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SpaceX Files FCC Application For Internet Access Network With 4,425 Satellites (geekwire.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from GeekWire: SpaceX has laid out further details about a 4,425-satellite communications network that's expected to provide global broadband internet access, with its Seattle-area office playing a key role in its development. The plan is explained in an application and supporting documents filed on Tuesday with the Federal Communications Commission. In the technical information that accompanied its application, SpaceX said it would start commercial broadband service with 800 satellites. That service would cover areas of the globe from 15 degrees north to 60 degrees north, and from 15 degrees south to 60 degrees south. That leaves out some portions of Alaska, which would require a temporary waiver from the FCC. Eventually, the network would grow to 4,425 satellites, transmitting in the Ku and Ka frequency bands. "Once fully deployed, the SpaceX system will pass over virtually all parts of the Earth's surface and therefore, in principle, have the ability to provide ubiquitous global service," SpaceX said. The satellites would orbit the planet at altitudes ranging from 714 to 823 miles (1,150 to 1,325 kilometers) -- well above the International Space Station, but well below geostationary satellites. SpaceX said it would follow federal guidelines to mitigate orbital debris. Each satellite would weigh 850 pounds (386 kilograms) and measure 13 by 6 by 4 feet (4 by 1.8 by 1.2 meters), plus solar arrays, SpaceX said. Operating lifetime was estimated at five to seven years per satellite.
... that'll be another 4425 bits of space junk. Genius idea - utterly pollute near space just so some company can make a short term profit on something thats a nice to have rather than essential infrastructure.
"SpaceX said it would follow federal guidelines to mitigate orbital debris"
And how does it plan to do that exactly? They're too high to be sent down to burn up in the atmosphere and too low to be sent off into a parking orbit.
RASCOM, Regional African Satellite Communication Organization was to do a lot with Libya's funding.
Libya was going to give Africa telephone, television, radio-broadcast, telemedicine and long-distance learning (WIMAX) without the West's corporate profit taking.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
2/3rds of the satellites will always be over water and have their bandwidth utterly wasted. A significant part of the rest will be over areas where almost nobody lives, or nobody can afford to pay for internet with hard currency. Meanwhile all 400m Europeans that live in the populated 5m square kilometers have to use the same 20 to 100 satellites.
Because the satellites are not geostationary they'll need to use omnidirectional antennae which puts some hard limits on bandwidth, while a lot of people will get FTTH and 5G mobile networks in the next decade.
Iridium can get away with these shortcomings because they target the customers that doesn't care about prices. But I kind of doubt that market can support 4000 satellites
With this move, won't SpaceX be competing with their own clients like Iridium?
I think you mean Dysprosium (there are only 66 satellites in that constellation, not the originally planned 77 to get it to the right number for Iridium).
Motorola hasn't been lofting more satellites into the constellation since the late 1990's, and at one point was threatening to de-orbit the whole system. And they've already had in-orbit failures which can't be corrected by the in-orbit spares, so in some cases: coverage is pretty spotty. Although Iridium NEXT was supposed to start launching via SpaceX's Falcon 9, with some launches by Russia's ISC Kosmotras Dnepr.
So far, technical issues and insurance issues have kept Iridium NEXT from happening.
Also: SpaceX is proposing non-polar orbits for their satellite constellation, so they are unlikely to compete for space real estate, either, since the Motorola system is polar orbiting (which is why they want to launch Iridium NEXT from Vandenburg).
That is an enormous amount of weight to send up. Space-x is aiming for (has not achieved) $1,000 per pound. Their current cost is more realistically $4,000.
4425*850*4000=$150,450,000,000. Then add the cost to send up another 4427/7=630 satellites per year (630*850*2000(because they'll get costs way down if they can send up that much material)=$1 billion dollars per year. They need to spend 150 billion dollars initially and an ongoing 1 billion dollars per year.
In 2014 SpaceX had a "market cap" of (optimistically) 12 billion dollars. Let's assumt that 12 billion dollars have already been justified. Now rumors of an IPO have been heard, so let's assume a massive over-the-top IPO: 13 billion dollars. Then add in a billion dollars. (assuming every penny they can scrape together goes to this plan) 12+13+1=26 billion. Using realistic numbers for launch costs and hyper-optimistic numbers for funding, they're about 125 billion dollars short. And I don't see Trump signing a 125 billion dollar Space-X pork bill. If we're very optimistic about launch costs that hypothetical bill could go as low as a still-highly-unlikely 75 billion dollars.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
386 kilograms - 13 by 6 by 4 feet (4 by 1.8 by 1.2 meters)
Launch cost $1.79 million per satellite
or $7.93 billion per constellation which last 5-7 years.
Lets say an average cost of $50 million per satellite, which is very low, were looking at $221.3 billion.
So, let's say roughly $230 billion, just to break even over a 7 year life span would require an annual revenue generation of $32 billion. Given that most people without an internet connection would be in rural areas, or poverty striken areas, we're looking maybe $30 per month or $360 per year. So, that would require a user base of 91 million people requiring each satellite to host 20000 people.
The numbers here don't seem to make sense.
You could just read the document, you know.
The antennas aren't physically steered, they're steered by adjusting the relative phases of the individual sub-antennas.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
First off, it's not "in addition to", it's "instead of". Earth fiber networks don't run on fairy dust either, they also consume power. The internet is one of the biggest power consumers on Earth. That's just the way it is.
Doing my own math. You could fit ~141 in a Falcon Heavy to LEO. They don't say how many are actually planned, or even whether they plan to use Falcoln 9 or Heavy. Taking into account the higher altitude and practical considerations, let's say 60 satellites per flight on Heavies. So that's about 75 flights. Per FH flight, RP1 mass is ~400 tonnes and LOX mass ~935 tonnes. LOX is cheap and low energy to produce, so let's focus on the RP1. Total that's 30k tonnes of RP1. Which is 1,4TJ, or about 380 MWh higher heat value, which is 100-200MWh electricity generation potential. I didn't find how much energy Chicago consumes per year, but a reference on MIT's School of Engineering states that NYC consumes 60 TWh electricity per year. So I think you're way off in your estimate.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
how do you solve the logistical problem of replacing 10 satellites all in completely different positions around the earth in one launch?
You don't. The way Iridium handles it is having some of the satellites in orbit allocated as spares and not in active service. They have 66 active birds plus six spares. The spares run in a different orbit which circles the earth faster than the active constellation but can still easily transfer to the correct orbit, minimizing fuel needs for activating one in exchange for a longer time spent waiting for the orbits to sync up properly for the transfer.
Basically you set things up like a large "cloud" host where there's enough spare capacity that individual device failures just aren't really a priority and you can replace the failed hardware in bulk every so often rather than having to do something one-off immediately.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
" Are you as pants on head retarded as Matt Damon and actually believe Palin said that or were you attempting, and failing, to use hyperbole?"
She actually said: "You can actually see Russia from Land here in Alaska."
Video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Current satellite internet is that way because all the data is funneled through a handful of satellites up in geostationary orbit. This system uses a much larger number of much closer satellites, so latency's far lower, signal levels and link bandwidth are higher and you don't need a big dish to make your link budget work, and system bandwidth is orders of magnitude higher.