
SpaceX’s Starlink Satellite Internet Was Tested by the US Air Force - toomuchtodo
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-internet-us-air-force-testing/
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toomuchtodo
Key points:

> The technical viability and utility of beaming high speed, low-latency
> broadband internet directly into the cockpits of military aircraft is being
> tested under a program called Global Lightning. SpaceX has engaged the
> initiative and was awarded $29M to pursue development and testing, far more
> than any other contract recipient. In October 2019, SpaceX and the USAF
> began publicly discussing the latest results of that effort to test
> Starlink’s capabilities in the realm of in-flight connectivity. As reported
> by SpaceNews, SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell revealed that Starlink had
> successfully demonstrated a data link to the cockpit of a military aircraft
> with a bandwidth of 610 megabits per second (Mbps), equivalent to a gigabyte
> ever ~13 seconds.

> Up next, the USAF has plans to install Starlink terminals and test
> connectivity with an AC-130 gunship and a KC-135 tanker aircraft.

Iridium was recently awarded a $700 million contract for 7 years of data
services by the DoD [1]. That is Starlink's opportunity.

[1] [https://www.satellitetoday.com/government-
military/2019/09/1...](https://www.satellitetoday.com/government-
military/2019/09/16/iridium-awarded-738-5-million-us-dod-contract/)

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cobookman
Getting 610 Mibps of data connectivity to/from a Fighter Jet is likely game
changing.

Starlink connectivity is from the jet to a satellite back to a ground station,
making jamming the signal much more difficult from Jet to ground. I assume the
starlink satellites can bounce the signal from one another as well.

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toomuchtodo
> I assume the starlink satellites can bounce the signal from one another as
> well.

Not yet, future iteration. Bent pipe currently (Ground->Sat->Ground).

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cobookman
Ah if they could do Ground->Sat->Sat->Ground. You could always have the
Sat->Ground communication over the USA.

In that setup, to jam the signal would require equipment between the USA<->Sat
link (difficult), Sat<->Sat (even more difficult), or Plane->Sat (very
difficult)

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bochoh
I was just thinking about this the other day. I wonder how much Tesla spends
on LTE connectivity to their fairly large fleet of cars - (especially given
they just recently included Netflix / Youtube over in-car LTE at no cost to
the end-user). If these receivers are capable of working in a military
aircraft at a high rate of speed I'd bet we see Tesla use Starlink for in-car
connectivity once the arrays are mature.

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toomuchtodo
Maybe. Tesla vehicles might get the ground station (phased array antenna
roughly the size of a pizza box) built into the vehicle, but you'll pay a
premium to turn it on (like XM radio). The margins are likely higher selling
data access to StarLink than what Tesla is paying per vehicle for LTE data
from AT&T.

~~~
bochoh
I know Elon is all about vertical integration and using Starlink seems like it
would be pretty low hanging fruit to wean them off a land-based cell provider
and recover some costs - even if those costs are flowing into SpaceX coffers
instead of ATT it could be a massive benefit to the Elon family of companies.

