
SpaceX’s Starlink Constellation construction begins - hbcondo714
https://www.universetoday.com/141980/spacexs-starlink-constellation-construction-begins-2200-satellites-will-go-up-over-the-next-5-years/
======
phkahler
>> Starlink is also going to be seeing competition in the coming years thanks
to companies like OneWeb and Telesat, which plans to create smaller
constellations that will offer service by 2021. Tech giants like Amazon and
Samsung have also announced plans to deploy their own constellations, which
would consist of 3,236 to 4600 broadband satellites, respectively.

SpaceX has a huge advantage in launch costs here. Mass produced satellites
will be lower cost per unit than most others, and launching on used rockets
will give them the cheapest deployment costs ever. And they are the only
company that can reuse rockets today. I don't see the competitors really
having a chance.

~~~
BurningFrog
Anyone can buy a launch on a SpaceX rocket.

~~~
Pfhreak
At the same cost SpaceX pays for a launch? That seems improbable to me.

~~~
serioussecurity
depends what you mean. If you think of it as a "replacement" of another launch
they could have sold, then yes, it's the same cost. Lost profit opportunity is
lost profit is a cost.

But if it means they can increase the # of rockets they build, they might pick
up some efficiency gains on the back stretch. I'm pretty sure they're already
struggling to keep up with demand, tho.

~~~
agildehaus
SpaceX keeps rockets other customers "paid" for after they've landed (the
customer pays for the flight, not the rocket). They've amassed a fleet they
never had to pay a dime to construct.

I believe they have eight block 5 Falcon 9s that landed successfully. More if
you count previous generations, but those likely won't be reused.

~~~
fyfy18
Does the price of a launch completely cover the cost of construction
(excluding R&D)?

~~~
usrusr
It does, for the competition, and there is no reason for SpaceX to go much
lower as long as they don't build excessive overcapacity that needs to be
filled.

------
ignoramous
The true power of such systems is that they might eventually help overthrow
hegemony of the BigTelco, who have been in bed with governments for as long as
they have been in existence.

I'm excited to see what this would mean not just for the internet but mobile
communication systems that are so much dependant on a few vendors and MNOs
that have time and again proven to breach on privacy repeatedly [0][1]. For
instance, there's no viable open source baseband alternative for 4G+ mobile
devices [2][3][4][5], and acquiring frequency and setting up base stations is
mired neck deep in regulations and patents [6], so there is not much room for
a startup to disrupt the incumbent.

Given the advent of eSIMs and increase in embedded SecureElements [7] in
smartphones, the traditional way of going mobile might soon be gone for good.
I, for one, can't wait.

\---

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6722292](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6722292)

[2] [https://github.com/srsLTE/srsLTE](https://github.com/srsLTE/srsLTE)

[3] [https://telecominfraproject.com](https://telecominfraproject.com)

[4] [https://www.opennetworking.org](https://www.opennetworking.org)

[5] [https://osmocom.org](https://osmocom.org)

[6]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11931072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11931072)

[7] [https://www.nfcworld.com/2018/08/07/357810/android-9-nfc-
sec...](https://www.nfcworld.com/2018/08/07/357810/android-9-nfc-secure-
element-tee-biometric-security)

~~~
baud147258
I don't see why SpaceX will be any better than traditional telcos

~~~
a012
They probably better than most telcos in suburban and outermost regions.

~~~
hedora
Oddly, thanks to fixed point wireless broadband, outlying areas often have
more competition than urban areas (at least in the US)

------
kristofferR
I really recommend watching this simulation of how the Starlink Constellation
would massively cut global internet latency:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdKNCBrkZQ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdKNCBrkZQ4)

------
abledon
Does anyone work on building satellites like the ones mentioned here? what is
a normal day in the life at a job like that? Are you pulling 40+ hrs/week ?

------
woodandsteel
At some point SpaceX is going to start flying the Superheavy, which will be
able to carry hundreds of satellites at once, and cost less per launch than
Falcon 9 because the second stage will be reusable. That will give it a huge
cost advantage.

~~~
dx034
Doesn't distribution in space become an issue if you release several hundred
satellites from the same rocket and need to get them into position without any
collision risk?

~~~
ceejayoz
SpaceX has released dozens from a single launcher. They have get released in a
staggered fashion and use onboard thrusters to modify their orbits a bit after
release.

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sambroner
Semi-Joke: Will/Could they fund this with a high frequency trading strategy?

~~~
usrusr
If they do actually beat microwave towers, HFTs will be their first and most
enthusiastic customers. SpaceX would not even need any specific strategy for
the money to come from HFT. For biggest revenues, add steeply tiered pricing
for the best latency, maybe even a bidding process.

If they tried to keep those gains in-house and did their own HFT I would not
be surprised if exchanges then found ways to define rules that weaken HFT as a
whole. Just a gut feeling that you need to be part of the culture surrounding
the exchanges to be in that game and keep winning.

~~~
dx034
You don't even need to beat microwave. NYC-Tokyo or London-Tokyo don't have
microwave links (and won't have anytime soon) so using it for these very long
distances could be worth it.

------
wcoenen
I wonder how this will affect Iridium in the long term. They target
applications that provide critical services with low bandwidth requirements,
and a need for small lightweight antennas with low power use.

Starlink's design doesn't fit those requirements for now. But I'm not sure
whether Starlink will stay out of that market if they will be continuously
upgrading their swarm.

On the other hand, it would be strange if SpaceX destroyed Iridium's business
model after launching their latest generation satellites for them...

