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Virgin Galactic To Launch 2,400 Comm. Satellites To Offer Ubiquitous Broadband 123

Posted by samzenpus from the space-web dept.
coondoggie writes Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson this week said he wants to launch as many as 2,400 small satellites in an effort to set up a constellation capable of bringing broadband communications through a company called OneWeb to millions of people who do not have it. He said he plans to initially launch a low-earth-orbit satellite constellation of 648 satellites to get the project rolling.
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Virgin Galactic To Launch 2,400 Comm. Satellites To Offer Ubiquitous Broadband More

Virgin Galactic To Launch 2,400 Comm. Satellites To Offer Ubiquitous Broadband

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  • The internet will route around (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Charcharodon ( 611187 ) on Thursday January 15, 2015 @11:10PM (#48826663)
    In further news various governments have dropped all attempts at regulating the internet after the 15th successful kicker starter campaign has created yet another global network outside of their control....

    • The next Teledesic/Iridium/Etc. (Score:5, Informative)

      by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Friday January 16, 2015 @12:08AM (#48826935) Journal

      Good luck to Branson - I hope he actually gets this off the ground, or at least makes major advances in practical rocket design while he's trying.

      But the last few projects like this - Teledesic, Iridium, a couple of other important ones I forget - all ran into problems with markets, with costs, with technology, and with government regulation (both censorship and spectrum-control.) One of the cool things about satellite phones and data was that you could access them from anywhere in the world, even places without much infrastructure, but the problem was that they cost a lot more than terrestrial infrastructure in densely populated areas (so you couldn't make much money where there were lots of people), and sparsely populated areas are mostly poor farmers (so you couldn't make much money there), so what you really had was a niche market that cost you billions in upfront infrastructure. It's also hard to get high bandwidth from solutions like this (though lots of applications don't need to be that fast.)

      Governments were also a problem, because many of them didn't want unregulated speech, not subject to wiretap, competing with monopoly or ex-monopoly local telecom providers. Remember when Blackberry was only allowed to sell their phones in India if they provided a nexus for wiretapping?

      There have also been half a dozen announcements over the last decade or two about balloon-based projects, with blimps or weather balloons or tethered balloons or whatever providing low-altitude radio towers, which can deliver a lot more bandwidth (because they're close and can carry a lot more power), but somehow none of them ever turn into reality. (Good luck to Google and Facebook on those.)

      • Re:The next Teledesic/Iridium/Etc. (Score:5, Informative)

        by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 ) on Friday January 16, 2015 @03:52AM (#48827633)

        Iridium formed a corporation that included directors from all of the countries that they maintained major downlink gateways in
        These routed traffic off of the satellite network after a hop or two and then delivered the call over terrestrial networks

        This corporate structure proved frail and was abandoned during bankruptcy restructuring
        The bankruptcy started in 1999 and received a judgement from the 2nd circuit court under appeal in 2007 that left ownership with Motorola and recovered a couple of hundred million dollars to the lenders (from the $1.55 billion that was invested)

        The technology that Iridium used provided a very narrow upstream/downstream data capability to handsets, something like a 2400 baud modem.
        Motorola has developed an upgrade to start launching in 2015 that provides greater data transmission and more flexibility for locations of data downlink gateway locations
        The spacing of the Iridium satellites requires a very wide horizon to avoid dropped calls. The precludes use in inhabited areas where there are tall buildings as well as areas that have a varied geography with deep canyons and valleys

        On the good to great side, Motorola developed a first of its kind production line for satellite manufacture, used a wide variety of launch partners (Russia, China, EU, Orbital Sciences and what is now called United Launch Alliance)

        If Branson is going to be competitive he will need to beat the planned data link bandwidth of Iridium NEXT (1.8MB and 8MB data links), have a much denser constellation (to prevent the need for wide horizons in order to use the system) and strong control over the terrestrial gateways and networks

        It would sure be cool, but the primary problem with Iridium was that there were not enough users who absolutely, positively had to maintain voice communications no matter where they were located. You may also wonder who Branson will contract to build and launch this system, since his competitors probably are the most capable of doing the work and probably have all of the launch windows locked up into the foreseeable future

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

          Iridium will succeed because it is backed by the NRO. It is a cover for a full earth Sigint system.

