
SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites - crunchlibrarian
https://www.fastcompany.com/90268592/elon-musks-spacex-just-got-fcc-approval-to-launch-7518-satellites
======
zaroth
Too bad the public markets have given Elon such a lashing with Tesla, because
I would love to buy into SpaceX.

But then, I’m not the only one;

“There is an unlimited amount of funding that the company could probably
access globally in private markets," Hilmer said, adding that he has
personally met many of "a diverse group" interested in SpaceX. Everywhere I
travel around the world, investors of all types — individuals, family offices,
hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds or private equity — want to get into
SpaceX," Hilmer said. "It's almost all investors I talk to."

Of course at the same time I’m happy they aren’t public. The market couldn’t
handle the time horizons that SpaceX operates under, nor the mission statement
that drives them.

[1] - [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/equidate-
spacex-27-billion-v...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/equidate-
spacex-27-billion-valuation-shows-unlimited-private-funding-available.html)

~~~
test6554
Anybody who sees a ceo who plans to spend a large chunk of company profits on
colonizing mars for the sake of humanity might think to themselves, "I wonder
if I can start a similar company, avoid the mars colonization expenses and
undercut them on price."

~~~
Denzel
You misunderstand just slightly, and through no fault of your own I might add
since SpaceX’s messaging is deliberately murky here.

SpaceX has no plans right now to colonize Mars. In fact, they keep saying,
“Look! We want other companies or nations to step up and plan for how to
establish a colony. We’re only going to do it if we absolutely have no other
choice.”

SpaceX is truly establishing a financially viable solar transport system that
may eventually extend beyond our solar system. This is analogous to the birth
of the U.S. railroad system. We don’t know yet what what don’t know is
possible.

SpaceX is poised to own space transport outright. That’s major!

Now what does Mars have to do with this? It’s just a helpful organizing goal.
People love a good milestone. Something to reach for with meaning. I mean if
you’ve been following SpaceX’s 15-year history you’d see that they’re nothing
if not methodical in their planning and attainment of milestones.

SpaceX is one of the most well-run companies in the world. And right now they
have the best prices, the best technology, the best pace, the best outlook,
the best...

They have no competition. Literally. I’d invest the entirety of my lifetime
earnings in SpaceX if I could. We’re witnessing historic achievements in the
making.

~~~
jordanthoms
I agree SpaceX is way ahead, but I wouldn't say they have no competition. Blue
Origin is making some very interesting moves.

~~~
JanSolo
Interesting, yes; however in tech, products, partnerships, experience or any
other quantifiable measure, Blue Origin is far, far behind SpaceX.

SpaceX has launched many Orbital missions.

Blue Origin has launched none.

SpaceX has two functional, tested, orbital spacecraft in production.

Blue Origin has a sub-orbital pod with goldfishbowl windows that's not quite
ready yet.

SpaceX has successfully partnered with NASA for commercial cargo missions to
the ISS.

Blue Origin has not.

SpaceX has landed more than a dozen rockets post-flight.

Blue Origin has landed < 10 sub-orbital rockets.

SpaceX has designs for rockets and spacecraft that might plausibly target
inter-planetary travel.

Blue Origin has not gotten to orbit yet.

Don't get me wrong; I want Blue Origin to succeed. However, the slope of their
progress graph has been much shallower than SpaceXs. I don't see them ever
catching or overtaking SpaceX unless something drastically unforseen happens.

~~~
tristanb
SpaceX has landed more than a dozen rockets post-flight. - Its 20 (5 failed)

------
thinkcontext
The fact that SpaceX can piggyback on its own customers' launches to put these
in orbit is a significant advantage over competing communication
constellations.

Depending on the cost of their satellites it might make sense to use launching
them as a means of testing the upper limits of reusability of their rockets.
IE, they might not want to risk a customer payload on a rocket that has made
10 launches. But if they are going to build 7,518 satellites the marginal cost
is likely to be rather low so it might be worth it to push the risk threshold
to stretch the number of trips per rocket. Also, it could be a good
opportunity to clear out their inventory of pre-block 5 Falcon 9s.

