I'm not involved in this stuff anymore (now retired), but it's possible that the Starshield constellation supports transmitting on S-band (or L-Band) as a means to relay SGLS communications to satellites that are out-of-view. Having this capability would greatly benefit the workflow of transfer orbit operations and initial testing, by eliminating the constraint that the satellite must be in-view to communicate with it. It would also benefit anomaly resolution by allowing instant access to a malfunctioning spacecraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Control_Network
https://www.orbitalfocus.uk/Frequencies/FrequenciesSGLS.php
https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/473264/af-sp...
That's interesting, thank you for the great comment. Would that kind of usage then not be counter to the standards, as suggested in the article?
The fact that somebody saw something pointed at Earth on a frequency generally reserved for uplinks doesn't necessarily mean that it would interfere with other spacecraft receiving the signals from the ground. Starlink (and presumably Starshield) operates in LEO, below most other LEO spacecraft. Maybe they're using a dish or even a phased array antenna, and pointing down instead of up. If so, the probability of interference is low.
It is not hard to assume that there is a significant DoD rideshare payload involved on the existing commercial satellites. Having a sensor platform on every single one would be incredible. The satellites that have been officially branded as Starshield (~183 we know of) could be part of cover or a more "kinetic" mission profile.
If I was in charge at the Pentagon, I would want every one of those 10k birds to have my sensor package on it. I also don't think I would permit a commercial spaceflight vendor to perform as many launches as SpaceX has performed without some kind of arrangement like this in place.
I’m sure SpaceX is happy to take the DoD’s money, doubt there’s any strong arming needed.
And as soon as any data from a specific sensor leaks, adversaries would likely be able to pinpoint what satellite produced it.
And then the contractual terms mandating commercial spaceflight vendors do this work.
It all gets really complicated, with many thousands of people who are not part of traditional intelligence services all having to keep a massive secret.
Are we sure about that? Because i see plenty of clearance required job listings to their redmond facility.
> And as soon as any data from a specific sensor leaks, adversaries would likely be able to pinpoint what satellite produced it.
Yeah. Thats why usually data from any satelite would be very closely held. Even with old satelites it was a big deal when the president just posted an image publicly.
But i don’t understand your argument. Even if it leaks that wouldn’t make the sensor network worthless. Like this argument is true for any spy satelite. If the data from any sensor leaks it is bad. Not a reason to not make the satelite.
Why didn't the article author bother to read this?
How do you know they didn't?
Scott Tilley isn't in space. He detected these signals. The material question is if those signals are propagating upwards.
You need only to track it and shoot your laser up there (its only 500km) and if it can't dissipate the energy fast enough, it would overheat.
And of course all communication managed by modern ICs is done with some kind of spread spectrum protocol with the property that "interference" is a routine/expected thing that doesn't degrade service. You can't break a modern satellite with an accidental transmission, you have to deliberately "jam" it.
Is the ITU rule in question being violated? Probably. Is that actually impactful to real systems? Almost certainly not. Old rules are old. Our goal should be to work together to update them for the benefit of all (to be sure, not to violate them with impunity!), and not to scream about them as part of a proxy war about the CEO's political and conspiracy proclivities.
These are Starshields, not Starlinks. These are not operated by SpaceX. In the same way Boeing isn't spying on comms by building / launching an NRO satellite.
We should have done that A LOT slower without breaking shit left and right.
Edit: Because of the one downvote: It affects astronomy and a PRIVATE company has impact on a war like in ukraine. And they are violating shit just because its Musk
The number of people that benefits from security provided by the military is not the same as the number of people that subscribe to starlink internet.
>The use of those frequencies to "downlink" data runs counter to standards set by the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency
So, just another instance of the current admin violating an international treaty the US is part of.
Might that be the point? A space-based means of "hacking" satellites? Or is that kind of a dumb thing to do when you could do the same Earth-based?
At the same time: coverage comes cheap to Starlink. Which makes it perfect for serving areas no one wants to serve. Such as rural areas, anything outside the largest cities in underdeveloped countries, the open ocean, and so it goes.
Can you explain what you mean by this? Still not sure how SAR would fit in here...
...could comprehensive SAR over the Earth's oceans uncloak submerged submarines when they're under power?
Can it (a SAR sat doing a flyover) somehow be detected from ground?
I wonder if Starshield is the platform that is supposed to replace the E-3.
That said, they are dazzlers and not destroyers — they're designed to prevent American recce satellites from cuing American strategic bombers to the location of mobile missile launchers, so just dazzling the satellite's primary sensor accomplishes their task. Of course, that won't work against space-based SAR, but they have RF jammers (and decoys) for that.
