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[UPDATE #1 20190516_015859 UTC to reflect change in scheduled window start being delayed 30 minutes. --martyb]
[UPDATE #2 20190516_025012 UTC Launch scrubbed for today; will try again during backup 90-minute window which starts 2230 EDT May 16 (0230 UTC May 17). Just as the broadcast went live, they learned the upper altitude winds were outside of allowable bounds and they decided to postpone the launch until the backup window. --martyb]
Yesterday (May 13th), we posted a story SpaceX to Launch 60 Starlink Satellites at Once, and More. Here are a few more details about Starlink and — more importantly — the launch schedule and a link to the YouTube page to follow along.
SpaceX plans to launch 60 satellites tonight for its next round of development and test towards its goal of deploying Starlink:
SpaceX has plans to deploy nearly 12,000 satellites in three orbital shells by the mid-2020s: initially placing approximately 1600 in a 550-kilometer (340 mi)-altitude shell, subsequently placing ~2800 Ku- and Ka-band spectrum sats at 1,150 km (710 mi) and ~7500 V-band sats at 340 km (210 mi). The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build and deploy such a network is estimated at nearly US$10 billion.
According to Spaceflight Now:
The Federal Communications Commission has granted a request by SpaceX to begin launching spacecraft for the company’s Starlink broadband network to a lower orbit than originally planned, overruling protests by competitors and clearing a major regulatory hurdle before the launch of the first batch of Internet satellites from Cape Canaveral in May.
The regulatory commission approved SpaceX’s proposal Friday to fly more than 1,500 of its Starlink satellites at an altitude of 341 miles, or 550 kilometers, instead of the 714-mile-high (1,150-kilometer) orbit originally planned.
These would be in what is called low Earth orbit (LEO), which ultimately promises to rival terrestrial gigabit fiber connections. Current satellite internet connections communicate with satellites that are in geostationary orbit (GEO), where they stay over a fixed point on Earth. To do so, they orbit at an altitude of approximately 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above the equator. Even at the speed of light, that imposes a minimum round-trip delay of 250ms. To access satellites in LEO, a user's ground station would employ a steerable phased array antenna about the size of a pizza box. The antenna would dynamically steer its connection to one of the satellites passing overhead, much like how a GPS receiver gets its signal from the selection of currently-overhead satellites. (You cannot directly link your mobile phone to one of the satellites.) But, it does promise much better connectivity for those in rural areas who are currently underserved by terrestrial ISPs who at best offer DSL speeds, if any at all. Ships out in the middle of the ocean would also greatly benefit from this availability.
From SpaceX's live stream page on YouTube with text retrieved 20190515 @ 1200 UTC:
Since the original launch proved unaceptable due to upper altitude winds being outside allowable bounds, SpaceX announced they will try again during the backup launch window.
SpaceX is targeting Wednesday, May 15 for the launch of 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. SpaceX’s Starlink is a next-generation satellite network capable of connecting the globe, especially reaching those who are not yet connected, with reliable and affordable broadband internet services.
Liftoff is targeted for 11:00 p.m. EDT on May 15, or 3:00 UTC on May 16, with the launch window closing at 12:00 a.m. on May 16, or 4:00 UTC. A backup launch window opens on Thursday, May 16 at 10:30 p.m. EDT, or 2:30 UTC on May 17, and closes at 12:00 a.m. on May 17, or 4:00 UTC. Falcon 9’s first stage for this mission previously supported the Telstar 18 VANTAGE mission in September 2018 and the Iridium-8 mission in January 2019. Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to land Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Approximately one hour and two minutes after liftoff, the Starlink satellites will begin deployment at an altitude of 440km. They will then use onboard propulsion to reach an operational altitude of 550km.
Historically, the stream goes live about 20-30 minutes before the scheduled launch.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday May 15 2019, @07:47PM (4 children)
SpaceX reveals new Starlink satellite details 24 hours from launch [teslarati.com]
227kg per satellite, but the satellites don't have the inter-satellite laser communication that a future version will have. Article says that could add 10% more mass.
Minor service could begin after a few launches. Depending on how successful this launch is, that could mean as early as this year.