~~~
Rebelgecko
I would be surprised if they launch many of the satellites on customer
launches. They have some very specific orbits, and are planning on dropping
the satellites off in orbits much lower than where they will actually be
operating. It would probably be more fuel efficient to drop off a bunch of
them in the right inclination all at once, then boost them up into spaced out
orbits.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It's possible that they will use reflown Falcon 9s that have exceeded their
reuse capability (~10 launches) to deliver these satellites. You're only
paying for the propellant, the oxidizer, the second stage, and your fixed
operations cost; the rest of the vehicle has been amortized through paying
customer flights.

~~~
soperj
They only reuse the first stage at this point, so still a lot of cost there.

------
elteto
This video [0] really puts into perspective what SpaceX is trying to
accomplish. Incredible stuff if they pull it off!

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AdKNCBrkZQ4&app=desktop)

~~~
buboard
80msec is not a good outcome considering the cost and complexity of the
investment. Aren't there alternative technologies to achieve this
connectivity?

~~~
elteto
I think you might be underestimating latencies in the real world.

These [0] are statistics from Verizon showing 90ms RTT for trans-atlantic
connections. Trans-pacific is > 100ms. 80ms seems highly competitive for me in
this context.

[0]
[https://enterprise.verizon.com/terms/latency/](https://enterprise.verizon.com/terms/latency/)

~~~
buboard
there is a video posted in the comments that compares latencies to cables.
spacex advertises latencies from 50-80 , but cable is in all cases fasters
(rather obvious i think).

------
creeble
Curious how this will pan out.

It's a shocking contrast to be in or near a city and have broadband speeds,
and then be just a few dozen miles outside one and have... literally nothing.

I just loaned my Iridium phone to a friend who was going to the jungle, and
although he was able to make the data connection work, even doing email at
2400 baud(!) proved useless. Inmarsat is faster, but vastly more expensive.

Outside of those two, there is no global solution.

~~~
nugga
Starlink could be a godsent for online gamers. Anything under 100 ms for fps
games is quite playable and you don't need much bandwidth for those udp
packets. Just guarantee some minimum bandwidth allotment of say 1 mbps and
make sure the satellites are not so oversubscribed as to cause unnecessarily
long or unoptimized routing. Games between west coast usa and eu or eu and
asia would be playable.

~~~
russdill
If you're going to another continent, you're going to see a big latency
savings. If your going to another state, you're probably going to get lower
latency on fiber. But really, a 60Hz frame is 33.3ms, and many online games
advance their world state at 60Hz too, so it's easy to get up to 67 ms of
latency just sitting still.

~~~
diamondlovesyou
A lot of people play with 144hz (what I play on) and some even higher (240hz).
Which is just under 7ms and just over 4ms, respectively.

~~~
de_watcher
He's talking about network frames, not graphics frames.

------
Rebelgecko
Is there anyone who knows more about radio stuff that can explain why they
want to have both Ku and V band for users? It it just a matter of having more
spectrum? Or are some bands more suited to crowded areas, like a city where
there might be lots of customers sharing bandwidth? Do you need different
hardware for using the different frequencies?

~~~
dr_orpheus
There are a few possible reasons for using multiple bands. With the higher
frequency of the V band you can very high data rates down to the ground.
However, higher frequency RF will be very attenuated by rainfall [0]. So the
Ku band could be used as a backup to the V band.

The V band (or optical links) will also likely be used for the inter-satellite
communication.

You do typically need different hardware for using the different frequencies.
With some of the more advanced software defined radios, you could use both of
the at the same baseband within the same radio. But you will still need some
sort of frequency conversion [1]. You will likely need different antennas for
each band as well. And to get an efficient system you also want to add filters
for each band.

[0]
[http://happy.emu.id.au/lab/rep/rep/9510/txtspace/9510_032.ht...](http://happy.emu.id.au/lab/rep/rep/9510/txtspace/9510_032.htm)
[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-
noise_block_downconverter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-
noise_block_downconverter)

~~~
shaklee3
The higher data rates come from the fact that there is a lot more spectrum
available in the v band. From what I remember there is about 4 to 5 gigahertz
usable there. Ka-band has about 2-3GHz, and Ku about 1. as you mentioned,
attenuation is one of the factors why you wouldn't use v band. Another reason
is that it uses quite a bit more power, and the RF electronics are much more
expensive and rare.

