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posted by on Friday May 05 2017, @05:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the wireless-everything dept.

SpaceX today said its planned constellation of 4,425 broadband satellites will launch from the Falcon 9 rocket beginning in 2019 and continue launching in phases until reaching full capacity in 2024.

SpaceX gave the Senate Commerce Committee an update on its satellite plans during a broadband infrastructure hearing this morning via testimony by VP of satellite government affairs Patricia Cooper. Satellite Internet access traditionally suffers from high latency, relatively slow speeds, and strict data caps. But as we reported in November, SpaceX says it intends to solve these problems with custom-designed satellites launched into low-Earth orbits.

SpaceX mentioned 2019 as a possible launch date in an application filed with the Federal Communications Commission in November and offered a more specific launch timeline today.

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  • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday May 05 2017, @11:51PM (1 child)

    by richtopia (3160) on Friday May 05 2017, @11:51PM (#505216) Homepage Journal

    With DirectTV you could either do an asymmetric connection (phone for upload, satellite for download), or satellite bidirectionally. This was over ten years ago, the receiver looked identical to satellite TV.

    However, you probably should draw a more direct comparison to Iridium phones, as their satellites operate in polar orbit at 780km. The lower orbit does not necessarily mean shorter distance, as their constellation only has 66 satellites currently. Their handsets have a large (~10cm) antenna.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_Communications [wikipedia.org]

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 06 2017, @01:41AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday May 06 2017, @01:41AM (#505265) Journal

    If the Iridium system is anything to go by, the latency is between 980 - 1400 ms for an orbit that is lower than the SpaceX project. So they must have another approach. The hard latency limit is 17 ms regardless (one way up, another down and then the same way back).

    I'll suspect the difference being that Iridium routes packets all the way to a station in either USA or Russia. While SpaceX will have local stations like Iridium originally were designed to make use of.