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Starlink has been so successful, it is facing a lot of competition in the next few years. Every major power wants their own, national starlink network. China's
by tristanj 6mo ago
Starlink has been so successful, it is facing a lot of competition in the next few years. Every major power wants their own, national starlink network.
China's state-backed starlink competitor GuoWang is putting 13,000 satellites in orbit by 2030. They've already started launching satellites.
China's Qianfan plans 15,000 satellites by 2030.
AST SpaceMobile is building their own network.
Amazon Leo plans for 3,000 satellites in orbit, and is already launching satellites.
The EU is building IRIS², explicitly as a Starlink alternative.
Russia, after realizing how critical starlink is on the battlefield, is building its own Rassvet network. They've already launched satellites.
- Zigurd 6mo agoCirca 2032: "Remember when everybody was going to launch constellations of thousands of satellites?" "Yeah, just like the data centers, only about 10% of that got built."
- dzhiurgis 6mo agoSovereign ones are definitely going to happen. Direct to cell 5G (aka global IMSI catcher) and SAR decoy is just too good to pass up.
- tuesdaynight 6mo agoI'm a layman in this field, and I always thought that satellites were supposed to take a very small space in orbit... until I saw a GIF made from Artemis 2 ship. Satellites were big enough that could see the queue of them orbiting Earth in the GIF. Maybe they were the bigger ones and I'm confusing them with Starlink?
- dwaltrip 6mo agoSmall things can reflect large numbers of photons :) The Artemis gif you are referring to only shows the satellites because the earth is eclipsing the the sun and they did a long exposure. Those satellites showing up in the gif are briefly catching the sun at the perfect angle.