------
bargl
This is such a cool problem.

We already have a ton of Geo sat which can do this kind of communication but
they are super expensive and have a limited bandwidth.

These satellites will actually have a ton of limitations in how much data they
can send around and how they'll have to balance out their signals. Geo are
easier to point to because, well they don't move.

But these are going to be moving and changing all the time so you'll have to
connect to multiple satellites every day. I'm spit balling here but they'll
probably be overhead for 10 minutes? Think about switching your router every
10 minutes. Or you get a rainy day and your signal clarity goes down. Or you
are over the equator in a band that is used strictly for GEO.

This is going to be a super cool problem to solve. And I'm sure I don't even
understand the half of it.

Edit: Sorry example of router is pretty bad. It's more like running your phone
but you have to specifically aim your antenna at each tower that you're
passing while driving. The complexity is moving nature of the network and the
targeting nature of the antennas. I have 0 clue if phone signals are targeted
but I believe they are radial signals and more like a beacon than a laser.

Load balancing these can be a pain as well because if you get too much signal
on an antenna it can actually block all signal.

~~~
phkahler
>> Think about switching your router every 10 minutes.

Your cell phone switches towers all the time while you're on the road. My
cellphone (republic) switches from WiFi to cellular network mid-call if I'm on
it when I leave a building. This is not a new problem.

~~~
gsich
>My cellphone (republic) switches from WiFi to cellular network mid-call if
I'm on it when I leave a building. This is not a new problem.

Networking technology switching is unrelated to a call, which always uses
cellular.

~~~
thatfunkymunki
my cellular provider (T-Mobile) uses UMA/GAN to switch between wifi enabled
cellular network access and cellular network access proper on the fly

------
zjaffee
Does anyone have any context on what sort of internet speeds satellite
internet has been benchmarked to provide. I can't imagine the latency being
anywhere near good enough to do many of the high bandwidth things people use
the internet for today.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
Traditional satellite internet uses satellites in geostationary orbits, or
35,786km high above the equator. This is great because satellites in that
orbit are stationary relative to the ground, so you just need a parabolic
antenna pointed at a specific point in the sky to get great reception. But
it's also terrible for latency because the signal takes 120ms just to get up,
and another 120ms to get down. Assuming you live on the equator, directly
underneath the satellite. For someone living in the temperate regions, typical
real rtts are in the 700ms area.

Starlink and OneWeb are different in that they intend to use a lot of
satellites in low orbits to maintain constant coverage. This is technically
much harder, not the least because you need thousands of satellites to get
reasonably good coverage, but also because the ground station and the
satellite transceiver both need to track each other. This was not technically
feasible before, but modern AESA antennas can steer their signal without
having to move the antenna, and can both transmit and receive multiple
simultaneous beams and very rapidly move the beams around when doing time-
sharing.

The minimum round-trip time to something very close to you and also close to
it's own ground station will be on the order of 10ms. However, where the
system really shines is long distance communication. The satellites will pass
the signal between each other using lasers, and will get the signal to the
other side of the earth much faster than terrestrial fiber, both because laser
in vacuum travels substantially faster than one in fibre, and also because the
fibres don't get to follow ideal great circle paths.

Independent researches have evaluated the likely latencies of the system, and
the results are frankly shocking. For example, today on the existing fiber
network, rtt between London and Singapore is ~160ms. On Starlink, the rtt will
be ~90ms.

