Big Satellite Systems, Simulated On Your Desktop (sf.net)

An anonymous reader writes: Big systems of hundreds of satellites are under development to provide wireless Internet globally, with Richard Branson's OneWeb and Thales' LeoSat aiming at consumers and business markets respectively. It's like reliving the late 1990s, when Bill Gates' Teledesic and Motorola's Celestri were trying to do the same thing before merging their efforts and then giving up. And now you can simulate OneWeb and LeoSat for yourself, and compare them to older systems, in the new release of the vintage SaVi satellite simulation package, which was created in the 1990s during the first time around. Bear in mind Karl Marx's dictum of history: the first time is tragedy, and the second time is farce. Do these new systems stand a chance?

Comments

Farewell editor(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

Farewell soulskill. So they fired him, how about the others? I can't confirm, only soulskill. Kinda sad at least Dice didn't do layoffs. They were around for so long.

the first time is tragedy,

[fustakrakich]

and the second time is farce,

obviously the third time's a charm

Re:the first time is tragedy,

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Iridium does data?

Re:the first time is tragedy,

[Richard_at_work]

So much for the mantra of "try try try again" - we failed twice, fuck it, its too embarrassing to try any more because we might be violating some bullshit that Karl Marx spouted a hundred and fifty years ago.

Re:the first time is tragedy,

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious question: What does Karl Marx have to do with this?

Re:the first time is tragedy,

[thinkwaitfast]

Yes. I've used a 9600baud modem over Iridium. Also ran PPP for and used ping, FTP and a web page.

Re:the first time is tragedy,

[Anonymous Coward]

Second serious question: Of all people, why is _Timothy_ quoting him? Despite Marx's rather gloomy sense of Historical Inevitability, he was actually a fun guy, and used this phrasing in several of his works.

This looks good for the New Slashdot. They may finally and properly sort out the idiomatic "My vas pokhoronim!" bellowed by Khrushchev. Direct translation fails- it's an idiom after all, from Khrushchev's brutal youth. This too deals with Historical Inevitability; translated into Anglo-Irish, it could go: "After you're Done, we shall give you a fine Wake". In Anglo-Scotch, dancing and bagpipes are involved, and in Anglo-Welsh... Baritones.

"Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho."- Godard, 1968.

Re:the first time is tragedy,

[Anonymous Coward]

He invented freedom

Re:the first time is tragedy,

[lhowaf]

I didn't really have that much trouble with the summary - though the Marx quote was sort of off-the-wall. Honestly, though, I enjoyed reading your complaint way more than I did reading the summary. You should really post non-anonymously (inanonamously?) so your post would rate up-modding.

Let hope winners don't take it all

[nikkipolya]

Whatever it be. Branson hopes it won't turn out to be a 'winner takes all' market. Branson does not want to be in one. On the contrary if its a 'losers only market', I don't think he would have a problem with that. After all, Virgin Atlantic was bleeding until recently.

why a simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

we paid for it all we should all have access to the live feeds world wide making sure we're not under siege from the ever psychotic zionic nazi wmd on credit genociders (us) in unseeable areas? until the moms can finally stop crying all the time..... see you there...

alternative to sourceforge dodginess

[ihtoit]

install Kerbal Space Program and do lots more besides watch hyperedited satellite constellations appear as green blocks right before the BHOs take over your desktop.

Back, Jack, Do it Again

[Tablizer]

Karl Marx's dictum of history: the first time is tragedy, and the second time is farce

And the third, fourth, and fifth time is our Middle East policy.

Linux Explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is contraction of LINus and UniX = LINUX, by Linus Torvald.

Re:Linux Explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, thanks, I would have never guessed that or figured it out by myself. You are truly a gifted individual and indispensable Slashdot contributor. Keep up the good work, we are all counting on you. In these dark times, we need more people like you.

Remmber 70% of time spent over water

[thinkwaitfast]

70% of the capability these systems will be unused when over water and/or the polar regions. Generally paying customers are grouped together in small dense areas, that is what they found out with iridium. And small dense areas are mostly now served by cell networks.

Re:Remmber 70% of time spent over water

[ihtoit]

you conveniently missed out the fact that these satellites are part of a dynamic mesh network, which are in a state of continuous reconfiguration to provide 100% coverage. What this means, is that even when a satellite is flying over the middle of the South Pacific, it's still providing a bridge between New Zealand and Peru by connecting two satellites either side of it.

Ergo, no satellite is ever idle as long as the network is in use *anywhere*.

Re:Remmber 70% of time spent over water

[thinkwaitfast]

I didn't miss out (I even interview with them back in the early 90's). The point is that you have to build a very expensive infrastructure for very low populations of users and is better (economically) to provide some spot coverages.

Re:Remmber 70% of time spent over water

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like saying GPS is useless.

