Starlink Thread (split from SpaceX)

[Jacke]

1 hour ago, tater said:

The point of the Expanse or other SF level space travel observations is that once space travel is actually common, particularly any mass visitation by people (I think tourism is the killer app here, not colonizing Mars), then the sky is filled with crawling dots.

We've had this argument before.  The light-polution impact of very nearby LEO satellites is many orders of magnitude much greater than any mass of bright objects--even fusion torches--much farther away, AUs away.  Starlink is ruining astronomy and threatening Kessler Syndrome now.  And any significant space travel except for exploration is a century or more away.  There is no business case to pay to launch much more mass to orbit than is going up now.  Any transformation from this is going to be rather slow.  Even getting consistent funding for the reasonable exploration that can be done now is going to be hard enough.

[tater]

25 minutes ago, Jacke said:

We've had this argument before.  The light-polution impact of very nearby LEO satellites is many orders of magnitude much greater than any mass of bright objects--even fusion torches--much farther away, AUs away.  Starlink is ruining astronomy and threatening Kessler Syndrome now. 

AUs away? Earth is the primary destination from "not Earth," and my suggestion is the tourism is the killer app, not colonizing Mars. The vast majority of such travel will be around Earth (including the Moon).

In the pure SF case of The Expanse level travel, most traffic is to and from Earth, burning with engines pointed at Earth both ways—so halfway to Earth and closer at all times. For Mars, 0-0.5AUs engines pointed at Earth at close approach. 0-1AU at opposition. Pure fantasy, of course.

 

25 minutes ago, Jacke said:

And any significant space travel except for exploration is a century or more away.  There is no business case to pay to launch much more mass to orbit than is going up now.  Any transformation from this is going to be rather slow.  Even getting consistent funding for the reasonable exploration that can be done now is going to be hard enough.

Maybe, but what difference does it make, the same aesthetic arguments still obtain, the only difference we don't get to participate in them.

Business case? In the 80s there was no business case for more bandwidth than was used for the internet. I recall wondering why someone would need huge hard drives with many megabytes of capacity. The business case for more, and cheaper lift is that cheaper lift creates new business cases.

It's a moot point, someone will do it. Regulate it out of existence where regulation matters, and someone not beholden to regulation will do it (and they won't bother to worry about mitigation).

As for funding, that's actually the point of Starlink. The total global launch market, including NASA and lesser space programs is not enough money to bother about. The next most funded space agencies have maybe 2X the budget of the public school system in my small city. Total US gov space spending is ~$40B. PRC is ~$6B. Russia ~$4B Europe is ~$10B.

Much of that is R&D, and other stuff not actually putting anything into space. There is no way to generate large billions doing launch without a new business case. The only business case that closes in the short term is probably low latency broadband, as such, someone will do it.

Edited February 7, 2022 by tater

[Jacke]

23 minutes ago, tater said:

As for funding, that's actually the point of Starlink.

Considering the competition, 5G and ground fibre, with better latency and cheaper capital and operating costs, I'd say Starlink is going to strongly challenged and likely to fail.

[tater]

Just now, Jacke said:

Considering the competition, 5G and ground fibre, with better latency and cheaper capital and operating costs, I'd say Starlink is going to strongly challenged and likely to fail.

 

Quite possibly. Course I can barely get cell service in my house, and only marginal broadband (DSL). I suppose they could build more unsightly cell towers, though happily I don't live next to any, so don't have to look at them. NIMBY is always in play...

[Jacke]

Just now, tater said:

Quite possibly. Course I can barely get cell service in my house, and only marginal broadband (DSL). I suppose they could build more unsightly cell towers, though happily I don't live next to any, so don't have to look at them. NIMBY is always in play...

It's horrible how bad Internet service is in North America.  Compared to most of Europe or even worse South Korea, it's damned stupid.

[tater]

7 minutes ago, Jacke said:

It's horrible how bad Internet service is in North America.  Compared to most of Europe or even worse South Korea, it's damned stupid.

My State has a population of just under 2.1 million people, and is slightly larger than Poland.

 

 

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, Jacke said:

Considering the competition, 5G and ground fibre, with better latency and cheaper capital and operating costs, I'd say Starlink is going to strongly challenged and likely to fail.

Consider the cost of laying any sort of cable (or repeater towers) to rural areas, to serve how many customers?  The numbers don’t crunch to where it makes sense for the provider or the customer.  It’s a project on the scale of “Electrify America” in the 1930s. 

Starlink will not be seriously challenged in its target market: rural, ocean, and polar areas. While there will be challengers, none of them have the same synergy as Starlink+SpaceX to keep costs reasonable. Never mind the head start Starlink has. 