~~~
Filligree
> Traditional satellite internet uses satellites in geostationary orbits, or
> 35,786km high above the equator. This is great because satellites in that
> orbit are stationary relative to the ground, so you just need a parabolic
> antenna pointed at a specific point in the sky to get great reception. But
> it's also terrible for latency because the signal takes 120ms just to get
> up, and another 120ms to get down. Assuming you live on the equator,
> directly underneath the satellite. For someone living in the temperate
> regions, typical real rtts are in the 700ms area.

This doesn't check out.

The radius of Earth is 6,300km. Assuming a receiver on the north pole, the
total distance should only be sqrt((35786 + 6300)^2 + 6300^2) = 42555km, which
isn't notably larger than the 36000km at the equator.

I'm sure you're still right about the latency, but it can't be just distance
doing it.

~~~
dr_orpheus
The latency from the distance light travels does not vary that much. The rest
of the ~600 ms latency is caused by the same thing as latency on ground
systems (routers, etc.). And the processors on spacecraft are not particularly
fast.

~~~
ryanmarsh
Who builds routers that go in space? Cisco? That's got to be some crazy
hardware.

~~~
dr_orpheus
Cisco has built routers for space multiple times before. The first time was
way back in 2003:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLEO_(router)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLEO_\(router\))

------
Rooster61
This scares me a bit. The idea of having LEO internet is great and all, but
the idea of quadrupling the number of functioning satellites, all operating in
different orbits but at a similar altitude seems incredibly dangerous to me.

The article mentions the movie Gravity, which is a bit unrealistic as it
portrays multiple large bodies in orbit all being at about the same altitude
(which isn't the case in reality). That is not the case with this web of
satellites. If a chain reaction of collisions does occur, it would cause a
field of tiny, fast, deadly debris all orbiting on a similar orbital "plane".
It would pretty much blanket the planet. Wouldn't this cause a large issue for
anything attempting to reach orbit? What am I missing here?

EDIT: A lot of replies here mentioning the fact that LEO spacecraft decay more
quickly than higher orbits. Please note that not all LEO orbits are low enough
to guarantee a quick decay without powered retrograde thrust. Stuff can hang
up there in LEO a long, long time depending on the actual altitude.

~~~
zackbloom
Think how big the Earth is. How hard it would be to find a Xerox machine in
the Amazon or the middle of the Atlantic if someone stuck it there. Space is
much, much, bigger.

~~~
ceejayoz
> How hard it would be to find a Xerox machine in the Amazon or the middle of
> the Atlantic if someone stuck it there.

Part of the problem, though, is that said Xerox machine is traveling at
_17,000 miles per hour_.

We've already had a collision
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision))
between two of the ~3-4k satellites in orbit. SpaceX's constellation is
planned to be double that number.

That single collision turned two satellites into two _thousand_ high-velocity
projectiles, too.

~~~
ahje
> That single collision turned two satellites into two thousand high-velocity
> projectiles, too.

Just to add to that point:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envisat#Space_safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envisat#Space_safety)

A single 10kg. chunk of debris could result in over 8 tonnes of additional
debris, triggering a rather nasty chain reaction.

------
LastZactionHero
_According to Bloomberg, since there are currently fewer than 2,000 operating
satellites, SpaceX’s new additions will dominate space._

This number surprised me, much lower than I expected. Looked it up and I'm
seeing varying numbers, but generally in the 1k-4k ballpark.

~~~
dr_orpheus
This is for operating satellites, but the Air Force currently tracks ~21,000
pieces of debris in orbit (about anything larger than a baseball) around the
earth.

------
TenJack
Do they need more than US approval to launch satellites into international
space?

~~~
greglindahl
This FCC approval is to be able to talk between orbit and the ground in the
US. SpaceX needs approval from other countries for the same, in order to offer
service there.

Launch approvals are a separate thing.

------
porscheburnaby
goodbye, great firewall of china...

~~~
nickik
Why. China can just force SpaceX to turn off over China. Unless this is part
of a political 'Radio Free Europe' style operation China will control this as
much as everything else.