GPS is stupidly valuable and most of those are dumb nodes with timers that get synced up a few times a day because drag. (and the occasional blacklist when that one sat failed earlier in the month, RIP)

Having universal access, even IF it is horribly slow 56k speeds, is something we should strive for as a species.
The internets usefulness outweighs the cost needed for basic access to it.
Even in "underdeveloped" countries it can still be useful, especially for learning. (of course, learning resources are horribly mismanaged)
There honestly should be more done for awareness on online learning resources. brb making an e-learning portal. I'll be RICH I tell you, RIIICH!

Re:Remmber 70% of time spent over water

[DNS-and-BIND]

How much traffic do New Zealand and Peru exchange every day? Sure, you can have that bridge across the ocean...but at what cost? Just look at one of those night satellite photos that shows all the splashes of light in the world, and build your satellites near them. That's where your traffic will originate and terminate.

Re:Remmber 70% of time spent over water

[Anonymous Coward]

Will they do Molnya orbits?

Re:Remmber 70% of time spent over water

[ihtoit]

that would require geostationary orbits, which excludes anything North of 55 and anything south of -55. That's a significant chunk if the inhabitable surface.

Cros platform

[armanox]

According to the README, this still supports SGI IRIX! I'm going to fire up my Octane and give it a test run!

Re:Cros platform

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, SaVi still works on SGI IRIX, as this recent January screenshot demonstrates.

Failure is always an option.

[Lumpy]

These systems are designed in a way that you can not sell service to a single customer until you are 80% complete, that means spending 900 Billion dollars to launch all those satellites and install all your ground station equipment before the FIRST customer can even be sold service.

What is needed is just a couple of Geosync birds over the USA and start having real competition to Hughesnet.

Re:Failure is always an option.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite true, you can't sell CONTINUAL service until you're almost complete, however there is no reason why this kind of system would not be able to sell intermittent service, say for remote weather/sea stations, ships, etc until they're completely up and running. Also your $900 billion is a "bit" off, even at current launch rates SpaceX could launch around 18,000 Falcon 9s for that much. Even the most audacious plans only put a few thousand satellites in orbit and most of those are probably launched in batches of 6 or more per rocket (just look at OrbComm's 11 satellites launched on a single Falcon 9). Also geosynchronous communications satellites have several major drawbacks, first off they can only serve a limited number of customers due to bandwidth limitations and their latency is a bit high.

Re:Failure is always an option.

[sims 2]

When Wildblue started they were renting space on the Anik f2 satellite.

Then they launched wildblue 1 which iirc was rated for 300k users. Its called Exede now owned by viasat. hughesnet owned by echostar has been around longer and had not been increasing their speeds until wildblue entered the market.

The US already has two large satellite internet providers I doubt anyone else will try to enter the market If the sirus xm deal was any indication there will probably be only one satellite internet provider in the US in a few years. Anyone heard of the echostar viasat merger yet?

I highly recommend that everyone uses a satellite internet provider for at least a year. You will never be able to call dsl/cable/pots/cellular unreliable again by comparison.

Re:Failure is always an option.

[truck_soccer]

I work for a business that installs exede, hughes, and directv. I must say I don't understand why someone would pay $60 for 10gbs a month at 12mbps. I was recently scolded for telling customers the truth. Sales are more important than happy customers after all.

Re:Failure is always an option.

[sims 2]

I was paying $79.99/mo for 1.5mbps/0.256mbps about 10 years ago through wildblue with a 17GB down and 5 GB upload limit. Also over limit was limited to 64kbps and more than 3 over limits in a calender year resulted in termination of service

Its nice to see overall capacity hasn't improved in the last 10 years.

Live in the sticks? I recommend you check this list in order.

Can you get any wired broadband service?
Fiber/cable/dsl
Can you get any wireless broadband service?
Wisp/cellular
Can you see the sky?
Satellite. You poor bastard. I sure hope you can get isdn or dial-up for backup you'll need it.
Still nothing? Where do you live that you can't see the sky?
T1/T3 crazy expensive compared to all of the above options but highly reliable and available pretty much anywhere.

Re:GAY NIGGER ASSOC. PISS FROST

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit, APK!!!

Elon Musk

[dixonpete]

If Elon Musk's SpaceX can use recyclable rockets to toss satellites into orbit for the cost of fuel he'll have a huge leg up compared to competitors.

Re:Elon Musk

[ihtoit]

won't happen. His long term goal is 6 hour turnaround (48h more realistic) at a cost of US$54million. Before you even start talking about cost to fuel, cleanrooming the payload, mounting and all the rest of it. He's already got turnaround down to a month but the cost to do that, since it is still in the learning curve stage (and replacing the major systems so they can analyse launch stresses on eg the engine bells), is on par with the SLS.

