
FCC approves SpaceX plan for satellite broadband network - vinnyglennon
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/29/fcc-approves-spacex-plan-for-4425-satellite-broadband-network/
======
athenot
When I read satellites & internet, latency is the first thing that came to
mind.

But at the altitude the satellites (will) operate, that adds about 8ms delay
(round trip for satellite immediately above, might be slightly worse). In
contrast, the fastest round-trip to a geostationary sat is 233ms. That's a big
improvement.

~~~
erentz
It gets better. The speed of light in a fiber optic cable is about 2/3rds of
C. The proposed system (from what I understand) essentially uses free space
optics between the constellation of satellites as the backbone. Instead of
regular satellite internet service which routes up to a satellite then down to
a ground station then over a fiber optic backbone. SpaceX’s system will route
traffic across the constellation of satellites then down directly to the
remote end (or the closest egress point to whatever the remote end is if they
aren’t on the network). This means although total distance travelled is
longer, the speed it’s travelling at is 1/3rd faster. So overall this will
become very interesting for latency sensitive long distance communications.

~~~
azernik
I believe Iridium also uses its satellite-to-satellite crosslinks for
backhaul.

In fact, the SpaceX proposal looks a lot like the Iridium concept in general,
but with thousands of little satellites instead of dozens of larger ones
(which probably makes the implementation very different).

~~~
kilroy123
Was going to mention the same. Half of their new constellations is up now.
Apparently, you can use the commercially available hotspot devices that are
out now. I'm curious how fast and well it will work.

~~~
taf2
[https://www.iridium.com/where-to-
buy/?pid=13694](https://www.iridium.com/where-to-buy/?pid=13694)

Which one to buy !

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chatmasta
So now one company controls the satellites in the skies, from the uplink to
the downlink. When do we add other companies into the mix? We could have an
"Internet of satellites" that operates on a BGP type protocol. The satellites
could autonomously position themselves and route traffic amongst each other
according to the protocol. It would be just like the Internet now, but with
routers that could arrange themselves in 3-dimensional space. That would be so
cool.

~~~
kilroy123
They have no real satellites up there yet. They do have two prototype testing
sats though.

In fact, SpaceX is actually really behind on this.
[http://www.oneweb.world/](http://www.oneweb.world/) actually has sats built
now and are building the rest of the constellation now.

So SpaceX will not be alone if they actually manage to build a constellation.
Also, the Iridium next constellation is half way up and running. Which is
technically a LEO constellation that can provide internet.

~~~
tbabb
SpaceX currently has test satellites in orbit.

------
88
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16711996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16711996)

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tyingq
Awesome for rural dwellers. No more dial up, bottom end dsl, or high latency /
high orbit satellite connectivity.

Probably good for airline inflight WiFi too.

~~~
abawany
Also for people who are stuck with a 'diversity' of choices, i.e. 'cable' or
'phone'. I live in an area that is mere miles from Google Fiber but I will
never get an option to use them. I am not latency sensitive at all and will be
delighted to try out the SpaceX option if they make it available.

~~~
pavs
> I live in an area that is mere miles from Google Fiber but I will never get
> an option to use them.

In the world of physical fiber connectivity, a "mere miles" could be anything
from 100s of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars worth of investment
to connect you. Unfortunately. It would only make sense for them to provide
service in your area if the infrastructure already exists or there is enough
population density to make service profitable.

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soperj
The timeline, 2200 in the next 6 years is mind boggling.

~~~
zamalek
That's 7 satellites per launch at the current SpaceX cadence.

~~~
elihu
...or 70 satellites every tenth launch.

Another poster said their test satellites were 400kg, and the falcon 9 can
hoist 22,800kg to LEO according to Wikipedia. That gives a ratio of 57
satellites per Falcon 9. The final satellite design might be heavier or
lighter, the desired orbit may require more fuel and less payload, the
satellites may require some additional hardware for securely storing and
deploying them, and the current F9 may be superseded by bigger or more
efficient or cheaper per payload kg rockets over the course of the next few
years, so 70 per launch is probably a good guess to within an order of
magnitude.

