi becomes reality. It's the cool things that get me excited for some parts of the future, and this is exactly that.
- warinukraine 4y ago
- rambambram 4y agoBefore I bookmark your comment, any chance for an explanation? I'm very curious.
- inawarminister 4y agoHuh? It's in the specs for Starlink satellite version two since the beginning. You even have research papers detailing the mechanism https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350575864_Laser_Intersatellite_Links_in_a_Starlink_Constellation_A_Classification_and_Analysis https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350575864_Laser_Int... News from last year https://www.satellitetoday.com/broadband/2021/01/25/latest-starlink-satellites-equipped-with-laser-communications-musk-confirms/ https://www.satellitetoday.com/broadband/2021/01/25/latest-s...
- MichaelCollins 4y agoLet me guess, "Elon is a liar therefore everything SpaceX does or says is a lie" I bet the satellites and rockets are fake too, right warinukraine? He says they exist, therefore they must not.
- rpmisms 4y agoWhat, exactly, is unrealistic about lasers?
- MichaelCollins 4y agoThe trick is aiming the lasers accurately enough, but that's merely a challenging engineering problem. With their experience and track record, there's no reason to think SpaceX can't/haven't managed it. With Elon Musk companies you need to be wary of claimed intentions and future plans, because exaggerations and lies abound in those domains. Don't hold your breath for FSD or Mars colonies. But when SpaceX claims they've already accomplished something, they're almost certainly telling the truth about it.
- erikpukinskis 4y agoDoes this mean we’ll start seeing more Antarctic TikTokers? Exciting!
- FeistySkink 4y agoA new ice bucket challenge.
- dakr 4y agoThere's a 300 degree club at the south pole. Strip, jump in 200 degF water, then run outside around the building where it's -100 degF.
- aaronax 4y agoI was skeptical that 200F water would not cause almost immediate damage. Turns out this challenge involves a 200F sauna, so 200F air, not water.
- gravypod 4y agoThe people who I have met, who have participated, are very interesting people. Very interesting stories from amazing engineers. Edit: I don't know if these two participated but I knew them from the NJIT CSTR. Some of the smartest people I met who were basically volunteering just so they could get flown down every year: https://youtu.be/ciqAZSoOmr8?t=676 https://youtu.be/ciqAZSoOmr8?t=676. Gil was just getting through some back surgery at this point, was in massive pain, and still flew out that year if memory serves me correct.
- GuB-42 4y agoI think it is one of these cases where everyone agrees that the Fahrenheit scale should be used.
- TheCowboy 4y ago[Deleted]
- cedricd 4y agoYou're definitely right, but one mitigating factor is that Starlink satellites are in a pretty low orbit. They'll naturally decay relatively quickly and drop out of orbit at end of life. Edit: a link that goes over some of this https://www.spacex.com/updates/#sustainability https://www.spacex.com/updates/#sustainability
- c54 4y agoI agree that the debris problem is one of those commons-type issues that’ll cost way more to fix than if we’d prevented it in the first place. However, for starlink specifically aren’t the satellites all low enough to deorbit and burn up automatically within 5 years? This should eliminate the orbital debris problem for this constellation specifically. A different problem is what happens with all the burnt up aluminum and other metals in the high atmosphere. I saw a post mentioning this once recently but also don’t know much about the scale or effects of this problem.
- TheCowboy 4y ago[Deleted]
- bryanlarsen 4y agoIf something perturbs a Starlink orbit, it might raise apogee but would also lower perigee, which means it would fall out of the sky even faster.
- profile53 4y agoI think this comes from a misunderstanding of orbital dynamics. Without *active* effort by the engines, these sort of satellites are low enough they drop out of orbit within a year or two because of friction against the atmosphere. Basically, these solve their own junk problem
- 4y ago
- capableweb 4y agoAccording to their coverage map (https://www.starlink.com/map https://www.starlink.com/map) there is no coverage in Africa nor Asia, unless I'm missing something obvious. Or if there are new continents I'm not aware of.
- markdown 4y agoI wonder what's up with that dark spot in Western Australia.
- seriocomic 4y agoProbably to remove interference with https://www.atnf.csiro.au/projects/askap/index.html https://www.atnf.csiro.au/projects/askap/index.html
- mchusma 4y agoThis is availability for purchase map, not coverage.
