
First SpaceX Starlink satellites loaded into Falcon fairing - neverminder
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1127388838362378241
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wcoenen
Teslarati is reporting that these satellites will not yet have the laser
interlinks. I guess that means they can't route traffic from satellite to
satellite; they can only bounce data traffic back down to a base station.

[https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-
tease-r...](https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-tease-
revolutionary-design/)

~~~
arijun
I saw an unsourced comment on reddit that claimed they would have a microwave
interlink instead of the laser interlinks, which would give several orders of
magnitude lower bandwidth (although still better than nothing).

Either way, I think that these are mostly being put up to serve two important
purposes: testing various technologies with enough test vehicles to get
strong(ish) statistics, and working their way to the thousands of deployed
satellites the FCC will require them to have deployed if they don’t want to
lose their frequency allocation.

~~~
Klathmon
I have also heard that they are having some trouble with the laser interlinks
and alignment as well as the cost of them at this point, so they are starting
with the microwave interlinks. They still plan on doing the laser interlinks
eventually, but they weren't reliable or cheap enough by the time they wanted
to begin launching, so they are being left off this first batch.

All of that is completely unsourced and heard through anonymous sources that
have posted on various forums, so take it with as much salt as you need.

~~~
xvilka
Oh, microwave links effectively nothing compared to the laser ones. Terrible
news. So I guess marketed bandwidth will never be delivered within the first
generation of the network.

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matt2000
Just a reminder of the key things related to Starlink (since I had to go look
them up -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_\(satellite_constellation\))):

* Total deployed size will be ~12K satellites and take a decade or so. Will be operational in a reduced capacity as early as next year.

* Since they're in low earth orbit, latency could be in the 35ms range.

~~~
new_realist
I believe the 35 ms latency number is on top of any required routing latency,
either on the ground or in space. I'm curious how much each satellite hop will
add.

~~~
cagenut
this guy made an excellent youtube video modeling and visualizing the
satellite orbits, the network routing paths across them, and the resulting
latencies:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU&t=4m](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU&t=4m)

NYC to London on the current internet is 76ms, he shows it across starlink's
updated plans as working out to around 46ms.

Later in the description he points out a mistake in his own math and says that
starlink paths should be 8.7% faster than the video shows, so really jfk<->lhr
~ 42ms.

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zaroth
I can’t get over how they designed the packaging of 60 satellites into the
fairing.

Elon said there’s no separate dispenser to deploy them. I really hope we can
see them deploy, that would be an incredible sight.

Best of luck. They are expecting a lot will go wrong, but let’s hope they’re
wrong about that!

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naveen99
Starlink will make camping, cruises and air travel over oceans and non
civilized land a lot more tolerable. You could even setup a small city of
boats in the middle of the ocean. The market for remote internet will be a lot
bigger than it is now as it removes our inhibition in traveling to
disconnected areas.

~~~
zamadatix
I'm waiting for one of these projects to succeed so I can move out of the
city. I'm 90% remote and the only thing stopping me from moving back to a
rural area is reliable high speed internet.

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erentz
I long for much more detail about the engineering of this project, in
particular the traffic engineering and routing aspects. Theres so many
interesting possibilities there.

~~~
rashomon
The FCC filing has a lot of good technical details on the deployment and
frequency usage. Additionally, Mark Handley has a good primer on it. It may
kill actual east-west terrestrial traffic due to latency improvements:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU)

North-South will still be terrestrial.

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z3t4
One satelite only seem to be able to handle 20Gbit meanwhile a single fiber
can handle 20Tbit and you get a lot of fiber cables for $10 billion. One
advantage with satellites thoug are that there's nothing for warlord or
censoring states cut off. Time to re-watch the movie "enemy of the state" ...

~~~
SECProto
This isn't meant to replace fibre (except maybe for some high speed
intercontinental trading purposes). This is high speed Internet for people in
rural areas, where they'll pay for the bandwidth and latency improvements.