~~~
stcredzero
_Why. China can just force SpaceX to turn off over China._

How? By shooting down satellites?

~~~
nickik
Regulation. Do you think SpaceX would operate an illigal network in a foreign
company? Do you not think China had the pull to tell the US to keep SpaceX in
line?

The can ban the sale of terminals. They can scan waves.

~~~
natechols
One of the consequences of the Sputnik launch was that it basically enshrined
the principle that overflying another country with an active satellite was not
an illegal act. (That is, the US government decided not to protest, because it
meant they wouldn't have to apologize for their own future spy satellites.) I
doubt China wants to break this precedent.

~~~
nickik
No. There is a difference between flying over and operating communication
satilliets.

~~~
natechols
As far as international law is concerned, I doubt it. Sputnik was transmitting
the entire time it overflew the US.

~~~
nickik
Its about offering a service in China, not about the technical act of
communicating.

------
detritus
This is probably a stupid thing to ask, but: Could this setup be hacked to
provide a loose form of GPS?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Not stupid. Sort of. The term you're looking for multilateration (edit: i'm
twisting the term a bit for my own use here, it's not _exactly_
multilateration but it's not exactly triangulation either). Without looking at
the RF specd in the FCC docs or the satellite hardware part list, I'm not sure
if you could do it on the receiver, but it would be straightforward for the
constellation visible to the receiver to triangulate a receiver's position and
provide it over a maintenance channel to the terminal.

~~~
phkahler
The answer is probably yes, but it would be a side-effect since data
transmission will be the primary purpose. Actually it may turn out to be pre-
condition for getting the best throughput - i.e. knowing when and where the
sats are and when your transmission window is to within a tight tolerance will
be necessary and that's what you need for GPS.

------
airnomad
Why do they need approval for this? It's not like Space is owned by anyone?

~~~
randyrand
Political power comes from the barrel of a gun, and SpaceX is well within many
country's sights.

e.g. that's the law.

~~~
acct1771
You mean "i.e."

------
ilrwbwrkhv
i think the price should be around 35 dollars per month

~~~
mtgx
$29 (or less) for 1Gbps would probably give American ISP executives night
sweats.

~~~
lccarrasco
I live in Bolivia, South America, the impact a global ISP would have cannot be
overstated, in developing countries internet prices are still extremely
expensive, up until a month ago I was paying around USD 60 for 10Mbps, and
that was the best price I could find in my city, the second largest in the
country.

~~~
napsterbr
Yep, same here (Brazil).

I suppose SpaceX plans to start with us-only offerings. I also suppose it will
take a while until it reaches developing countries.

Does anyone have a better take on this?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
The satellites are not stationary, but go around the earth. This means that to
get good coverage in the US, they actually have to provide good coverage
everywhere near the same latitudes (on both sides of the equator). Since the
satellites in the southern hemisphere will have nothing better to do and have
less demand, they are probably going to start rolling out service everywhere
they can at the same time.

Most of Brazil is actually a bit out of luck in that it's too near the
equator, so satellite density overhead will not be that great anywhere but the
very southernmost areas until there are lot of the birds in the sky, so you
won't have service immediately. But places like Chile and Argentina will have
great access pretty quickly.

However, as a caveat to that the receiving antennas will be expensive at the
start and SpaceX still has to negotiate access to spectrum in every country
separately, and in poorer countries this will most likely have to be paid for,
so that will hike the prices up.

~~~
baq
Frequencies aren’t free, spacex will need to buy the rights for each country
separately and that costs serious money. Unless they somehow don’t have to do
that for whatever reason...

~~~
nickik
Well, I mean if you have network orbiting up there anyway so you can probably
make a business case that the frequency is worth it in most cases. But its
probably complicated regulatory process in each country.

------
cronix
This will probably be the first botnet in space, once some clever kid or
nation state figures out how. That's a lot of firepower floating around.