Technical no, politics/economics maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no technical reason why this kind of network shouldn't work, fly enough satellites at a low enough orbit with spotbeams to limited areas and you can definitely provide internet access globally. The politics/economics are quite a bit more tricky though. First you need to secure a decent chunk of usable spectrum over large swaths of the planet. Secondly you have to navigate the regulations in each country. And finally you need to design, build, launch and maintain the network without letting costs get out of hand. However if even 1% of the global population signed up for your service at $20 a month you'd be pulling in $16 Billion per year in revenue.

Technology has advanced

[Anonymous Coward]

As slowly as space technology usually changes two things MIGHT make a difference this time, the advent of Space-X (1/5 lauch cost compared to competitors) and cheap, throwaway, cubesats built on a small inexpensive bus (thousands vs. millions) and "good enough" commercial spec electronics that aren't space qualified, but nonetheless, last long enough on orbit to be useful. Weather observations are starting to be done this way commercially - hundreds of cheap throwaway small sats vs a few billion dollar megasats. The jury is still out, but it might work and at least it is something different.

Satellites fake

[Anonymous Coward]

No such thing as satellites. The Earth is flat. If you disagree, please no name calling. Just intellectually refute this then:

"I think the most easiest way to understand that Earth is not spinning at any rate is if you took a helicopter 90 degrees straight up from the ground and hovered, other geographic locations do not come to you. And any nonsense about the atmosphere making you move same as Earth speed - wind resistance doesn't matter then? - you mean to tell me Earth moves the air PERFECTLY at same SPEED with 0 LOSS?"

Re:Satellites fake

[ihtoit]

a soccer ball to an ant sitting on its surface would appear to be flat because the ant is too small to appreciate the scale of the curvature. Is the ball flat? Demonstrably no, because you are standing at some distance from it and you can see the curvature. But the ant thinks it is.

Let me throw this curveball (pardon the pun) at you:

You are lying down on your belly at one end of the main runway at Heathrow Airport. Two and a half miles away, a pigeon is strutting across the apron. Can you see it?

Ask then answer: no, you can't because from your point of view (four inches above the surface) the other end of the runway is below the horizon. Said runway is demonstrably flat at every point, you can prove this with a plumbob. Why then can't you see the pigeon? Because the runway follows the curvature of the Earth. The plumbob is drawn to the centre of mass of the Earth by this thing called "gravity".
If instead of a pigeon, it was a goose (quite a large bird, as birds go, they stand a foot and a half high), you'd be able to see its head. Proof right there that the Earth is NOT flat. If it were, you'd not only see the entire pigeon, you'd see the entire goose.

Or, stand at the entry to the back straight at Nurburgring test circuit. That's eight and a half kilometres of completely, marble-flat asphalt. Five and a quarter miles to normal people. Send your buddy down in a monster truck. and watch from your lilo. From your eye level a scant eight inches off the floor, your friend and his truck (or your truck) will disappear below the horizon before he reaches the exit. Proof once again that the Earth is round.

Look out of the window of an airliner at cruising altitude (28,000 feet let's say). Your horizon will, I absolutely guarantee, be 205 miles away. This can be proven a: by observation and b: mathematically.

But please, tell us your proof of the Earth being flat. And no, five Century old dogma doesn't count.

Re:Satellites fake

[truck_soccer]

I am genuinely curious as to who tested hovering a helicopter for more than a few hours, and how they were able to accomplish this experiment in a controlled environment.

Re:Satellites fake

[ihtoit]

the fault with that logic is that you're holding attitude and position relative to the GROUND. To hold your position relative to something that matters (for example, the centre of the Galaxy), you'd have to fly directly away from the orbital motion of the Sun at 65 miles a second.

Re:Satellites fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me ask YOU a question. Where is the edge of the earth-disc? Why has nobody ever seen it? How is it possible that when I send a radio signal out from a satellite dish in one place it is returned to another place if there are no satellites (I do this for a living, btw)?

Earth doesn't move air. gravity moves air, but it is not really the air that moves you. When you lift off in your helicopter, you are already travelling sideways at 465m/s in the direction of the earth's rotation along with the air (excepting for local pressure differentials aka wind). Now, why don't other geographic locations come to you? well, as we've already seen, you are moving pretty fast already, but the various control planes in the helicopter are also adjusting to keep you at a constant elevation and position relative to your starting point.

A more accurate example would be to launch a rocket or balloon straight up. Again, you need to bear in mind that the rocket is already moving laterally in synchronization with the surface of the earth at launch time, and of course, air pressure will affect the rocket, but ultimately you will find that the earth does, indeed, pass beneath your rocket as it ascends, and it's descent (all other factors being equal) will be to the west of your launch point. Of course, while you are launching a rocket, you could send a camera and take pictures that clearly illustrate the curvature of the earth.

Of course, many people have already done this, but don't take my word for it , or anyone else's. Launch a balloon yourself, and take your own pictures/video. Get on a trans-oceanic flight, up over 12,000m See for yourself.

Hop to space

[darktwains]

It takes a while for radio to reach orbit