[mikegarrison]

I thought I read that the real "target market" was to cut the latency time down for NY to London, which matters for people trying to do computerized trading and wanting to know the price changes fractions of a second before everyone else.

[cubinator]

36 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

I thought I read that the real "target market" was to cut the latency time down for NY to London, which matters for people trying to do computerized trading and wanting to know the price changes fractions of a second before everyone else.

At this point I think relativity of simultaneity is going to start mattering...

 

...but if it gets our lawmakers and businesspeople to understand Relativity it may be a net gain.

Edited February 7, 2022 by cubinator

[magnemoe]

13 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Consider the cost of laying any sort of cable (or repeater towers) to rural areas, to serve how many customers?  The numbers don’t crunch to where it makes sense for the provider or the customer.  It’s a project on the scale of “Electrify America” in the 1930s. 

Starlink will not be seriously challenged in its target market: rural, ocean, and polar areas. While there will be challengers, none of them have the same synergy as Starlink+SpaceX to keep costs reasonable. Never mind the head start Starlink has. 

This, now one use case for starlink is to connect to remote cell towers. 
5G is pretty much the opposite of starlink, its to give bandwidth in very populated places there the demand for cell connections is very high. 
Starlink has an shared bandwidth / km^2, yes you can probably offset it a bit pulling bandwidth from other areas but still limited. 

10 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I thought I read that the real "target market" was to cut the latency time down for NY to London, which matters for people trying to do computerized trading and wanting to know the price changes fractions of a second before everyone else.

Its an marked but starlink is way way to overbuild for that as an primary marked. Its also an pretty small marked compared to say $100*12*20.000.000 users, feel like some of the smaller services might work better here if they have laser linking between satellites to. 

[StrandedonEarth]

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 2/7/2022 at 11:37 AM, Jacke said:

Considering the competition, 5G and ground fibre, with better latency and cheaper capital and operating costs, I'd say Starlink is going to strongly challenged and likely to fail.

The problem is all the rural areas.  5G may mitigate a lot of that... may not.

[StrandedonEarth]

23 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The problem is all the rural areas.  5G may mitigate a lot of that... may not.

5G is relatively short range, which is great in urban areas. Starlink would get saturated if all the urbanites tried to use it but it can cover *everywhere*

The two systems are actually quite complimentary. 

[mikegarrison]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/dec/28/china-complains-to-un-after-space-station-is-forced-to-move-to-avoid-starlink-satellites

Was this posted before? If so, I missed it. Apparently the Chinese have officially complained that the US is ignoring treaty obligations w.r.t. Starlink. They say they have had to move their space station twice to avoid possible collisions with Starlink sats.

On the other hand, it was the Chinese test of an ASAT weapon in 2007 than has been the biggest ever single source of dangerous space debris. The ISS has had to dodge debris from that test many times. So this kind of feels like maybe the Chinese trying to make some sort of "see, you are just as bad as us" kind of statement.

[tater]

What's their definition of had to move it? There were previous complaints where the sat in question was not in fact headed towards a conjunction.

[magnemoe]

On 2/7/2022 at 5:37 PM, Jacke said:

Considering the competition, 5G and ground fibre, with better latency and cheaper capital and operating costs, I'd say Starlink is going to strongly challenged and likely to fail.

Again 5G != not <> starlink, or they have totally opposite uses. 5G is for very densely populated place there cell phone bandwidth suffer because to many users.  
It will not help you at all places there cell phones don't work well. 
Starlink give you more bandwidth the fewer other users is around so if lots of people in an large city switched to it because horrible local ISP it would not work well as they overload it locally. 
One use case for starlink and other satellite internet is to provide cell phone coverage at unconnected places, this is mostly regulatory and access to service as the tower will newer be profitable but you might have to cover all roads of an level for your license. 

[Jacke]

11 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Again 5G != not <> starlink, or they have totally opposite uses. 5G is for very densely populated place there cell phone bandwidth suffer because to many users. 

Most of the world only has phones and use cell service to connect to the Internet.  These areas mostly have people with incomes who will never be able to afford Starlink.  Especially now Starlink has done the bait-and-switch and effectively cut their original service and now offering their previously offered service as a premium at crushing prices.

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Jacke

[tater]

That's odd that the guy claims he lives in "rural land" and it's hard to get internet, and he gets more than 2X the speed I get with ATT.

As for switching to starlink, not getting speeds substantially faster than what I have now (~45 mbps) for about the same money (per data rate) would be the baseline requirement for me to use it. So for $100/mo it would need to be at least 90-100 mbps.

