The regulation is about what frequency bands are used, not about how many LEO satellites a put into space, and what orbits are used.
Not only is Space X putting up thousands of these mass produced things for commercial and consumer Internet access, they are putting up customized versions for the US military as what they call Starshield.
Same orbits, and part of the same swarms of these pests in space.
Come any sort of major conflict, and military satellites will be targetted with anti-satellite missiles. Only two years ago there was the Kosmos-1408 test. The US has done it, as has China. Then there was a Russian dead military satellite that smacked into an Iridium active satellite. (Iridium 33 vs Kosmos 2251)
The problem is that government is far too slow. Too slow to regulate. And even slower to innovate. The peasants are demanding decent internet. Government isnât providing it. Private enterprise has stepped in to provide it. (Unofficially) NBN is even saying that people in rural and regional Australia should be thanking SpaceX for boosting the value of their real estate by providing decent internet.
Yes, but with a finite resource that is inevitable. Period.
However, letâs say with a well-coordinated use of orbits, it is not clear exactly how many satellites LEO can support. Space is quite empty so it may be that SpaceXâs plans are orders of magnitude short of the limit. Or not. Iâve seen no numbers - so is there or is there not a problem? Exactly how finite is the resource?
However satellites are one thing and space junk is another. It should generally be assumed that space junk does not occupy a well-coordinated orbit.
(I believe that SpaceX deliberately launches the Starlink satellites into very low orbits, so that any detritus from the launch will re-enter very quickly and be safely out of harmâs way, while the satellites then take the slow road to their final orbit using krypton ion thrusters. This approach also has the benefit that if a launch is a relative failure i.e. insufficient altitude achieved, then all the satellites in that launch will harmlessly re-enter, albeit at some significant cost to SpaceX. )
The important thing is that a few people get the bandwidth needed to watch their latest episode streamed off Netflix or Stan in ultra HD in wherever remote place they may decide to be.
That requirement certainly trumps any global pollution issues.
The second article I was able to reference from The Guardian did qualify,
The scientists argue that while there is robust regulation to ensure satellites are launched safely and transmit signals only within certain frequency bands, there is almost nothing to govern the impact of satellites on the night sky, astronomy, Earthâs atmosphere or the orbital environment.
So you keep saying but I donât think you have an accurate appreciation of telecommunications in rural and regional Australia (otherwise known as RARA).
Letâs not forget that SpaceX (Starlink) is doing as much as any company to help defend Ukraine.
Well, if you will permit me to get a bit sci-fi on you, companies like SpaceX have dramatically reduced the price per kg to orbit and it should fall further still. So maybe I can foresee a time when there is a network of space-based telescopes in orbit above all the LEO satellites. Not only does that avoid any night sky pollution from too many LEO satellites (and the much more substantial light pollution from all of us) but space provides a platform for astronomy that is in several ways superior anyway (the details of which might be getting outside the scope of this forum).
Well letâs take a look at that. The Hubble orbit is smack bang in the LEO orbits at 332 miles. Starlink is 340 miles. As the pests start to deorbit when the fuel runs out, whatâs the betting that at least some will be at the exact same orbit?
But it is still orders of magnitude more costly to put a telescope into space, than to have to have them on earth.
Thatâs why I said that the telescopes would have to be above the LEO satellites. Emphasis not added.
That is not supposed to happen. SpaceXâs licensing conditions require controlled removal to a disposal orbit before the fuel runs out.
You could ask the same question about Hubble (running into some other satellite) and Hubble is a helluva lot more massive (10x the heaviest proposed Starlink satellites).
Look on the bright side ⊠James Webb is in a halo orbit around the L2 point, L2 being safely 1.5 million kilometres from all this.
Itâs always useful to look back to the OP, and which question raised by the OP is now being considered.
Some very different questions now being raised aside from whether Starlink is a practical and cost effective alternative.
Is improved regulation of space is necessary?
In the short term are consumers choosing to use services such as StarLink taking an un-necessary risk on the product?
Should consumers withdraw support or encourage others to not support StarLink because of potential impacts on astronomy or increased space junk?
There are possibly a few more we could add.
As interesting as it may seem, Iâm happy to wait for @zackarii to offer some further first hand experience, or read that of others who use the product. Itâs not necessarily affordable for everyone, but offers on paper far better performance than the NBN Satellites, location dependant.
I know. I am a city-slicker. I have a choice between NBN cable, cell data 4G or 5G, or even satellite.
But surely there is something between totally congested Skymuster GEO satellites ( two ), and swarms of LEO satellites.
Imagine if half a dozen more latest technology Skymusters were put up to service remote locations. The cost would be less than one noisy Collins class diesel submarine.
Geostationary satellite is relatively unsuited for movable use (since the dish has to be fairly exactly aligned, whereas the Starlink dish aligns itself). So for grey nomads and other travellers, Starlink is better (always assuming that it is affordable to the given customer).
And this can be a safety issue i.e. in a remote location it is preferable to have an option for communication in an emergency other than an EPIRB (it is assumed that there is no mobile signal). In the near future, it will be possible for a mobile phone to interface directly with a Starlink satellite in an emergency (and it is unlikely that you will ever be able to do that with Skymuster, although you can of course get a separate satphone or indeed a sat enclosure for a regular mobile phone, at rather unpleasant cost).
Latency is of no importance if what you are doing is primarily downloading. Like Internet content streaming. So 40ms LEO vs 700ms GEO. Who cares?
Yes noticable in voice and video comms but you get used to that.
Probably very bad in online realtime games, because you will get killed before you can kill the other guy.
As for directing an antenna, the GEO satellite is always at a precise location. Just align to the known position. How hard is that? Many simple telescopes can seem to manage automatically aligning to coordinates with a press of a button.
Itâs not just you. The fact that NASA and others have had to divert their own satellites to avoid collisions with Starlink satellites indicates a problem. 45,000 more satellites to be tracked and avoided makes for some complex manoeuvring in an area where any manoeuvring is a problem.
If they could provide another SkyMuster satellite (or two) to relieve congestion, so we can get the speed we pay for, I would happily stay with the NBN.
Today, with a cyclone off the coast and overcast skies, the NBN is so slow, that we canât check the radar. Mr Z gave up trying to listen to old music on YouTube because it was continually buffering. I couldnât get email. We now routinely turn off the internet on other devices to reduce usage, so we can get important stuff. We donât stream movies, radio, zoom or phone calls or gaming. Our needs are basic and it is getting frustrating that simple tasks are beyond our system.
A few hours ago this was our speed. Bear in mind we pay for 12Mbps = 12,000kbps we got 19kbps. Surprisingly our upload is the best it has been in ages.
You should fact check that number. I understand that you are just repeating an exaggerated number that had already been posted in this topic.
According to Wikipedia
As of December 2022, Starlink consists of over 3,300 [âŠ] satellites.
So persuade your elected representative to halt the rollout right now and the quoted figure will be out by a factor of 10. Let the current deployment plan complete and the quoted figure will still be out by a factor of 3.
Space X are not the only ones jumping onto the LEO craze. Amazon are in the game with thousands proposed. There will be ridiculous numbers of these space pests unless the world puts a stop to it.
My aplogies for the miss quote. The number was in fact 42,000, not 45,000. One digit off. Silly me.
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