          Actually I am making that up just to start a conspiracy theory. Frankly it really could work for mapping just about every radar on the earth in real time.

        • 2000 satellites sure does sound like a much denser constellation - bandwidth is likely more limited by regulations than technology.

        • The problem wasn't the need. Everyone wants that. The problem was it had to be an absolute need, because it was so damn expensive. The handsets started at about 5000$ (and this was quite a long time ago), and the packages you had to buy were exorbitant to say the least, for very little capacity. The Iridium satellites were very expensive to launch, and as a result they needed to change a lot of money to make it worthwhile, couple that with the fact they didn't launch as many as they were going to (I think?)

          • Space launches by private companies potentially include his own launches, and good luck to him. And yeah, Moore's Law is usually your friend.

            There was a while, though, that the most effective business models for satellite communication, underseas fiber cables, and terrestrial fibers were

            • 1. (Send underpants gnomes to collect all the underpants)\\\\\\\\ Send Powerpoint Gnomes to distribute lots of Powerpoints.
            • 2. Other companies spend billions on capital-intensive implementation of Powerpoints.
            • 3. ?????
            • 4.

      • Teledesic and Iridium have run into problems in the past, but at least the Iridium network is currently up and running after some corporate shuffling, (satellite phones exist thanks to this) and the Iridium 2 constellation will begin deploying within the year.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        The problem with Iridium is that the projections for coverage were dumb (made up by managers based on hopes, not based in science), and that the cell phone wasn't big when it was proposed and funding started, and they failed to account for competition from terrestrial competitors. Two very basic, but massive errors.

        And their real legacy is scaring money away from space becuase "space is hard" because some basic problems unrelated to where the cell towers are located.

    • This just in: By an amazing coincidence, US, Chinese and Russian defense spokesmen announced that their would be stepping up their research into laser weapons. As an aside, they mentioned their ongoing efforts with drones capable of carrying large payloads into the stratosphere.

  • Wouldn't towers be more cost effective? Granting satellites get past the political boundaries.

    Put a big orange ball full of 802.11 gear on third world radio towers. Let the third world techs aim cantennas at it for free internet. Skip the nations that don't allow free net access.

    Make sure they can't get spoofed IP addresses past the routers. We're going to need to be able to block some of these.

    • "Granting satellites get past the political boundaries."

      Yes, but it is much more Dr. Evil-esque.

      Is it "Virgin" or "Virtucon"?

    • Satellites also provide better for the back haul connection - with towers you still need to visit all locations and get the back haul sorted (be it physical, microwave or indeed satellite). Visiting certain locations can be very dangerous. Also, towers wouldn't last in certain locations.

  • Why so many? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why in the world would you need so many of them? The entire US GPS network only consists of about 30 satellites and that allows a particular location visibility of at least four satellites across most of earths surface at any one time. I would think it would be easier, safer and cheaper to equip a hundred or so larger, better equipped satellites with multiple communications systems.

    • Re:Why so many? (Score:4, Informative)

      by SumDog ( 466607 ) on Thursday January 15, 2015 @11:43PM (#48826825) Homepage Journal

      You don't transmit information back up to a GPS satellite. They broadcast and our devices receive and triangulate. It's also a fairly slow protocol. 2-way communication with that many endpoints is significantly more complicated.

    • Probably lower orbits. GPS are in medium orbit, which is still pretty expensive compared to LEO. Also Consider they might be able to use their own launch systems, which would only be able to make LEO in the near future. If you are using lower orbits, you need many more satellites to ensure coverage.

      • The only way Virgin makes LEO in the near future is by buying SpaceX.

