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Spy satellites you can have way fewer, but for an internet connection you really need Starlink's scale. Otherwise you need full 360 deg view of a horizon (good
by kolinko 7mo ago
Spy satellites you can have way fewer, but for an internet connection you really need Starlink's scale. Otherwise you need full 360 deg view of a horizon (good luck with that on the battlefield), and a much higher power use.
Having said that, I double checked the numbers - it would take ~60 launches at the minimum to replicate Starlink 1.0. This is how many launches China does per year right now. So it is doable indeed for them, just absurdly expensive - $10-$30B, but they can afford that.
EU on the other hand - no way. We're doing 5 launches a year with Arianne, due to incompetent management over the last decade. Unless China or US allow us to use their infrastructure, we have no way of doing all this.
- icegreentea2 7mo agoYa, I guess one other thing to China's advantage is that they don't need true global reach. They can prioritize coverage over their relevant latitudes (roughly the same as contiguous USA). From what I understand from Starlink distributions, roughly ~60% of the overall Starlink constellation is required for that latitude range.