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Watch out Starlink, Amazon is coming for you

17 points by joshSzep 4y ago

oceanplexian 4y ago
Kuiper and Blue Origin have been pretty entertaining. Bezos can throw all the money in the world at space but it still hasn't bought him a single functioning satellite.
- leereeves 4y ago
  Their original plan for Kuiper was and seemingly still is to launch the first two satellites in Q4 2022, so it's too early to declare them failed. (Their orbital rocket, New Glenn, however, has been delayed a few times.) https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/project-kuiper-announces-plans-and-launch-provider-for-prototype-satellites https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/projec...
- joezydeco 4y ago
  Has any Blue Origin launch achieved orbit yet?
  - samwillis 4y ago
    No, their first orbital class rocket is New Glen, and I think the consensus is they are still a couple of years away from launch. The engine for New Glen, BE-4, will also be used in the new ULA Vulcan rocket. It is expected to launch in the next year or so too but is running at least three years behind schedule. There is a chance that engine will reach orbit on Vulcan before New Glen launches at all.
newaccount2021 4y ago
scotty79 4y ago
I've seen people saying that things like Starlink are inherently safe because they use very low orbits. But higher orbits are just higher speeds and when two objects collide and break apart some smaller fragments might fly off with speeds far greater than those of colliding objects. So failure at very low orbit might add a lot of debris to higher orbits that might trigger Kessler syndrome. Am I wrong about this?
- gatonegro 4y ago
  > But higher orbits are just higher speeds and when two objects collide and break apart some smaller fragments might fly off with speeds far greater than those of colliding objects. Objects in higher orbits are slower[1] than objects at lower altitudes, and debris from a hypothetical collision between two high-orbiting objects would not accelerate to a speed "far greater" than the originating objects, because that increase in speed would require some form of acceleration. One satellite smashing into another would not add sufficient energy to the debris to alter its speed significantly. Any change to the speed of the resulting debris, if it were to occur, would also necessarily alter its orbit. The object's speed and its orbital altitude depend on each other. > So failure at very low orbit might add a lot of debris to higher orbits that might trigger Kessler syndrome. It should be noted that "failure" does not mean "exploding into a thousand pieces", so a malfunctioning satellite by itself is not that much of a problem. Low altitude satellites such as Starlink are actually better from a space junk perspective — their altitude means the effect of atmospheric drag on the spacecraft will eventually (within months, sometimes) cause it to re-enter the atmosphere instead of just hanging around in Earth orbit forever, like dead satellites do at higher orbits. Kessler syndrome would be more likely to occur with satellites in medium and high Earth orbit, since there is no drag to bring the dead spacecraft or debris back down to Earth. Anti-satellite weapons are particularly dangerous here, because they're likely to target high-orbiting satellites and leave debris fields behind. --- [1] As pointed below, in terms of pure kinetic energy this is not correct. I was referring to apparent speed vs an object in low-Earth orbit.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    > Objects in higher orbits are slower than objects at lower altitudes You are right. My point still stands. On collision debris might have significantly different velocities than the original objects thus have different orbits. > One satellite smashing into another would not add sufficient energy to the debris to alter its speed significantly. I think that's completely dependant on the mass of the specific particle of debris. The smaller the particle, the larger possible speed change attainable in a messy collision. I'd really prefer that there was some scientific study simulating possible results of impact between two SpaceX satellites. Because there's non-zero chance of that happening. For example if there are some errors during the deployment of new batch.
jpgvm 4y ago
By the time Amazon is relevant Starlink will have already cornered the market. Not to mention keeping such a constellation maintained requires crazy launch cadence which takes atleast a decade to hone even if your rocket is really damn good out the gate, not to mention if your rocket isn't fully reusable you probably just won't be able to afford to properly maintain a mega-constellation. i.e I'll believe it when I see it. For now the only thing Bezos space companies have been producing is hot air.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  But do you really need this amount of satellites as Starlink uses? Inmarsat is providing 300mbps with much less satellites. https://gcaptain.com/inmarsats-new-global-broadband-network-hits-330-mbps-during-live-tests/ https://gcaptain.com/inmarsats-new-global-broadband-network-...
  - labcomputer 4y ago
    The number of concurrent users is limited by the operator’s ability to reuse frequencies across geographies, which in turn is limited by the angular resolution of satellite antennas and satellite altitude (ceteris paribus). Inmarsat is mostly marketing to ships at sea, and other cases where users are quite far from each other. So they can use a small number of geostationary satellites. Starlink is marketing to “regular people” in exurban and rural places that are uneconomic to serve with DSL or cable. So they need to create very small cells, hence low altitude satellites. But low altitude satellites can’t see as much of the ground at once, so they need a lot of them. Also, the geostationary model doesn’t provide good coverage of high latitudes (and launching geosynchronous satellites in high inclination orbits to cover those high latitudes would multiply the number of satellites needed by Inmarsat). As a result, there are basically two models for providing satellite comms: a few geostationary or a bunch of polar LEO.
samwillis 4y ago
The title of this post is not the title of the article, the article doesn’t even mention Space X. There is “editorialising” (which HN discourages) and then there is just sticking a clickbait title on a post to get a debate going. The thing is, the topic of the article, Amazon’s Project Kuiper winning a DoD contract is interesting to many reasons. It’s shows the DoD ensuring there are other operators other than SpaceX, but also the dedicated “mesh network” for connecting military assets. It’s almost an interesting experiment, at the time of posting none of the other 9 comments mention the content of the article. Current title: Watch out Starlink, Amazon is coming for you Correct title: Amazon to link Kuiper satellites to DoD’s mesh network in space
ozzythecat 4y ago
> Amazon’s Project Kuiper will install DoD-compliant laser communications terminals on its internet satellites so they can transfer data from remote-sensing satellites directly into the military’s mesh network in low Earth orbit. I find this deeply concerning that the military is taking more and more dependencies on Amazon, and would therefore have an interest in Amazon’s survival. I spent almost 11 years at Amazon, and exited after I couldn’t bear with my mental and physical health deteriorating any more. It’s a toxic, abusive culture. Their real innovation is how to manipulate and abuse employees, at scale, without destroying your business reputation. What we ought to do is break up Amazon, but instead, we’re rewarding its culture of extreme narcissists and sociopaths.