B. The Russians already have this tech and have "practiced" with it a few times, so have already added untold hazards in orbit.
C. The people that cause these problems, ignore the hazards left behind and let others simply die.
This is a horrific idea and not new. Let's not do more of it.
Consumer grade / privat buyable laser can easily be bought.
And would i destroy a soda can by overheating it slowly and steadily because the can has no easy way of dissipating heat and has electronics in it which are not heat resistent?
Oh come on you guys I thought this would be my ticket to 6000 ;—;
(2) Defending these norms is important to prevent chaos on the radio bands. If we can do this, why not China? Russia? Europe? Erosion of norms has real consequences when you are dealing with a scarce resource like RF spectrum.
> Erosion of norms has real consequences when you are dealing with a scarce resource like RF spectrum.
So... no, that's wrong. Like 99% of all wireless data transferred anywhere is squeezed into a paltry 100 MHz in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, with no effective guardrails of any kind about who can use it, or with how many devices.
Technology fixed this problem, dedicated bands have little to no value anymore[1], haven't for like two decades now, and any discussion like this needs to treat with that as a prior.
Again, we all know this story isn't about rigorous adherence to international norms. It's about Musk doing shady spy stuff.
[1] Outside some otherwise important edge cases like radio astronomy which aren't "communication" as generally understood.
No. I didn’t say that and wouldn’t say that. Read carefully because i write carefully what i mean.
You are saying that the theory as presented by bob1029 could not work. I’m saying that your argument why it couldn’t work is not persuasive.
You present two arguments in your comment. (As best as i can understand it.)
One is about the secrecy around the design and manufacturing of the satelites. You claim, without support, that most people don’t have a security clearance in the redmond starlink factory.
Satelite design and manufacturing is already very secretive. Because of ITAR and regular commercial confidentiality you won’t hear a peep about what is on the satelites. The people who design and develop the satelites would of course know the full capabilities of them, but the people manufacturing them need not know. All they need to know is that they are installing optical assemblies. Whoever asks can be told that they are for laser communication.
So the amount of people who need to know is smaller than the full work force. That workforce is already trained on secrecy, and they are practicing it. They already risk prison if they leak anything. (Without any spy satelite business, just because what they work on is ITAR controlled.) On top of that spacex is quite openly hiring for a number of positions requiring top secret clearance.
Your other argument is that if data from these hypothetical sensors would leak that would compromise the hypothetical secrecy around them. Which is true, but is a general property of all inteligence gathering. If it was not an argument against any of the other systems why would it be an argument against this one?
Secrets like this hypothetical one have a finite lifetime. You do it because you hope to gain from doing it. You keep it secret because you hope to gain more than if you didn’t keep it secret. Even if the capability becomes known to your adversaries you won’t loose all the benefits, just some.
> and the only evidence is… vibes?
Because i’m not claiming that they are spy sattelites. All i’m claiming is that your argument claiming that they are not, or couldn’t be is not persuasive. The negation of the statement “they couldn’t be spy satelites” is not “they are spy satelites”, but “they could be spy satelites”.
I hope that helps clarifying what i wrote. Happy to answer any further questions.
SpaceX is the only launch provider and satellite operator that is progressing at a rapid pace and driving costs down.
Edit: what kind of laser would you be using to pull this off though? the amount of time the satellite would be visible and in range of your beam would be limited. they roughly have the same orbital period as the ISS which I've personally seen many times which is my point of reference. it's only visible for a very short time, so you'd need a very hot beam to work in that time frame. would it be effective as an additive heating. as in, would it cool off before the next time it came within range?
Solar irradiance in LEO is about 1350 W/m^2 when unobstructed. A space-grade solar panel reflects 5%-10% of that back as light, with the rest absorbed as either heat or electricity.
This should give you an idea of what kind of thermal flux the satellite is designed to be dealing with.
Citation needed. Cellular devices are an obvious application that needs dedicated spectrum allocation. Amateur bands (including volunteer civil defense helpers) and private terrestrial radio systems count on their spectrum being clean enough for use. Emergency responders have critical radio systems with dedicated frequencies. Ships and airplanes use dedicated spectrum allocations for navigation and reporting their positions, weather satellites have dedicated bands, safety equipment like avalanche beacons have dedicated frequencies, and so on.
None of this stuff would work if there were a free-for-all competition for whoever could shout the loudest on each band. To say that these bands are not important (or even critical to life safety) just because more data goes over unlicensed spectrum is frankly ignorant.