        • Re:Why so many? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Friday January 16, 2015 @12:43AM (#48827073)
          RTFA, moron.

          They are using the WhiteKnightTwo with a unmanned rocket payload for orbital launches [networkworld.com].

          Branson wrote in his blog that the company is working to build a two-stage rocket, known as LauncherOne that would air-launch launch from the companies existing WhiteKnightTwo aircraft at about 45,000 to 50,000ft.

          “LauncherOne will be built using advanced composite structures, and powered by our new family of LOX/RP-1 liquid rocket engines. Each LauncherOne mission will be capable of delivering as much as 225 kilograms (500 pounds) to a low inclination Low Earth Orbit or 120 kilograms (265 pounds) to a high-altitude Sun-Synchronous Orbit, for a price of less than $10M,” Branson wrote.

          So far the responses to this post indicate that Slasdot should change it's name to Slashdolt because of the shear stupidity of what's being said. The first post is by Frosty Piss, and he is living up (or more accurately down) to his name. It seems like the nerds have been displaced by drooling fools.

          I'm starting to wonder if I should waste my time on the likes of you.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            don't you mean "sheer stupidity" ..

            You shear sheep.

            Your sheering lack of command of the finer points of the English language is quite ironic.

            see the difference?

            FTFY

          • They are using the WhiteKnightTwo with a unmanned rocket payload for orbital launches [networkworld.com].

            WhiteKnightTwo is just an airplane. We've already got plenty of those. Virgin so-called-Galactic has nothing capable of getting anywhere near low earth orbit: even their failed rocket was only suborbital. This "plan" is like planning a trip to Japan, when you've bought a taxi to the airport but no plane ticket.

          • You take marketers word about vapor and call me a moron?

  • I remember back in the 2000's, some company was talking about putting up a ton of low-earth-orbit satellites to provide 2-way satellite Internet (I think at the time, you could get satellite via Dish network, but you still needed a phone line to transmit and it was way overpriced)

  • Got to assume that with so many satellites they all have death lasers mounted on them and are really an attempt to control the world.

    But they are so cool frankly, I don't care. Satellites Up!

  • That should make the lives of anyone planning the math launches for missions quite a bit more interesting.

    Personally, I hate Satellite Internet - after suffering under a fair use policy and having my bandwidth reduce to 1.2 k under Hughes, I don't see how even having 2400 small satellites in orbit can help, or envision the lag time if they made it work with a large population.

  • Kessler Syndrome Alert (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jaa101 ( 627731 ) on Friday January 16, 2015 @01:08AM (#48827165)

    That many satellites could tip us over the space junk critical mass threshold. If a spacecraft is hit by something it tends to send debris flying everywhere. Some of the pieces can then hit other spacecraft causing more debris. Once you have enough spacecraft in orbit -- critical mass -- the chain reaction sustains itself long enough to destroying many spacecraft in the same orbital region. It's called the Kessler syndrome.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Or you could have just said "Gravity" - the movie plot is basically this, over-exaggerated a little.

    • Re:Kessler Syndrome Alert (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Friday January 16, 2015 @08:02AM (#48828247) Homepage

      Low earth orbit (LEO) is not a big threat, even a major clusterfuck would be resolved in a couple decades as the debris burns up in the athmosphere. The only way ISS stays in the sky is because of constant boosts by visiting space ships. satellites similarly have built in thrusters for their design life. In GEO on the other hand the orbit is stable for centuries and fucking up bad there would plague us for a very long time.

    • Although surely the Kessler syndrome would be a bigger issue at higher orbits...? Isn't there some atmospheric drag at LEO that means that not even space junk is forever?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      Not really. They are LEO so they will decay very quickly. And fragments would have a high drag since they would have a low mass to surface area ratio so would have high drag.
      Yes at LEO there is still atmospheric drag.