17 points by joshSzep 4y ago

Kuiper and Blue Origin have been pretty entertaining. Bezos can throw all the money in the world at space but it still hasn't bought him a single functioning satellite.

leereeves 4y ago
Their original plan for Kuiper was and seemingly still is to launch the first two satellites in Q4 2022, so it's too early to declare them failed. (Their orbital rocket, New Glenn, however, has been delayed a few times.) https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/project-kuiper-announces-plans-and-launch-provider-for-prototype-satellites https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/projec...
joezydeco 4y ago
Has any Blue Origin launch achieved orbit yet?
- samwillis 4y ago
  No, their first orbital class rocket is New Glen, and I think the consensus is they are still a couple of years away from launch. The engine for New Glen, BE-4, will also be used in the new ULA Vulcan rocket. It is expected to launch in the next year or so too but is running at least three years behind schedule. There is a chance that engine will reach orbit on Vulcan before New Glen launches at all.

newaccount2021 4y ago

scotty79 4y ago

I've seen people saying that things like Starlink are inherently safe because they use very low orbits. But higher orbits are just higher speeds and when two objects collide and break apart some smaller fragments might fly off with speeds far greater than those of colliding objects. So failure at very low orbit might add a lot of debris to higher orbits that might trigger Kessler syndrome. Am I wrong about this?

