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SpaceX Starlink partners with Microsoft Azure to deploy cloud computing anywhere:
Microsoft Azure has announced a partnership with SpaceX that will give customers the ability to both access and deploy cloud computing capabilities anywhere on Earth with the help of Starlink internet.
[...] To better exploit the benefits offered by the kind of blanket connectivity Starlink may soon offer, Microsoft has developed its own Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC), essentially a data center built into a mobile, satellite-connected shipping container. Customers can choose to either use the MDC as a wholly independent datacenter or connect it to one or more satellite constellations, Starlink included. With what a SpaceX executive recently described as dual parabolic antennas, an MDC could likely have access to gigabit-class internet connectivity with latency comparable to fiber anywhere on Earth.
According to Microsoft, possible scenarios where an MDC would be valuable include "mobile command centers, humanitarian assistance, military mission needs, mineral exploration, and other use cases requiring high intensity, secure computing." Several Azure Mobile Datacenters have already been deployed and are being trialed by private sector companies and the US military.
Likely less than coincidental, Microsoft Azure's Starlink partnership comes around the same time as Amazon has begun to peel back the curtains on Project Kuiper, a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet constellation almost indistinguishable from Starlink. Lead and largely staffed by former Starlink executives and employees, Project Kuiper aims to deploy a constellation of ~3200 small, interlinked communications satellites – a goal Amazon has pledged at least $10 billion to achieve.
Also at Ars Technica and The Register.
See also: SpaceX teams with Microsoft for Space Development Agency contract
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @09:17AM (1 child)
That is naive thinking but a good attempt. There is a difference between you comparison and reality. The orbital speed is about 8km/s. Debris going in wrong directions is going to pass these 71km-spaced targets every 4.5 seconds. And assuming you have someone moderately smart, all you need is a "satellite" of ball bearings and the "explosion" is just equivalent of pouring them out of a bucket and let them drift - they are already going 8-16km/s relative to the "targets". So, now you have 1000 tickets going in your lottery and the game is every few seconds. And with collisions, you get more and more balls on your side. What you get?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome [wikipedia.org]
This can only be avoided if we start cleaning up our orbital debris and not doing naive, static calculations. Orbital stuff doesn't disappear after initial "explosion", which is what you neglected in your assumption.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday October 22 2020, @10:44AM
Look, I was answering to the originally proposed scenario: cheap/stupid Claymore satellite exploding in pieces. Of course better strategies are possible, but if it's cheap, don't expect to be effective.
That doesn't matter that much. To cause maximum damage, the projectile will need to have the same orbit and different direction to the target, possibly retrograde.
If it's not matching the orbit altitude (thus the speed), there'll be just a case of "space littering, no collision with the intended targets".
If it's matching the altitude but the direction is the almost the same, the relative velocity of the impact is going to be too small to cause damage (exactly matching the velocity of the satellite will result in targets and projectiles following the same orbit, no collision)
If on the same orbital altitude, the maximum relative speed is 16km/s. Depending on the size and toughness of the projectile, the effect can range from:
- small bullet hole through the target (and the projectile likely won't intercept any other target, losing energy in the impact an dropping to a lower orbit, perhaps elongated). Nope, a ball bearing will disable the satellite with a small hole, but isn't gonna go Kessler with a single hit. You may try shredding with a cloud of balls matching the orbit in retrograde, but this is a weaker case of the next "larger projectile" scenario
- to a total annihilation of both the target and the projectile with shrapnel going in all directions - likely the projectile has to have large spatial dimension. This may lead to a Kessler syndrom like scenario, but it will require too much precision for matching the trajectories and/or orbit corrections, because you won't have plenty projectiles. Matching orbits doesn't come cheap.
The best cheap strategy is to launch bearing balls on the same orbital altitude and at a 90 degree angle with the orbit of the targets. This will work on the "if I didn't get you now, no matter, likely we'll meet again in the future. You, or your siblings". You will have to match pretty good the orbit altitude, because you are trading the "smartness of a missile" with "dumb steel balls, much longer mission times" - any mismatch of the altitude is going to amplify as the time passes.
And no matter which, we're talking VLEO-Kessler - a few years down the road and the orbit of most of the fragments will decay into atmosphere; i.e not gonna go "dark ages, dawn of space civilization" as Eth suggested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0