If they wait for the BFR, that (also according to Wikipedia) has a projected
payload to LEO of 150,000kg or 375 test-satellite-equivalent masses. If it's
cheaper per kg, they might just use that.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
F9 can do 22,800kg per launch when flying _expendable_. I don't think SpaceX
intends to many expendable launches for their own constellations. iirc the max
payload to LEO when flying recoverable to barge is ~18,000kg, and when
returning to launch site ~13,000kg.

To minimize costs, I think it makes more sense for them to do RTLS than barge
landings, especially as barge landings put hard limits on launch frequency
(the barges aren't very fast).

However, even that 13,000kg is probably too high, because that is to an orbit
that is probably lower than the 1150-1300km ones they are going to use for
this.

However, for practical reasons enlarging the fairings can be more expensive
than just flying more, so the limit of satellites per launch is probably set
by how many they can fit into the standard F9 payload fairing. (1).

> If they wait for the BFR

They can't wait for very long, or they might lose their spectrum allocation.
The contract requires them to put up half of their constellation in 6 years.

(1) page 36 of:
[http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/falcon_9_users_guid...](http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/falcon_9_users_guide_rev_2.0.pdf)

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marmottus
Can we one day run out of resources on Earth if we send away a lot of objects
to space or is it negligible?

~~~
cr0sh
If I am understanding what you are asking, then yes - in theory, one (ok - an
advanced species; note, that is not humans - not yet) could consume all the
materials of the Earth, convert them, and turn them into "things" that are in
space; in short, strip mining the Earth until it was completely gone.

Certainly that could be done in theory - but the amount of energy it would
take would be of a scale we haven't even begun to barely imagine. We certainly
aren't generating that amount to do it, or harnessing such amount either.

So practically, the answer to your question is "no"; what we "send away" from
the Earth is negligible.

In order for you to understand why, I encourage you to research the scale of
things you are trying to understand. The Earth is big - really big. It may not
seem like it, but it really is. What might cause you both a bit of "fright"
and "wonder" though is the atmosphere: Compared to the Earth, the atmosphere
is thin - very thin. For instance, if you imagined a baseball as the planet
Earth, the atmosphere would be a very thin layer over the surface of the
baseball, much lower than the ridges formed by the lacings.

Then you compare the scale of the Earth (it's size) to that of say - Jupiter
(heck, just the Great Red Spot!). Then compare Jupiter's size to the size of
the Sun (hint: Jupiter is tiny).

Then compare the Sun to the size of our nearest neighboring star. Then compare
the size of that to other known stars.

Eventually you get to the size of our galaxy - which is an insanely large
collection of stars...

Then take a look at the Hubble Deep Space image - and realize that all of
those points, far in the background - that all of those are each a galaxy,
separated by vast distances from each other...

...and then realize that what we see on that image is only a tiny amount of
the whole universe.

The Earth? Compared to all that, we aren't even the size of a quark on the
butt of a bacterium...

~~~
tomc1985
I would be more worried about the opposite occurring -- all these initiatives
to mine asteroids are introducing new inputs into the closed loop that is the
Earth's physical manifestation

~~~
elihu
We already have a lot of mass of random junk falling into the atmosphere from
space all the time. A result from a quick google search:

> Estimates for the mass of material that falls on Earth each year range from
> 37,000-78,000 tons. Most of this mass would come from dust-sized particles.

[http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/75-our-solar-
syste...](http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/75-our-solar-
system/comets-meteors-and-asteroids/meteorites/313-how-many-meteorites-hit-
earth-each-year-intermediate)

I guess this means the Earth gets slightly bigger and gravity becomes slightly
stronger over time, but it's a much smaller effect than, say, the ocean's
tides creating drag that slows the rotation of the Earth.

Presumably, the materials we mine and bring back aren't going to have the same
composition as micrometeorites, since space gravel exactly isn't economically
valuable. As long as we aren't bringing back super toxic or environmentally
damaging stuff that's rare on Earth, I'm not too worried. Also, I expect all
but the most valuable elements (e.g. gold, platinum) will be re-used in space
to build infrastructure.

It's interesting that a robust space launch economy could compensate for the
thousands of tons of annual space gravel, and cause the Earth to maintain its
mass at a constant value.