gatonegro 4y ago
> But higher orbits are just higher speeds and when two objects collide and break apart some smaller fragments might fly off with speeds far greater than those of colliding objects. Objects in higher orbits are slower[1] than objects at lower altitudes, and debris from a hypothetical collision between two high-orbiting objects would not accelerate to a speed "far greater" than the originating objects, because that increase in speed would require some form of acceleration. One satellite smashing into another would not add sufficient energy to the debris to alter its speed significantly. Any change to the speed of the resulting debris, if it were to occur, would also necessarily alter its orbit. The object's speed and its orbital altitude depend on each other. > So failure at very low orbit might add a lot of debris to higher orbits that might trigger Kessler syndrome. It should be noted that "failure" does not mean "exploding into a thousand pieces", so a malfunctioning satellite by itself is not that much of a problem. Low altitude satellites such as Starlink are actually better from a space junk perspective — their altitude means the effect of atmospheric drag on the spacecraft will eventually (within months, sometimes) cause it to re-enter the atmosphere instead of just hanging around in Earth orbit forever, like dead satellites do at higher orbits. Kessler syndrome would be more likely to occur with satellites in medium and high Earth orbit, since there is no drag to bring the dead spacecraft or debris back down to Earth. Anti-satellite weapons are particularly dangerous here, because they're likely to target high-orbiting satellites and leave debris fields behind. --- [1] As pointed below, in terms of pure kinetic energy this is not correct. I was referring to apparent speed vs an object in low-Earth orbit.
- scotty79 4y ago
  > Objects in higher orbits are slower than objects at lower altitudes You are right. My point still stands. On collision debris might have significantly different velocities than the original objects thus have different orbits. > One satellite smashing into another would not add sufficient energy to the debris to alter its speed significantly. I think that's completely dependant on the mass of the specific particle of debris. The smaller the particle, the larger possible speed change attainable in a messy collision. I'd really prefer that there was some scientific study simulating possible results of impact between two SpaceX satellites. Because there's non-zero chance of that happening. For example if there are some errors during the deployment of new batch.

jpgvm 4y ago

By the time Amazon is relevant Starlink will have already cornered the market. Not to mention keeping such a constellation maintained requires crazy launch cadence which takes atleast a decade to hone even if your rocket is really damn good out the gate, not to mention if your rocket isn't fully reusable you probably just won't be able to afford to properly maintain a mega-constellation. i.e I'll believe it when I see it. For now the only thing Bezos space companies have been producing is hot air.

TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
But do you really need this amount of satellites as Starlink uses? Inmarsat is providing 300mbps with much less satellites. https://gcaptain.com/inmarsats-new-global-broadband-network-hits-330-mbps-during-live-tests/ https://gcaptain.com/inmarsats-new-global-broadband-network-...
- labcomputer 4y ago
  The number of concurrent users is limited by the operator’s ability to reuse frequencies across geographies, which in turn is limited by the angular resolution of satellite antennas and satellite altitude (ceteris paribus). Inmarsat is mostly marketing to ships at sea, and other cases where users are quite far from each other. So they can use a small number of geostationary satellites. Starlink is marketing to “regular people” in exurban and rural places that are uneconomic to serve with DSL or cable. So they need to create very small cells, hence low altitude satellites. But low altitude satellites can’t see as much of the ground at once, so they need a lot of them. Also, the geostationary model doesn’t provide good coverage of high latitudes (and launching geosynchronous satellites in high inclination orbits to cover those high latitudes would multiply the number of satellites needed by Inmarsat). As a result, there are basically two models for providing satellite comms: a few geostationary or a bunch of polar LEO.

samwillis 4y ago

The title of this post is not the title of the article, the article doesn’t even mention Space X. There is “editorialising” (which HN discourages) and then there is just sticking a clickbait title on a post to get a debate going. The thing is, the topic of the article, Amazon’s Project Kuiper winning a DoD contract is interesting to many reasons. It’s shows the DoD ensuring there are other operators other than SpaceX, but also the dedicated “mesh network” for connecting military assets. It’s almost an interesting experiment, at the time of posting none of the other 9 comments mention the content of the article. Current title: Watch out Starlink, Amazon is coming for you Correct title: Amazon to link Kuiper satellites to DoD’s mesh network in space

ozzythecat 4y ago

> Amazon’s Project Kuiper will install DoD-compliant laser communications terminals on its internet satellites so they can transfer data from remote-sensing satellites directly into the military’s mesh network in low Earth orbit. I find this deeply concerning that the military is taking more and more dependencies on Amazon, and would therefore have an interest in Amazon’s survival. I spent almost 11 years at Amazon, and exited after I couldn’t bear with my mental and physical health deteriorating any more. It’s a toxic, abusive culture. Their real innovation is how to manipulate and abuse employees, at scale, without destroying your business reputation. What we ought to do is break up Amazon, but instead, we’re rewarding its culture of extreme narcissists and sociopaths.