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When asked for use cases, they give a bunch of niche things like wildfire monitoring. What is the actual market for this stuff? Is it all spy satellites? Better
by sfblah 2y ago
When asked for use cases, they give a bunch of niche things like wildfire monitoring. What is the actual market for this stuff? Is it all spy satellites? Better versions of Street View?
- verzali 2y agoLower latency communications snd more detailed Earth observation
- ImHereToVote 2y agoPhone to satellite communication.
- rsynnott 2y agoComms would be the big commercial one; latency reduction relative to LEO systems. High detail earth observation is also useful for weather stuff.
- mppm 2y agoBesides niche scientific applications, this is mostly about extremely large constellations. The classic LEO, roughly 500km-1000km, is already quite full, and placing a lot of new satellites there increases the risk of triggering a chain reaction of collisions with orbital debris (Kessler syndrome). At these altitudes the atmosphere is thin enough that even small pieces of debris are long-lived, thus potentially creating a long-term problem for all kinds of human and non-human spaceflight. In the VLEO band, on the other hand, the thicker atmosphere makes maintaining orbit more difficult, but also makes debris very short-lived. Due to this, it may be reasonable to risk placing a million-satellite communications network somewhere between 200-300km, which would be utterly impossible further up. Data rates, latency, mesh size, etc. also improve of course.
- billfruit 2y agoPerhaps real time flood water monitoring? Despite advancements in technology, as on today it is not possible to get near real time information of flooding.