~~~
adventured
The earth loses mass in the form of leaked hydrogen and helium. Upwards of
100,000 tonnes each year just from that.

------
akshayB
Who controls/regulates this piece of the internet? Because this is more like
internet for the planet.

~~~
TrainedMonkey
FCC gets the final say because SpaceX headquartered and launches from U.S.
That said in theory SpaceX will have to comply with regulations of all of the
countries where it wants to operate. Some of those countries undoubtedly will
pass laws/regulations to protect domestic telco incumbents.

~~~
GCU-Empiricist
Don't they still launch in international waters? EDIT/ Thank you for the
correction, that's just landing. /EDIT

Headquartered yes, but the barge ~~launches~~ landings keep making me think
long term SPaceX will be looking at extra-territorial options.

~~~
azernik
It doesn't even matter where they launch from - the Outer Space Treaty is
written in terms of _who_ does something, not _where_ they do it from (cf
SeaLaunch, and the absolute lack of ambiguity about state regulatory
jurisdiction for objects it launched. In fact, emerging consensus (because the
Outer Space Treaty is vague on the subject) is that it doesn't even matter who
is _launching_ the object, just which country('s citizens) owns and operate
the satellites. cf. the recent incident where some American satellites were
launched unlicensed on an Indian PSLV, the US government got all huffy at the
company, and the Indians agreed by default that the US had jurisdiction (by
washing their hands of responsibility).

~~~
dingaling
I asked a 'space lawyer' questions on this topic and we came to the conclusion
that perhaps Sealaunch should team-up with Sealand to offer a 'pirate
satellite' operations service.

------
ChuckMcM
This is just the Teledesic[1] project respun with more up to date hardware.
Back in the late 90's Motorola and Microsoft teamed up to put 288 satellites
in orbit, the number being constrained by costs and launches.

[1] [http://www.mobilecomms-
technology.com/projects/teledesic/](http://www.mobilecomms-
technology.com/projects/teledesic/)

~~~
imron
You say 'just', but the reality is, SpaceX can do this because they are
directly responsible for reducing said cost and launch constraints. That's no
small feat.

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logfromblammo
Article mentions that this is just the high-altitude constellation in MEO, and
there will be as many as 12000 total at all altitudes.

Putting 4425 in MEO, another ~7500 in LEO, and maybe a few in higher orbits,
is likely a plan to reduce latency and increase bandwidth.

SpaceX has already launched some (50?) IridiumNEXT satellites, a planned
constellation of 66 operational in LEO, plus 9 spares in a lower orbit, and 6
spares on the ground.

~~~
Robotbeat
The high altitude constellation is still definitely in LEO (extends to
2000km), not MEO. The second constellation is in LEO, too, but SpaceX calls it
"VLEO" because it's so low that atmospheric drag would pull down an unpowered
satellite within weeks.

------
13of40
Didn't the FCC just stomp on "SpaceBee" for trying to bootstrap something
similar?

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.fastcompany.com/40542629/re...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.fastcompany.com/40542629/reminder-
dont-put-your-satellites-in-space-without-fcc-permission)

~~~
notatoad
I'm not sure what you mean by "bootstrap" or if you're implying that spaceX
should be treated similarly, but the key difference here is that spaceX isn't
doing anything without regulatory approval first.

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taneq
Next, are they gonna re-approve SpaceX for showing video footage of their
launches?

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malyk
There are already people doing this. Not that it means no one else should, but
this isn't a new idea.

[http://onewebsatellites.com/](http://onewebsatellites.com/)

~~~
Robotbeat
OneWeb didn't invent the idea, either. In fact, SpaceX once partnered with
OneWeb, but OneWeb wasn't on board with Musk's crazily ambitious plans for the
LEO constellation, and OneWeb's constellation is kind of lame because it
doesn't do satellite-to-satellite communications.

