Starlink Central

[filthy-beast]

I'm hoping it's huge success for Musk. It will create competition, making the other players step up their game and lower the prices.

[rynosback]

I wonder is clouds and weather will effect the signal like satellite TV. Or does having the satellites in a lower orbit help the signal?

[rynosback]

I cut this from an article I read.

As SpaceX eyes an initial public offering for Starlink, it has a lot going for it. It enjoys widespread name recognition and has entered pop culture and discussions of space exploration the world over. There will likely be no shortage of investors willing to throw money at the project. As a result, I would expect this offering to be oversubscribed in short order, with a valuation built on the same lofty expectations and assumptions that garnered SpaceX its current private valuation of more than $33 billion.

A public offering will force SpaceX to disclose more financial information than it has in the past, which could result in new information emerging. However, I do not anticipate anything that could derail this particular offering. Enthusiasm for SpaceX is high, as it is for the entire burgeoning space economy. One need only look at the stock performance of another space flight company that recently went public, Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. (NYSE:SPCE). Virgin Galactic's market capitalization has surged to $5.6 billion, far outstripping any sensible valuation based purely on the addressable market for space tourism.

[Dutch_12078]

Keep in mind that SpaceX will spin off Starlink as a separate entity for the public offering, so we may not get as much overall financial information as might like to see. If the Starlink IPO is at all affordable by the "average Joe" though, I'm in...

[chirakawa]

10 hours ago, filthy-beast said:

I'm hoping it's huge success for Musk. It will create competition, making the other players step up their game and lower the prices.

I share your hope.  However, average household broadband cost in the USA is probably around $70 month.  I don't see how Starlink will be able to deliver for that or less.  The value may be in the product quality and availability, and not price.

[filthy-beast]

I was thinking more of the cellular data providers vs. the cable companies.

[Zulu]

11 hours ago, rynosback said:

I wonder is clouds and weather will effect the signal like satellite TV. Or does having the satellites in a lower orbit help the signal?

Weather can diminish signals to and from the satellites.

[Zulu]

2 hours ago, chirakawa said:

I share your hope.  However, average household broadband cost in the USA is probably around $70 month.  I don't see how Starlink will be able to deliver for that or less.  The value may be in the product quality and availability, and not price.

In June 2019 Elon said the value of Starlink is to provide low-latency, high-bandwidth internet access to the sparse and moderately sparse and relatively low density areas. Rural and semi-rural places that don't have any or any adequate internet access are optimal and will target 3% - 5% of people in the world. It is not well suited for high density cities.

[Zulu]

1 minute ago, Zulu said:

In June 2019 Elon said the value of Starlink is to provide low-latency, high-bandwidth internet access to the sparse and moderately sparse and relatively low density areas. Rural and semi-rural places that don't have any or any adequate internet access are optimal and will target 3% - 5% of people in the world. It is not well suited for high density cities.

On 2nd blush . . .

Since high-density areas (urban, cities) could overload Starlink, that would mean differentiating high- and low-density (rural) areas some way -- Zip code?

Furthermore, would Starlink have the smarts to turn off service to someone passing through a high-density area? Or why bother? Mmmmmm . . .

[chirakawa]

2 hours ago, Zulu said:

In June 2019 Elon said the value of Starlink is to provide low-latency, high-bandwidth internet access to the sparse and moderately sparse and relatively low density areas. Rural and semi-rural places that don't have any or any adequate internet access are optimal and will target 3% - 5% of people in the world. It is not well suited for high density cities.

Here is a compilation of Starlink FAQ's from Reddit.  Consider the source, but I've read most of these at other locations.

Pretty interesting info and supports what you're saying.  It also lists expected cost to be under $50 month.  If that's so, how will Starlink regulate who gets to sign up and who doesn't?  I would think that most people would jump at that, unless they had some type of sweetheart deal like the Mobley connected car plan.  Makes for some challenges.

The most interesting fact to me represented in the Reddit link is that the satellites are only good for five (5) years.  So, by the time they get all the sats up and working, many will have already reached end of life.

From reading this, my understanding is that each satellite will support 20 Gbps and there will be three satellites within view at any one time. 

[vermilye]

I was out taking some star photos last night, and believe I caught a bunch of Starlink satellites.  Can't think of anything else that would show that much (and that little) movement in a 31 second exposure.(The short streaks, not the long airplane). 

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by vermilye

[Dutch_12078]

They very well could be the recently launched Starlink 60 sat cluster as they begin to shift to their assigned orbital locations.

[rynosback]

12 hours ago, Zulu said:

Weather can diminish signals to and from the satellites.

So having the satellites being closer to the earth would have no effect? From what I read these are the lowest orbiting satellites currently.

[Dutch_12078]

7 hours ago, rynosback said:

So having the satellites being closer to the earth would have no effect? From what I read these are the lowest orbiting satellites currently.

They're still orbiting well above the weather and can certainly be affected by it. What will make them less susceptible to weather outages though, is the moving three satellite spread that will typically be in view of the user terminal antennas when the orbital tracks are fully populated. The likelihood that all three are blocked at the same time should minimize complete outages.

[Zulu]

Satellite 2020 -- fingers crossed. Hoping for Starlink announcement.

[Dutch_12078]

Thanks! Hopefully COVID-19 won't have any effect on the scheduling...

[Zulu]

Elon Musk's Satellite 2020 Starlink Interview -- most of this interview was on SpaceX. Bad interviewer. Nothing new. Long story short . . . Starlink seems to be designed for RVers.

 

[Dutch_12078]

Musk has said on multiple occasions that Starlink would work very well for mobile uses. Pretty much as long as the user terminal can see a patch of sky it should work once the service is fully deployed.

[agesilaus]

Musk made a statement saying the system will go live for the Northern US and Canada in 2020, everyone else in 2021: Musk Statement
 

Frankly I'm hoping Visible will last until this goes live. I have not seen anything on ground antennas tho.

 

[Zulu]

24 minutes ago, agesilaus said:

Musk made a statement saying the system will go live for the Northern US and Canada in 2020, everyone else in 2021: Musk Statement
 

Frankly I'm hoping Visible will last until this goes live. I have not seen anything on ground antennas tho.

 

Where in this article (which is from Satellite 2020) does it say WHEN?

[agesilaus]

Quote

The system is due to go live in the northern United States and Canada later this year and expand to global coverage by 2021.

 

[Zulu]

1 hour ago, agesilaus said:

The system is due to go live in the northern United States and Canada later this year and expand to global coverage by 2021.

I think the article's author, not Musk, said this.

[agesilaus]

That statement is bookended with statements that clearly accredit Musk, so if that wasn't his statement that 'reporter' needs to go to reporter re-education camp.

[Zulu]

A bit of good news from the StarLink Reddit . . .

It is 362 launched with this launch today. However the first 2 were just test satellites. And the first batch of 60 (May 2019) were considered version 0.9 and were also likely test satellites. So 300 production satellites have been launched. Also a few were lost due to becoming inoperable, lost communications. So the real number of operational production satellites in orbit is likely 290-300 or so.

[Darryl&Rita]

Today's launch wasn't without incident. There was a reported engine failure. Just a little rock in the road.