~~~
derekp7
I could see a market where you put up a Starlink base station, which
communicates to regular phones via LTE or WiFi. That could cover the use case
of many Iridium deployments, where you are always within range of a camp or
vehicle.

------
kylek
Couple questions (curious if anyone knows...)

>> ... averaging 44 satellites per launch.

How big are these things and how many can _actually_ be put up in a single
launch?

>> However, SpaceX intends to use this to their advantage by gradually
replacing inactive satellites ...

What happens to inactive satellites? Do they de-orbit themselves in safe
locations? Or just stay as space junk?

~~~
ceejayoz
They’ll be in low orbit, so they deorbit on their own in months/years due to
atmospheric drag. The ISS requires regular boosting for this reason.

44 in one launch is very doable. They’ve done 64 in a launch before:
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2018-12-spacex-
sa...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2018-12-spacex-
satellites.amp)

~~~
kylek
>> carrying 15 micro-satellites and 49 CubeSats

IANASJ (I am not a space junkie) but this makes those ones sound unusually
tiny and brings me back to the first question - are the Starlink birds
similarly sized?

~~~
mrep
Most people on r/spacex are guesstimating that each falcon 9 will launch 25
satellites. 44 has been discounted because many think the falcon 9s fairing
will be volume limited when launching that many satellites.

That being said, no official number has been given out by spacex so this is
all guesswork and this article did not cite a source for the "44 satellites
per launch".

------
louprado
Off topic, but can anyone comment on their experience renting a portable
internet satellite receiver or provide a recommendation. Thanks.

~~~
pmorici
Depending on where you are going you options are probably Iridium Certus,
BGAN, or Thuraya.

I believe groundcontrol.com sells or rents all three.

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dalbasal
I wonder how many subscribers at what price this project requires to be
successful/sustainable.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Depends on a bunch of variables of course but ballpark a few million monthly
users would probably be good enough.

The falcon heavy launches are going to be ballpark somewhere around 90
million. So excluding the satellite construction that's what it costs to
launch around 70-100 satellites. They need at least about 30-35 launches. So
ballpark that means a it is going to take probably 3-4 billion. Of course that
is excluding the production cost for the satellites and other infrastructure.
Lets call it 10 billion altogether, give or take a few billion.

Not a crazy amount to spend on infrastructure in the telco world. German
operators paid tens of billions just for spectrum licenses. Considering you'd
be able to compete world wide with this, 10 billion is a bargain.

It's still a lot of money of course but with a few million customers paying in
the order of 10-40$ per month it would earn it self back quite rapidly. Even
at the low end of that price range. Arguably they could charge more.

~~~
Sammi
We also need to factor in the cost of replacing all the satellites every 5
years or so, as they only last this long in the super low orbit that they will
be in. So it's ~10 billion every 5 years, not just once up front.

So 10.000.000.000 / 5 / 12 = 166.666.666 bucks per month

Say an average subscriber pays 20 bucks.

166.669.666 / 20 = 8.333.333

You'd need about eight million subscribers paying an average of 20 bucks a
month to keep the business sustainable.

~~~
derekp7
Compared to the $200 Comcast bill I would be more than willing to pay $50 a
month for this, plus another $100 for video content. The big question I have
is how many subscribers can they support per square mile in higher population
density areas?

------
tzfld
SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon. I hope this will not turn to be a space debris
disaster.

~~~
LeonM
No, it won't. These satellites are placed close to earth, so they will deorbit
after some time. An orbit this close to earth is not sustainable, you need
fuel to keep the orbit going. Once the fuel runs out, or the satellite
malfunctions, it will fall back into the earth's atmosphere and burn.

It's also in the article:

> Second, there’s the matter of attrition, as satellites will begin to deorbit
> after a few years and SpaceX will need to replace them regularly in order to
> maintain its constellation.

~~~
garmaine
SpaceX is going to be putting thousands of satellites in the ~750mi orbital
range, which takes centuries to decay.

So long as they are closely tracked I don't think this is an issue, but these
things are not meant to decay on short lifespans.

------
oxyboy
Am I silly to worry about the amount of space junk all these companies are
gonna contribute?

------
7e
I don't believe the required billions of financing for this project has been
obtained yet.

I am skeptical of the utility, since most humans live in dense cities, where
it is both cheaper and faster to run fiber (even to 5G towers) than it is for
millions of people to choke on a handful of satellites. This offering is only
compelling for regions that have no people and no infrastructure (and
therefore no money). All signs point to another Teledesic or Iridium.

~~~
blago
You may be underestimating the resentment with current duopoly operators in
the US. I live in a dense city and I would switch in a heartbeat even if
Starlink didn't offer better/faster/cheaper service. Just being on par would
be enough.

~~~
shaklee3
That's a very niche view. Almost nobody will switch isps because of a duopoly
if everything is currently fine on price and performance.

~~~
maccam94
But everything is _not_ currently fine on price or performance. Most places
don't even really have a duopoly. It's a single cable TV/internet operator and
a single DSL operator, the DSL is way slower than the cable and both are
overpriced. If you add SpaceX service to the mix I think you'll quickly see
major price drops and equipment upgrades from most major terrestrial ISPs.

~~~
FractalParadigm
See: Google Fiber. When they started rolling it out, ISPs were folding
themselves backwards trying to convince people not to switch.

Anecdotal, but I remember someone on Reddit from Kansas City mentioning that
Time Warner had offered them something silly like 100M/10M down/up for _more_
money than the incoming Google Fiber was going to be (for 1Gbps synchronous).

I have no idea what the situation is like now, but I'd imagine it's gotten
better. They aren't going to sit around wasting money when infinitely better
tech is knocking on their front door.