[SunlitZelkova]

On 2/9/2022 at 10:14 AM, mikegarrison said:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/dec/28/china-complains-to-un-after-space-station-is-forced-to-move-to-avoid-starlink-satellites

Was this posted before? If so, I missed it. Apparently the Chinese have officially complained that the US is ignoring treaty obligations w.r.t. Starlink. They say they have had to move their space station twice to avoid possible collisions with Starlink sats.

On the other hand, it was the Chinese test of an ASAT weapon in 2007 than has been the biggest ever single source of dangerous space debris. The ISS has had to dodge debris from that test many times. So this kind of feels like maybe the Chinese trying to make some sort of "see, you are just as bad as us" kind of statement.

Their complaint isn’t about “debris”, it is about space traffic control.

On 2/9/2022 at 10:22 AM, tater said:

What's their definition of had to move it? There were previous complaints where the sat in question was not in fact headed towards a conjunction.

Here is the full complaint- https://www.unoosa.org/res/oosadoc/data/documents/2021/aac_105/aac_1051262_0_html/AAC105_1262E.pdf

[SunlitZelkova]

Posting here because it doesn't pertain to Chinese spaceflight that much, it was just published there-https://gaodawei.wordpress.com/2022/05/25/prc-defense-starlink-countermeasures/

While the only "counter-Starlink" proposal had basically amounted to a meme from a former Russian president up until now, an article seriously examining the subject has been published in a journal in China. The article, however, has since been removed. That could mean Starlink-counters are actually being studied in China and they don't want info slipping out, or it could just be a random paranoid security action. There is no way to know.

TL/DR: Starlink is a difficult target and will require new tactics and technology to deal with. More investigation is needed into attack methods and space tracking needs to be improved.

The article starts by going over Starlink's characteristics and its potential applications. Some interesting things I didn't know about-

Quote

The Starlink program provides low-cost, low-latency, high-throughput, and global coverage high-speed Internet services that can significantly enhance the U.S. military’s operational communications capabilities. On the one hand, it can provide more stable and reliable communication capabilities for U.S. military combat units deployed around the world, and on the other hand, it also has the potential to provide high-definition pictures and even live video. Currently, the U.S. has conducted tests using the C-12 military reconnaissance aircraft and achieved a network speed of 610 Mb/s, 102 times the current U.S. military theater minimum transmission rate requirement of 5 Mb/s. In addition, the U.S. Army has conducted AC-130 helicopter gunship access tests and Army combat platform communications tests, and has connected a variety of air and ground military equipment at high speeds via Starlink satellites during live fire exercises. In the near future, the U.S. will be able to use the Starlink program to further enhance the information acquisition capability and speed of the main combat equipment, the F-35 fighter aircraft, while more rapidly transmitting information to other command and control nodes to enhance local battlefield C4 ISR capabilities.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, they also theorize that Starlink could form the basis of a next-gen co-orbital ASAT network, although it could refer to space-based target acquisition too.

Quote

At the same time, with the ability to go hand in hand is the ability of the Starlink program to become a vehicle for emerging U.S. warfare concepts, typically represented by mosaic warfare [15]. This new type of combat by arbitrarily combining with standardized functional units, at the functional level to integrate a larger number of smaller, single-function combat elements into more unmanned, autonomous systems to build a kill network with good adaptivity and flexibility [Emphasis added], which can be adjusted in a timely manner according to changes in the battlefield posture force structure layout, change the operation of the battle plan, so as to play the maximum effectiveness in the right place, and ultimately confuse the enemy’s combat targets, cause “battlefield fog”, and gain the dominant advantage in system confrontation [16].

Star chain low orbit constellations can quickly shape the situation according to the mission requirements, sensitive mobile deployment, reduce the adversary’s decision speed and quality, affect its operational effectiveness, so as to grasp the initiative in combat, subverting the traditional space and network security system [17].

They then examine the problems it poses as a military target. They conclude it would be extremely difficult to destroy through either existing passive or active means.

Quote

The satellite chain plan giant satellite constellation, as a decentralized space system, has no obvious functional pivot, and the failure of a small number of nodes has no impact on its overall function.

The failure of a few nodes does not have a substantial impact on the overall function. At the same time, its huge number and movement range make detection and perception extremely difficult. On the one hand, the current space disposal means are “impossible” to deal with, and on the other hand, they are very costly and face great challenges, so it is necessary to develop various new disposal means and take corresponding measures to deal with them.

They then state that alongside new passive and active countermeasures, improving space tracking is a major priority in dealing with Starlink.

