SpaceX Seeks Approval For Up To 1M Earth Stations for Its Satellite Service (geekwire.com)

SpaceX just filed a new earth-station license application with America's Federal Communications Commisions, seeking blanket approval "for up to a million earth stations" for customers of their Starlink satellite internet service, reports GeekWire: Those satellites have already received clearance from the FCC, and SpaceX plans to launch the first elements of the initial 4,425-satellite constellation this year, using Falcon 9 rockets.... Eventually, SpaceX wants to build up the network to take in as many as 12,000 satellites in low Earth orbit...

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said the Starlink project aims is to provide high-speed, reliable and affordable broadband data services to consumers in the U.S. and around the world, including an estimated 3.8 billion people who are underserved by existing networks. When he unveiled the project four years ago in Seattle, he said revenue from the internet service would pay for his vision of creating a city on Mars.
The application assures regulators that the earth stations will "incorporate advanced technologies to enable highly efficient use of the spectrum and enhance the customer's broadband experience."

Comments

Is anyone else concerned...

[Pollux]

Eventually, SpaceX wants to build up the network to take in as many as 12,000 satellites in low Earth orbit...

That's fifteen times the number of satellites we currently have in low-Earth orbit. Is anyone else concerned that we may run out of satellite space? Or, alternatively, that every satellite we put up in the atmosphere has a greater likelihood of being struck by a meteor, adding to the minefield of space dust already in LEO?

Interestingly, I just watched Real Engineering's video of SpaceX's StarHopper construction just last night. And I didn't know how incredibly thin the walls of a rocket are, and that they are pressurized to retain rigidity. So, imagine the catastrophic destruction that would occur if one of our launches collided with a satellite, or a space dust minefield?

If only one company is asking for 12,000 low-Earth orbit satellites, what happens when one hundred more make the same request? What happens when Indian, Chinese, and Russian companies make the same request? While I don't know whether we'll ever see anything as bad as that one scene from Wall-E, but it feels like we're inching closer to that reality each day.

Re:Is anyone else concerned...

[mentil]

LEO has enough atmospheric drag that without regular boosts, debris/satellites will deorbit and burn up within a few months. There won't be a permanent debris field in LEO. Furthermore, satellites are small. At the same altitude, they're all traveling at the same speed to maintain orbit. Reaching end to end on the surface of the Earth, imagine how many cars could drive with a few cars' lengths between them. Now reduce that to 1 cars' length because you know the satellites are never going to slam on their brakes. Also LEO has a larger diameter than the equator, so bump that up by a bit. It's a very large number. Then there are other orbit angles and slightly different altitudes...

Problem for Astronomical Photography?

[irchans]

I wonder if thousands of satellites will mess up astronomy. Right now, when I take a 30 minute exposure, it is very unusual for a satellite to pass through the frame destroying the image. (Maybe a few times per thousand hours of observing.) But with thousands of satellites or potentially one day millions of satellites...