This isn't going to let them jump past national regulatory agencies. It will
help them avoid local regulations and right-of-way issues that helped kill
Google fiber.

Where did you get the $10 billion number from?

~~~
gbear605
I believe $10 billion is approximately the cost of the whole satellite
network, definitely not a single satellite.

~~~
SECProto
I just want to know where that estimate comes from - as far as I know, any
estimate of cost is a WAG. For example, my WAG with today's new info:

\- 167k per sat construction cost

\- 20 mill per launch (at-cost WAG)

\- 333k launch costs per sat

\- 500k per sat total cost

these numbers give a final 12000 sat constellation cost of 6 billion. The
initial 1600 sat constellation comes to 800million

But if my assumptions are off, it could be way less or more. If they make the
satellites even cheaper, or at cost launches are less, or they end up being
able to launch on Starship, it's significantly less. If sats cost more, or
launches are more, then the cost goes through the roof.

~~~
zaroth
Even $10 billion for global high speed low latency network coverage at the
aggregate bandwidth they are planning is extremely cheap.

Comcast spends ~$8 billion on CapEx annually.

~~~
zaroth
I searched for a while to try to find stats on Comcast's aggregate network
capacity, either in amount of data transmitted or the peak/average bandwidth
utilization. I'd be curious to compare this to theoretical capacity of the
SpaceX network.

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rwz
I’m a bit worried about how we’re throwing stuff at space as fast as we can
afford it without any legitimate way to clean it up after it becomes garbage.
This project intends to have interlink based on 7k+ satellites and they will
undoubtedly become outdated in about 20 years and will have to be replaced by
next generation. This is tons and tons of useless metal and silicon orbiting
Earth colliding with other useless silicon forming a layer of very high-energy
fragments that will destroy everything they come in contact with. And we
currently don’t know how deal with it.

It feels uneasy especially when you recognize parallels with climate change in
how we’re creating a problem for future generations chasing shorter-term
goals.

~~~
antpls
From a bit of research on Internet, the satellites will re-enter into
atmosphere after end of operation, because they are sent to relatively low
orbits. There is no garbage involved here.

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new_realist
With more fiber being laid every day, increasing wireless deployments, and
technologies like AirGig in the horizon, is Starlink launching into a
shrinking market?

Further, as SpaceX is having trouble raising the needed funds, is this launch
simply a fundraising exercise?

~~~
tyingq
Rural areas should still be a viable market. Also ships and aircraft. Current
airborne internet access is pretty expensive, slow, and high latency.

~~~
portillo
If all the constellation + GEO systems proposals end up being launched, there
will be an oversupply of capacity from space.

Rural areas are a viable market only in the US and Canada, where people can
afford to pay $50+/month for connectivity. Elsewhere in the world, they are
not going to sell to any end-users.

The 4,425 and the 7,500 satellite constellations proposed by SpaceX are way
oversized and simply put, a waste of money and efforts.

~~~
travisoneill1
At $10 billion to deploy and lets assume 5 years satellite lifetime and $1
billion a year to operate, this is $3 billion a year or $250 million / month.
You would only need 5 million subscribers at $50 / month to break even.

~~~
zaroth
Seriously. I’ll switch just so I don’t have to pay Comcast.

Now I just need some Tesla solar panels and a couple powerwalls, and betweeen
that, a well, my septic system, I can cut every cable coming into my house.

Well, I do use natural gas for heating and I love my gas stove, but nearly
there!

If only the receiver and the power requirements were small enough to fit in my
cell phone!

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senectus1
how will they eject these suckers from the payload module?

Maybe put it in a spin and just let them go? (in a controlled release)

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Klathmon
I'm really hoping they will show it during the livestream!

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iamcreasy
Are they going to use Falcon Heavy for this launch?

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mrep
Nope, regular falcon 9. However, this is predicted to be one of they heaviest
loads they have ever done (15-16 tons) considering how far down range the
drone ship is going.