Not since the death of TDMA, it isn't. Mobile bands are regulated to be exclusive, but nothing about LTE or 5G requires exclusive access or the absence of interference. These devices step on each others toes all the time and (via the magic of OFDMA and other dark trickery) still receive their data just fine.
You could start up a transmitter right in the middle of Verizon's or TMO's exclusive band (ICE is doing so all the time at protest sites across the country!) and the phones wouldn't bat a proverbial eyelash.
You always have to keep track of where each satellite is at any given moment.
What do you mean by "Starlink (and presumably Starlink)"?
This is often learned after the fact. A contact will fail or go badly and then you can examine what was around it at the time. Over a series of failures the offending satellite will be identified.
The US does suffer from a serious amount of issues politically (I'm 100% convinced that presidential republics are flawed) but it's still an organization with plenty of checks requiring popular mandate.
No single private individual should ever hold this kind of influence imho, not even if it is Gandhi or a saint and Musk is quite the other end of the spectrum.
I don't disagree that people shouldn't be setting up 1MW jammers on mobile bands, but neither did I argue for that, and you know it.
If you want a vision of what unregulated long-range spectrum looks like, just look up “Mud Duck” on CB. It’s good that we have a few limited ranges where these people can shit all over the place without causing serious harm.
Insufficient for what?
> and shrinking TAM.
Starlink has made quite an impact on planning around servicing commercially non-viable or marginal customers in government and telcos where I am from. It is IMO quite likely that some existing cell towers in remote areas that are very expensive to operate and maintain will eventually be shut down. So that could actually expand the "TAM".
> The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.
No, they also don't want to serve places where it costs more.
Starlink needs tens of millions of subscribers to be valued like a telco.
The starlink network surely has special features to support US military needs (resiliance, encryption, blocking enemy countries from access, robustness against countermeasures, yaddayadda).
In comparison, each Starlink satellite costs around $1 million to manufacture and launch, and each satellite lasts at least 5 years. So cost per satellite per year is $200k. They currently have 7,600 satellites serving 7 million customers, meaning on average, each satellite serves almost 1,000 customers. At $200k per satellite per year, each customer needs to pay $200 per year for them to break even. It seems likely that launch costs will go down in the future, meaning this number will decrease.
There's also the complication that each new Starlink satellite improves coverage & bandwidth for the entire globe, while each new 5G tower improves coverage & bandwidth in a specific area. A county may have a population density of 2-4 households per square mile, but many of those households are clustered together. The less dense areas are not likely to be covered by cell towers any time soon, as it's less economically viable. Another disadvantage of cell towers is service failures. A single Starlink satellite failure means a slight degradation of service, while a single cell tower failure means everyone in the region is taken offline. In areas where both services are available, people would be likely to prefer the more reliable option.
I hope Starlink can maintain enough regular non-crisis subscribers to subsidize this incredibly helpful use case.
Perhaps governments could/do pay a retainer to keep this option alive.
At a certain scale you're going to have to make the argument that laying a 10,000KM glass fiber across the ocean for 10-20% more latency is a better value than beaming it around in LEO.
Planes; yachts; cruise ships; naval vessels; sea-based drilling, mining and research platforms; mines in the middle of nowhere are a shrinking TAM?
You may also be underestimating how many large rural landowners don't want to give telcos (and the relevant authorities) access to any of their land.
And yet, people live in those places, and you telling them that they're not economically worth serving isn't really solving their problem.
...just depends if it's economically viable
tell that to any project that has had their budget slashed or out right canceled because somebody thought their project was a waste of money. every contractor is bidding unless your name is Halliburton. what's the famous astronaut quote about sitting on top of a rocket built by the lowest bidding contractor?
Their contracts aren't in defense...
In the west the Rocketlab Neutron partial RLV and planned Stokes Space full RLV stand out.
And maybe in a few decades even Arianespace will end up with a Falcon 9 class vehicle! ;-)
Always a good answer. ;-)
There have been 11 test launches of starship. You might've missed the last one because it didn't do anything new, except shedding parts and exploding less. There's a pretty good chance that program will never beat the cost of Falcon Heavy, or that the technology, like multiple refueling flights to get beyond low Earth orbit, is ever made workable.
It survived that - did that entire "simulated landing" burn and all.
In terms of "free cash flow" expectations, are you aware that approximately 90% of "space" revenue and profit comes from satellite telecom services, with launch services accounting for about 10% of the mix? SpaceX's development of a telecommunications constellation (Starlink) is highly consistent with historical industry patterns of what makes profit in space.
https://brycetech.com/reports/report-documents/global_satell...