There was a rash of these schemes in the 1990s. Teledesic was the most similar
one, and they went bankrupt and the constellation never launched. Voice-
centric Iridium and Globalstar did launch, though, but they also went bankrupt
but continued operating and have been refreshing their constellations. Iridium
does sat-to-sat and is thus more capable, but Globalstar does not (they do
"bent pipe" ala OneWeb).

And there's also Telestar's LEO constellation also being launched nowadays.
It's sat-to-sat and is closer to Teledesic in size than SpaceX's Starlink.

------
eddieh
So there are ~1,459 artificial satellites orbiting the Earth right now. Am I
the only one that thinks adding 4,425 is a bit much? Certainly there is a way
to do this with less space junk?

~~~
martythemaniak
Maybe your sense of "much" is thrown off by not-to-scale visualizations. Space
is big, even near-earth space is bigger than the entire surface Earth.

These 1500 satellites are probably, on average, the size of a van. Is 1500
vans distributed on surface of the earth "much"? These SpaceX / Starlink
satellites are considerably smaller - about the size of an oven or washing
machine. What does it mean for 4500 ovens spread out over the surface of the
earth to be "much"?

~~~
nkoren
Yes, space is, like, infinitely bigger than people imagine it to be. However
your analogy is incomplete unless those 4500 ovens are wandering the surface
of the Earth at mach 25.

~~~
kuschku
Well, we do have thousands of airplane-sizes airplanes wandering the
atmosphere at mach speeds. And we wouldn’t consider the airspace "full".

~~~
jacquesm
It's full enough that it requires continuous guidance and collision avoidance
measures. And the majority of those planes are not going even close to as fast
as satellites in LEO/MEO move.

~~~
komali2
There is a team at NASA tracking all that stuff though

>NASA and the DoD cooperate and share responsibilities for characterizing the
satellite (including orbital debris) environment. DoD’s Space Surveillance
Network tracks discrete objects as small as 2 inches (5 centimeters) in
diameter in low Earth orbit and about 1 yard (1 meter) in geosynchronous
orbit. Currently, about 15,000 officially cataloged objects are still in
orbit. The total number of tracked objects exceeds 21,000. Using special
ground-based sensors and inspections of returned satellite surfaces, NASA
statistically determines the extent of the population for objects less than 4
inches (10 centimeters) in diameter.

[https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debr...](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html)

~~~
jacquesm
Sure, that's pretty common knowledge isn't it?

GGP was trying to make the point that airplanes don't collide and that they
travel fast but that's not the whole story, there are a lot of people working
hard to keep it that way.

Also, even though NASA is tracking stuff there isn't much they can do about
it, it's mostly to help determine new orbits and to make sure that launches do
not accidentally intersect with some chunk of space debris.

~~~
kuschku
My point was that we can apply the same technological solutions we’ve found
for aerospace also to spaceflight.

We can use tracking and modern software solutions to plan where to put new
satellites.

4500 is far from the maximum possible.

~~~
jacquesm
> We can use tracking and modern software solutions to plan where to put new
> satellites.

And of course they will do just that.

But satellites carry only relatively little propellant and the bulk of it is
used to maintain altitude, especially for LEO/MEO satellites. Serious course
changes are going to be pretty rare whereas they are the norm for anything
with wings.

On another note, airtravel (not general aviation) tends to happen in
'corridors' with traffic control handing over at the borders of control zones.
For satellites the situation is vastly different.

The same technological solutions that we've found for aerospace have almost no
application in satellite orbital computations and the management of fleets of
satellites.

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kgc
Financial services will love this. I bet they would pay out the nose for the
extra millisecond or so of reduced latency.

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cvaidya1986
This is awesome!

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cdnsteve
Literally skynet

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dayaz36
Week old news

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gregoryrueda
Why does anyone need permission to deploy satellites? Governments want to
regulate outer-space?

~~~
lopmotr
The permission is for providing broadband services, which uses the regulated
local radio spectrum.

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callesgg
I wounder how the FCC handles this, i have very low confidence in the FCC
based on the experiences with the FCC regarding net neutrality.

