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SpaceX Applies To Test Internet Service Satellites
lpress writes: Elon Musk's SpaceX and Greg Wyler's OneWeb both hope to provide global Internet access using constellations of low-Earth orbit satellites. Neither company plans to be in operation for several years, but Musk's SpaceX is ready to test two satellites. They have applied for permission to launch two satellites that will orbit at 625 km. Time reports: "The application describes two satellites, the first of up to eight trial satellites that are each expected to last up to 12 months. The satellites will likely be built using the $1 billion that SpaceX raised mostly from Google earlier this year. For these first tests, the launch location will likely be Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast rather than Cape Canaveral in Florida, according to the orbital parameters in the application."
Dang, am I sounding like a fanboi or what?
Wherever You Go, There You Are
You need to answer "Vandenberg Space Industries" and tell them that we're a Space Textiles Manufacturer and I'm the best Space Latex Salesman you've got.
Thanks!!1!
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
I wish to subscribe to your newsletter so I can roll it up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
it would be a shame if something happened to it....like too much stuff in the way.
Um, yeah... I remember having a teacher in the 70's who said things like 'no space exploration until every human is fed' and 'explore the ocean first... blah, blah, blah'
My reply at thirteen was uncouth but similar to my feelings now, which could be summed up as, 'all of this money spent on space systems is a fraction of the annual interest on the money sponged up by the dictators who are preventing food and financial aid from making it to the starving people of their countries'
The benefits, or return on investment, for launching these sort of systems is significant or business people like Musk would never consider it. Compare that to the benefits of making another Mugabe as rich as King Solomon
Wherever You Go, There You Are
You're a little confused. Our plan is to use kittens as reaction mass, not babies.
Republican corporate welfware? You couldn't even finish reading the summary before you rushed to mouth off in the comments?
The satellites will likely be built using the $1 billion that SpaceX raised mostly from Google earlier this year.
The satellites are privately funded. The rocket is privately funded. The launch is privately funded. The US government didn't spend one thin dime for this experiment, and will in fact get paid to enable the launch (range launch services aren't free, you know).
Quitcher bitchin'.
Geosynchronous orbit is too high and latency is a problem.
The idea is to have smaller and very cheap satellites in a low orbit instead. That gives better signal levels and keeps latency down ( if you can solve the hand-off issues and keep enough birds in the air.).
Maintenance might be less of an issue as well if you just keep replacing/updating them as they drop out of orbit.
There are tons people who could raise money to launch satellites. Please concentrate on delivering the 40K sedan with 200 mile per charge range. As if he is going to listen to some random /.tter....
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Elon Musk's philosophy is apparently, "If you want something done right, do it yourself." It seems to be working for him, so I guess you can't argue with it.
I wonder what Iridium thinks, considering they have a launch contract with SpaceX. For which they have undoubtedly put money down, thereby helping to fund this effort.
Since the application is at FCC and not FAA, I assume the permission is about using radio spectrum within US territory, rather than launching a spacecraft.
That leads me to a question: at what altitude do you get outside of a country national space (and therefore you do not have to ask a regulator for using radio spectrum)?
It's Astrolink all over again - something that failed 15 years ago.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Buzzword bingo, perhaps, but applicable in this case. What I see him doing is leveraging the specific techs of some businesses that are successful and applying them to other industries. The in-home battery business benefits from the success of Solar City, and the in-home battery business reduces the price of Tesla batteries and reduces the risk of a bad year decimating Tesla. SpaceX reduces the price of satellite launches, but requires constant launches to remain stable. So how about creating a satellite business? It creates a floor of launches that will always be with SpaceX, and because of reduced launch prices, has a high chance of success.
This approach isn't without risk though. My business group was like this for a while, but the dependencies became so strong that one business' bad year became everyone's bad year. The core businesses have since become more focused on individual success instead of group success since then, and it has made them more robust and stable as a result.
How very cool - they're using an Ettus Research software-defined radio! I'm not sure if they'll be using the GNURadio stack to interface to the radio or not, but it's nice to see such an Amateur Radio friendly company get some cred.
From their application, they're looking to use 10.95-11.05 GHz downlinks with an transmitter power of 4 W, an EIRP of 1.1 kW (which implies at least a 24.4 dBi antenna), a bandwidth of 85.8 MHz, and a modulation scheme that uses a single channel with amplitude and phase modulation (QAM, likely) and a mix of content - video, phone, etc.
They also have 8GHz low-power downlinks at 11.6 GHz bandwidth.
8027.50000000-8087.50000000 MHz MO 20.000000 W 19.300000 W P 0.00100000 % 11M6G1D
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
If he can get reasonable bandwidth at cheap cost, I would absolutely love it. I wouldn't want to use it for daily internetting - not only would it be slower, I also imagine any satellite-based internet would be, entirely reasonably, "pay as you go" rather than unlimited. I *would*, however, love to have the ability to know that I *could* connect to a satellite service anywhere on the planet, when I was traveling internationally (if it were just "pay for what you use" rather than "pay for what you use and *also* some amount every month even if you aren't using it). I'd especially love it if it worked literally anywhere, for instance, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Cruise ships wouldn't be very happy with that, but I certainly would. They could charge a fair bit and still be way cheaper than cruise ship internet prices.
Honestly, I thought it'd be Google getting into that market first, but it isn't totally out of line for Musk to get into that, either.