Quote

Due to the large number of satellites in the chain and the completion of the network will cover the global space, in order to better grasp the situation of the constellation, it is necessary to be able to monitor a large number of satellites at the same time, which will pose a huge challenge to China’s existing low-orbit space target surveillance. Therefore, it is necessary to further develop low-orbit universal measurement and cataloging equipment capable of all-weather detectin the full constellation to support satellite target measurement, cataloging and other tasks.

The number of satellites in the satellite chain is huge, and some of them will provide services for the U.S. military, and it is difficult to distinguish these satellites at the time of launch. Therefore, China should develop precision measurement equipment, with all-weather, all-day, all-weather high-precision orbit measurement, tracking and measurement capabilities for key space areas, and be able to obtain the target’s shape, profile, attitude, signal and other information to strongly support target identification.

When the satellite chain is launched, it adopts the way of one arrow and multiple satellites, and other satellites will be put into orbit together, meanwhile, it has strong capability of changing orbit and can carry various loads to carry out various missions. Therefore, it should have space event analysis capability, and be able to analyze and evaluate new targets into orbit, target re-orbiting, target fall, etc., and generate customized event analysis reports to support our decision analysis.

Note how it assumes that the attacker will try to differentiate between military Starlinks and civilian ones. But aren't the ones being used in combat currently just the regular civilian ones? Not unlike how GPS simultaneously lets me figure out how to get to the nearest McDonald's while also guiding JDAMs on to targets thousands of miles away.

Now this is obvious but interesting. While traditional ASAT has been based on single satellites and an active or passive attacker, they suggest Starlink should be treated as a system instead of a singular targets. The closest thing I can think of this being to is the way one goes about destroying a rail network instead of trying to destroy every single individual train.

Quote

Due to the large number of satellites in the star chain and their short lifespan, it can easily happen that they deorbit or or lose control, and it also has a strong ability to change orbit, so we need to have a certain response capability. In addition, the constellation of star chains constitutes a decentralized space system, and the confrontation with it is not an “individual confrontation” but a “system confrontation”, so low-cost and high-efficiency means must be used to deal with it.

What this "low-cost and high efficiency" is is like dropping dumb bombs on a railyard in a single raid instead of flying 24/7 patrols and attacking individual trains with LGBs. I don't know how that would translate into neutralizing Starlink though.

Their final conclusion is that a lot more studies need to be conducted and that a combination of active and passive means will be needed.

Quote

On the basis of situational awareness of the star chain constellation, it is necessary to further develop relevant technologies and disposal capabilities, strengthen strategic planning in space, vigorously develop countermeasures, and adopt a combination of soft and hard killing methods for some satellites in an abnormal state, so as to disable some of the “star chain” satellites and destroy the constellation operation system.

To be clear, when they say "destroy the constellation operation system", they may mean the military portion of the full constellation, if that happens to be a thing.

Also, not completely related to Starlink, but one thing I found interesting is how it draws a direct connection between the supposed increasing civilian space "competition" and national security.

Quote

Frequency and orbit resources are becoming increasingly scarce global strategic resources, and have become the focus of competition among the world’s space powers. In order to obtain high-quality resources, it is necessary to strengthen the overall planning, declaration and coordination of frequency and orbital resources of China’s satellite network, strengthen the reserve of satellite frequency and orbital resources, and actively guide the development and construction of commercial spaceflight by improving relevant policies and systems [Emphasis added], and encourage private enterprises to make use of various means to declare and reserve resources in advance to improve external competitiveness.

This makes me wonder if other space powers have drawn similar conclusions, thus Artemis surviving the change of government intact, ESA's new space studies, and JAXA's calls for its own increased space launch capabilities.

Note- It apparently used machine translation which is why it is weird. "Disposal" means neutralization through active or passive means.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 6/17/2022 at 10:02 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Posting here

Interesting read - thanks! 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 6/17/2022 at 10:02 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Starlink is a difficult target

I've been thinking about your post for a while. 

It would have been a brilliant addition for SF to have added capabilities to the Starlink satellites.  Like a seriously, brilliant, good idea for someone to have leaned in on what SX was doing and added capabilities to the satellites and piggy back off that. 

Unfortunately, I don't think the US government is that nimble. 

I'm also not sure whether there are laws or regulations that might hinder such a plan.  My impression is that the US likes to draw a line between defense owned and operated satellites and those with a decidedly civilian purpose (not that they are against taking advantage of (&buying) commercially available services). 

That last part makes me think that if SX added capabilities (purely independently) to their satellites, then SF might be a customer - but not a controller. 

