
Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources - rmason
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-starlink-insight/musk-shakes-up-spacex-in-race-to-make-satellite-launch-window-sources-idUSKCN1N50FC
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nemo44x
I'm amazed how little coverage Starlink, OneWeb, etc get. It's the next
revolution and the most important tech since the smart phone.

Think about the great firewall of China. It's dead after this. Having a cell
provider and home internet provider. Gone. Poor bandwidth anywhere on Earth -
a thing of the past. This is important and huge.

Buy rural property that is undeveloped. In 10 years time you'll be able to
power it with solar and battery arrays and connect it with these satellites. A
self driving carriage will deliver whatever goods you need the same day. Water
is a well away and a septic tank isn't difficult to build.

~~~
murukesh_s
> Buy rural property that is undeveloped

Wish it was that simple. Maybe when there is a big enough community (then it
would get expensive isn't it). I once wished for that but after getting
married the priorities change 1) kids schooling 2) ours and kids social life
3) medical emergencies 4) window shopping and cheese burgers dammit :) I think
we the average folks are enslaved

~~~
pjc50
Yes, the "getting away from it all" is a weird kind of fantasy; I don't know
why a satellite would suddenly enable it.

> A self driving carriage will deliver whatever goods you need the same day.

Rural areas are going to be the last places for full driverless, surely? Badly
paved or gravel roads with zero markings? Higher chance of animals in the
road? Poor metadata or lack of postal codes?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Also very population density, making it less attractive relative to e.g.
suburbs.

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walrus01
Starlink is highly ambitious. What they're trying to do is basically a
miniature version of the o3b network MEO architecture, where every CPE
terminal needs to track two satellites simultaneously. The difference is that
an o3b terminal starts from about $30,000 , they're trying to build something
with a CPE cost under $700.

This is literally a "has never been done before" satellite communications
challenge. The only thing comparable for LEO based services is the Iridium
architecture, which is designed around a very different use case and data rate
(about 3600 bps, for the first gen stuff).

~~~
st8675309
I love jargon heavy posts. I just dropped an hour learning about o3b, MEO,
CPE, low earth orbit, data rates. This kind of googling leads to new hobby
pursuits and some times new career thinking.

~~~
walrus01
Now study geostationary c, ku, and ka band transponder capacity, earth
stations, vsat modems/dishes/rf chains, to have a better understanding of the
current two way satellite status quo.

~~~
acct1771
Ka, as in, radar?

~~~
walrus01
Yes, though two way satellite Ka is generally uses to refer to all of the
bands above the "traditional" Ku band FDD frequency channels, but below 31GHz.

Not exactly the same bands as ka radar.

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cagenut
my dad taught me a phrase from back in the bell-labs/telco-heyday that has
stayed with me as timeless

"eventually you have to decide its time to shoot the engineers and ship the
product"

~~~
AVTizzle
Read that at a glance as "taco bell heyday". Now I'm wondering if the phrase
still applies.

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Nomentatus
Interesting comparison - how important firing (actually, relieving) high
numbers of generals is in war, when the rubber has to hit the road.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE)

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shaklee3
This headline is not as negative as the article (or reality):

"Within hours of landing, Musk had fired at least seven members of the
program’s senior management team at the Redmond, Washington, office, the
culmination of disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing
and testing its Starlink satellites"

Their progress is slower than musk wanted, and of that of the competitors
telesat and oneweb from what's public. He was firing because the project isn't
going well.

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Animats
How'd that approach of firing the people who said it wasn't going to happen
that fast work out at Tesla?

~~~
restalis
This is the context in which companies end up with slick players who's primary
skill is to reframe the metrics and sell the idea of progress regardless of
what's going on in reality.

~~~
dmix
That's a bit presumptive. This assumes that the executives don't ask any hard
questions and believe everything the managers tell them without ever really
digging into the problems. Or that the hiring/promotion process is broken
enough to let people who game the system slip through.

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CamperBob2
I like the quote about putting Comcast out of business, but I don't know that
I would have said as much publicly.

~~~
StillBored
It might not be comcast that dies, but rather a couple of the cell phone
vendors. Those are the businesses that are making bank on what is basically
low bandwidth wide area coverage. Given the transmission path is going to be
going up, it seems that a lot of the existing problems with topology and
buildings getting it the way will be reduced.

Anyway, I'm in a town with google fiber, but can't get more than a 30Mbit
uplink on spectrum (which is actually faster than AT&T) because the only
places in town with competition are the areas already served by google fiber.

It won't take much to kill these lumbering giants that refuse to invest in
their infrastructure. Particularly given the ill will most people feel towards
them.

~~~
jccooper
Starlink service will not compete with cell phones; the terminals are too
large. If anything, it will complement cell service, by making tower backhaul
easier.

It's also unlikely to directly compete with wired ISPs in cities, as the
bandwidth required for everyone to have a terminal would be high. But it could
enable unwired 5G stations as micro-ISPs, which would be a similar effect.

What it will kill are rural or undeveloped area ISPs (such as they are) and
provide high threat to undersea cables and cross-country fiber.

~~~
mmjaa
All of the above is positive, in my opinion. As long as the Starlink sats
somehow, eventually, fall out of corporate hands. I mean, such infinite
power...

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bathMarm0t
Maybe this is an obvious question, but is spacex allowed to bump / not take
orders from its opponents in favor of its own internet satellites? That would
effectively force any competitor to launch with someone more expensive,
allowing spacex to corner the space-internet market on cost, right?

~~~
jccooper
SpaceX can fly--or not--whomever they want. And they are, in fact, not flying
their competitors. OneWeb is booked on a variety of SpaceX competitors:
Arianespace (mostly Soyuz, but also optionally Ariane 6), Virgin, and Blue
Origin.

SpaceX certainly hopes this gives them an advantage, and it probably does,
though eventually someone is bound to copy them if they prove successful. Blue
Origin is already well on their way to a Falcon 9-alike.

Launch is also only part of the cost of a satellite constellation.

~~~
lorenzhs
Soyuz is Roscosmos, not Arianespace. Maybe you meant Vega? But that’s a much
smaller launcher.