Speculation: The signal could be better in rainy/cloudy weather due to the sats being much closer than geostationary sats.
SpaceX static fires Falcon 9 with satellites on board for the first time in years [teslarati.com]
Maybe customers opt for the safer approach, but SpaceX is willing to risk blowing these incomplete satellites up.
DeepSpace: All eyes on SpaceX’s Starlink ahead of launch [teslarati.com]
Apparently there is still a little bit more room in the fairing, so maybe more than 60 satellites could be launched at once. Maybe we'll see SpaceX start to use Falcon Heavy launches instead of Falcon 9. Depends on the additional cost of a Falcon Heavy launch (assuming all boosters successfully recovered and not tipping over at sea) and the additional amount of satellites that can be packed into that fairing.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday May 15 2019, @07:54PM (3 children)
Jesus, what do you even need that much mass for? Solar panels? Antennae?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ataradov on Wednesday May 15 2019, @08:09PM (1 child)
Fuel for orbit corrections.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday May 15 2019, @08:50PM
Article speculates 25-50 kg of xenon or krypton. That's nearly 11-22% right there.
As for the rest of the mass, putting networking equipment in space isn't trivial.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @08:11PM
I'm guessing here...
Thrusters, fuel, batteries?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 15 2019, @08:14PM (3 children)
and God speed! may the one true monopoly ISP be born without complications!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 15 2019, @08:38PM (1 child)
And the stench of MuskNet permeates the room.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday May 15 2019, @09:08PM
If you'd prefer to be touched by Cheating Bezos, you can sign up with Amazon/Blue Origin's Project Kuiper. And then there's OneWeb and others. These will be competing directly with cable, DSL, fiber, etc. since latency will be similar.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Wednesday May 15 2019, @10:40PM
I might sit in my front porch and watch the rocket go up. Makes a change from Disney's fireworks.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday May 15 2019, @09:05PM (4 children)
They want each satellite to do 20 Gbps. If it's the same for 12k satellites at 3 different orbits, that's 240 Tbps total.
https://bgr.com/2018/07/10/average-internet-speeds-us-vs-the-world/ [bgr.com]
Average U.S. internet speed is 26 Mbps. The Starlink target could be 1000 Mbps (I'd expect lower speed plans to be more popular). There must be a lower number than 26 Mbps that describes the average utilization (which is going to vary based on time zone and time of day). That number should allow you to estimate how many millions of people Starlink can support (4.8 million could use 50 Mbps, 48 million could use 5 Mbps).
Future versions of the satellites could increase total bandwidth, but it's unclear that people will want greater than 1 Gbps plans. Unless we start talking about multiple 16K video streams per household.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 15 2019, @11:32PM (2 children)
It's actually half that, since each connection requires two links (up and down). And that's assuming all satellites are ground-relay only. If the system is supposed to bounce a connection over multiple satellites before beaming down, then each hop consumes more of the total bandwidth without adding to the system throughput.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 16 2019, @01:35AM (1 child)
Good point.
I just want to get the constants figured out so we can plug in some numbers and see that X sats = Y users that can be supported.
Actually, a lot of Starlink details are still unknown. Will SpaceX's Starlink subsidiary make itself a giant telco, or will they use middlemen to market and expand the service to more people in a shorter amount of time? It could be difficult for them to reach millions of customers. How many customers (excluding finance, government, and military) would they need to hit that $30 billion in annual revenue they predicted?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 16 2019, @08:08PM
all they have to do is put up a website and people will flood in. people hate their ISPs with a passion like white fire.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 16 2019, @03:08PM
Assuming, the connection is stable, low ping, and had no cap or at worst a 300GB cap, I could be quite happy with 25Mbps. I think I'm getting worse speed than that with my 4G LTE hot spot. I'm also getting a variable ping from 35ms to 100ms (sometimes a higher spike and sometimes disconnected) with my 4G LTE hot spot, and have a really, really low cap.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 16 2019, @02:50AM
No launch tonight, check back tomorrow.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 16 2019, @08:36PM
take your time. please don't "Challenger" my future ISP sats.