IOW - China might perceive Starlink as a threat - but that does not necessarily mean that the constellations are legitimate military targets.  (Which - let's be frank, is a distinction that China likely cares nothing about). 

The odd thing about people is that we generally judge others by the way we understand ourselves... So it's likely inconceivable for China that SX isn't hosting military or government controlled capacity even if we think it unlikely. 

Edit - which is to say... If SF isn't adding capabilities to the SL constellations - they should be. 

[mikegarrison]

49 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

My impression is that the US likes to draw a line between defense owned and operated satellites and those with a decidedly civilian purpose (not that they are against taking advantage of (&buying) commercially available services).

There are good reasons for that. International treaties, laws relating to "dual-purpose" products, technology export laws, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations

[SunlitZelkova]

10 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

It would have been a brilliant addition for SF to have added capabilities to the Starlink satellites.  Like a seriously, brilliant, good idea for someone to have leaned in on what SX was doing and added capabilities to the satellites and piggy back off that. 

Unfortunately, I don't think the US government is that nimble. 

Ironically another part of the issue with that might be SpaceX themselves. They move so fast and changes can come so out of the blue, building a coherent “Battle Starlink” program might have been difficult.

10 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

IOW - China might perceive Starlink as a threat - but that does not necessarily mean that the constellations are legitimate military targets.  (Which - let's be frank, is a distinction that China likely cares nothing about).

It depends on the situation. In a mere accident or isolated confrontation (maybe Battle of Zhenbao island style), I would agree, but total war would be different.

Axis merchants posed no threat to the Allies but they were perfectly legal naval targets during WWII.

10 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The odd thing about people is that we generally judge others by the way we understand ourselves... So it's likely inconceivable for China that SX isn't hosting military or government controlled capacity even if we think it unlikely.

It is also an ideological thing I imagine.

But at the same time, it isn’t just classified military applications that are feared- it is Starlink itself. Ukraine is purportedly using off the shelf Starlink terminals to pretty good effect in the “current event”.

Now targeting what are basically civilian comsats is probably inconceivable to the average Westerner. And they* definitely like to think that private and government are separate from each other. But imagine this- war is on, and some neutral nation provides targeting data to the US’ enemy, information without which they would not have been able to sink an American aircraft carrier, or provide highly effective artillery and air support in some key battle. How would the US respond to that?

Now change that neutral nation to an American company and have it providing quality communications, communications which are key to coordination- and coordination is key in effectiveness and success. And America is actually in the war.

This is basically where China stands in their thinking.

If the US suddenly had only two aircraft carriers and a semi-conscript military still somewhat widely equipped with 1980s legacy equipment** or modifications thereof, and they had Chinese bases just a few hundred nautical miles off the coast of California, and China had a Starlink-esque constellation providing their guys with quality communications and coordinating capability, the US would probably be planning to do the same thing to China’s- civilian or not***.

*Based on the vibe I get from discourse surrounding the laws and morals of not only targeting, but just what constitutes bearing responsibility for actions occurring wherever

**The sad thing is it’s true in some cases *cries in F-16 airframe life expectancy*

***The US military itself understands the value of comms very well. See the opening air strikes of the Gulf War against Iraqi IADS control stations

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

some neutral nation provides targeting data to the US’ enemy, information without which they would not have been able to sink an American aircraft carrier, or provide highly effective artillery and air support in some key battle. How would the US respond to that

We already know the answer.  Syria and Afghanistan.  The OPFOR got actionable Intel and material / direct support from one or both of Russia and China). 

Neutral party's civil infrastructure is supposed to be immune from the conflict - and generally are - presuming they're not providing aid and comfort to a belligerent.  However, shipping (or any logistics, including aircraft and ground transportation) that are traveling to, and especially within) a belligerent are targetable.  (Germany declared the waters around GB as a war zone (c.f. 'No Fly Zone') - warning everyone that all ships might be interdicted - and yet the sinking of the Lusitania cascaded into the US entering WWI). 

Should the US and either or both of China and Russia become direct belligerents - nothing in Space is safe. 

However, so long as the conflicts are carried out by proxies - Space should be safe.  (The current unpleasantness is also a good example - Putinstan hasn't shot down any satellites, either). 

8 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

t the same time, it isn’t just classified military applications that are feared- it is Starlink itself

This is a really good point - but I see it in a broader light (assume that you recognize this as well): the immediate risk for China isn't someone using Starlink access for military purposes... Its losing control of the info-space within China.  Should its people get free, uncontrollable access to the internet, they can no longer control the narrative and the whole coercive 'social credit' system implodes. 

8 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

US military itself understands the value of comms very well

This is very true and originates in the Grenada debacle