- capableweb 4y agoWhat is the difference? If I pick an address in Africa, it tells me "Service date is unknown at this time", does that mean they have coverage there but I cannot purchase it if I live there? So I could, if I live in Africa, buy it and send it to an address in Europe, go pick it up and then use it from my home in Africa?
- db48x 4y agoHover more thoroughly. Different countries and regions have different tooltips. But no, you would not be able to ship the user terminal to Africa and use it. You can’t even move it more than a few dozen miles from the address they have on file and keep using it, unless you have the more expensive license for mobile users (think RVs and boats and such). Even then it stops working if you enter an area where service is unavailable.
- seanw444 4y agoThat title is a phrase I'd only expect to hear in a scifi movie. The future is now.
- saiya-jin 4y agoOne thing that may be related to Starlink, or not - it happened to me already twice that I was just randomly gazing at stars and noticed long streak of satellites in a row. One around last christmas and one few weeks ago. In places cca 1500km apart in Europe. First one the satellites were evenly spaced, sometimes 1-2 were 'missing' and I could see between gap in the clouds maybe 7-8 at the same time. Altogether maybe 30. Second time, the spacing wasnt even but there were at least 60 of them till the show finished. Of course real number could be much higher since I noticed them ranfomly when looking up. Their line was perfectly aligned and they were going fast (probably close to Earth). I guess this is how satellite launches look these days, but never saw more than 1 satellite at the same time in the same trajectory on the sky, and then this. Very futuristic experience.
- lolc 4y agoYes those must have been Starlink's. I was in awe the first time I saw that string of lights. And if you wait a bit, they come around again! They are in a low orbit and very fast relative to earth because of that.
- ck2 4y agoIn case you missed this amazing video last week https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/x7oowo/starlink_satellites_seen_traveling_over_hiroshima/ https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/x7oowo/starlink_sate...
- mlindner 4y agoYes this happens right after they're launched. They're no longer visible after a few weeks.
- dantondwa 4y agoI don't like Starlink. It increases light pollution, even in places without much human activity, which is a disaster for astronomers. Moreover, sending satellites to space is really inefficient. It wastes a lot of energy and pollutes a lot. To increase coverage, the amount of satellite they'll need will be more and more. And the skies will become more and more full of space junk (each satellite lives for 7 years). I think there are other solutions. But of course, other solutions do not favour Elon Musk as much.
- yodsanklai 4y ago> But of course, other solutions do not favour Elon Musk as much How a single man can be responsible to so much nuisance to the rest of humanity...
- mlindner 4y agoBy the media turning him into a boogeyman and simultaneously a poster child.
- ctdonath 4y agoSX is actively solving the light pollution problem. A few satellites orbiting use far fewer materials to provide coverage of the entire planet than doing so terrestrially would. As Starlink satellites age out they de-orbit. No space junk. You’re welcome to propose & implement better solutions. Until then, this is the very best humans can do to lift all of humanity with minimal environmental impact.
- _joel 4y agoWhat solutions?
- tuatoru 4y agoFortunately, NIMBYism isn't holding things up in low earth orbit.
- justrudd 4y agoThat's fair. I will say that my parents are loving it. They live in a very rural area. Until Starlink, the fastest speed they could get from Verizon (the only provider they have access to) was maybe 4 to 5Mbps. And it was still capped at 20GiB a month. Starlink gets them 60 to 70Mbps during overcast/rainy days and 100 to 120Mbps on sunny days with no cap. I know it isn't altruistic of Starlink to cover these areas, but at least they are. I can now see my parents via video chat multiple times a month vs. seeing them a couple of times a year. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, the cable providers, etc. just don't care about them. And rightfully so. They are an extremely small market. It annoys me how much money the US government has given to these ISPs in the hopes that they'll expand rural access, but they never do. Or they use the money to pay lobbyist to say "4g is fine for them"
- matco11 4y agoPerhaps, this is a message to Apple …Availability on all continents might be a requirement to qualify as a provider for satellite emergency services like the one Apple will soon offer with iPhone 14 Pro
- _joel 4y agoThey're already doing that with the T-Mobile deal announced recently.
- blantonl 4y agoI can't imagine the engineering involved to be able to calculate and maintain a space based laser network with thousands of vehicles traveling in orbit. That is some real deal holyfield physics and math knowledge right there.
- mr_woozy 4y ago
- bitcharmer 4y agoCool, maybe one day they'll post a phone number or an email you can reach them on.