  • Impractical at Virgin's launch prices (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Friday January 16, 2015 @01:38AM (#48827231)

    They just announced today that the rocket that will be putting these things up will cost $10 million and have a LEO payload capacity of 225 kg... making it one of the most expensive launchers in the world, nearly ten times the cost per kilo of SpaceX. How they expect this to work with such insanely high costs is beyond me.

    • The difference is that larger rockets, while having a lower dollar per kilogram cost, can only put up a couple of satellites at a time. So while a $60M Falcon 9 for example can put much larger payloads into orbit at an order of magnitude lower $/kg, in reality, you'd only be able to put a couple satellites at most into orbit with a single vehicle. So therefore, you're really paying about $30M per satellite versus the $10M per satellite of the WhiteKnight.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        SpaceX is putting six Orbcomm G2 satellites in orbit per F9 launch, and they're putting ten Iridium NEXT satellites in orbit per F9 launch. Neither set of launches seem to be anywhere close to mass limited, which would indicate possible cost saving measures when building the satellites (you can build them a bit heavier if it saves money or increases on-orbit endurance).

        What the actual limit per launch is, I don't know, but it's demonstrably much higher than two satellites. I suspect it would be more limited

  • This is a brilliant move. The ability to have unfettered net access (although with long ping rates) would be a world wide information source. Sure you'll get the newbie crazies, but you'll also expose millions to the web in whatever moral and ethical state it happens to be in at the time.

    There should be a term for that - a term that describes or rates the ethical 'average' of the web at any given moment, perhaps on a continuum. If there isn't one at the moment then I have just coined "Nethical" or if that's

  • on what frequency? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BradMajors ( 995624 ) on Friday January 16, 2015 @02:46AM (#48827433)

    Is there an available frequency(ies) for him to use?

  • Is Richard Branson trying to compete with Elon Musk for media exposure? They both seem to be making dubious statements that seem to be designed to garner coverage.

    • Two test pilots died flying Branson's last spacecraft, and people commented that it was a waste of life that all they were pioneering was a roller-coaster for rich people. As Virgin Galactic gears up to restart test flights, they need to build up a media narrative that suggests some progress and benefit to humanity as a whole. Plus the fact that Branson does genuinely want to make a better world. Like most rich philanthropists, he rationalises his wealth as a reward for all the good work he's done, thus avo

      • The point I was trying to make was that Branson has been out of the positive news for a bit and the possibility of the project happening has less importance than Branson's need to be in the news.

    • They're both pretty full of themselves, but Musk is a pompous engineer at heart whose projects mostly work. Branson is a pompous frat boy at heart whose projects kill people.

  • Youz guys (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    sitting in your mother's basement thinking you're smarter than Branson...

  • It's Iridium all over again. (Score:3)

    by mark_reh ( 2015546 ) on Friday January 16, 2015 @09:07AM (#48828457) Journal

    Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

  • Here's why this is stupid. It takes an immense amount of battery power to beam a signal back to a satellite. So if you're out in Argentina in the forest, you better have brought a car battery along to power that laptop's satellite transmitter.

  • perhaps now is a good time to discuss cleaning up the existing dead junk orbiting the earth in order to make space for all these new toys

  • so basically... It would look like this [thesun.co.uk]

  • Teledesic, The 1990s Called (Score:3)

    by Scot Seese ( 137975 ) on Friday January 16, 2015 @02:57PM (#48832461)

    Yeah, I remember this when it was called "Teledesic", from the mid-90s, when Craig McCaw, Bill Gates & Prince Bin Alawaleed threw $9 billion in a hat to create a Low Earth Orbit satellite internet company.

    So, we have yet to solve some of the staggering problems behind this concept.

    1, Cost.
    2, Cost
    3, Cost
    4, Semi-acceptible downstream speeds, latency-choked laggy dialup upstream speeds making video/audio streaming, uploading to cloud services, etc wholly impractical. The only workable solution is to use traditional terrestrial last-mile technology (cable, dsl, etc.) for the upstream. Which wholly defeats the point of satellite internet.

    I thought Sir Richard was smarter than this.

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