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SpaceX Files FCC Application For Internet Access Network With 4,425 Satellites (geekwire.com) 121

An anonymous reader quotes a report from GeekWire: SpaceX has laid out further details about a 4,425-satellite communications network that's expected to provide global broadband internet access, with its Seattle-area office playing a key role in its development. The plan is explained in an application and supporting documents filed on Tuesday with the Federal Communications Commission. In the technical information that accompanied its application, SpaceX said it would start commercial broadband service with 800 satellites. That service would cover areas of the globe from 15 degrees north to 60 degrees north, and from 15 degrees south to 60 degrees south. That leaves out some portions of Alaska, which would require a temporary waiver from the FCC. Eventually, the network would grow to 4,425 satellites, transmitting in the Ku and Ka frequency bands. "Once fully deployed, the SpaceX system will pass over virtually all parts of the Earth's surface and therefore, in principle, have the ability to provide ubiquitous global service," SpaceX said. The satellites would orbit the planet at altitudes ranging from 714 to 823 miles (1,150 to 1,325 kilometers) -- well above the International Space Station, but well below geostationary satellites. SpaceX said it would follow federal guidelines to mitigate orbital debris. Each satellite would weigh 850 pounds (386 kilograms) and measure 13 by 6 by 4 feet (4 by 1.8 by 1.2 meters), plus solar arrays, SpaceX said. Operating lifetime was estimated at five to seven years per satellite.
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SpaceX Files FCC Application For Internet Access Network With 4,425 Satellites

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  • With this move, won't SpaceX be competing with their own clients like Iridium?
    • With this move, won't SpaceX be competing with their own clients like Iridium?

      I think you mean Dysprosium (there are only 66 satellites in that constellation, not the originally planned 77 to get it to the right number for Iridium).

      Motorola hasn't been lofting more satellites into the constellation since the late 1990's, and at one point was threatening to de-orbit the whole system. And they've already had in-orbit failures which can't be corrected by the in-orbit spares, so in some cases: coverage is pretty spotty. Although Iridium NEXT was supposed to start launching via SpaceX's

  • ... that'll be another 4425 bits of space junk. Genius idea - utterly pollute near space just so some company can make a short term profit on something thats a nice to have rather than essential infrastructure.

    "SpaceX said it would follow federal guidelines to mitigate orbital debris"

    And how does it plan to do that exactly? They're too high to be sent down to burn up in the atmosphere and too low to be sent off into a parking orbit.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, I'm a bit surprised by "Operating lifetime was estimated at five to seven years per satellite." Surely with 4425 satellites, that means between 632 and 885 satellites needing to be replaced each year. Seems like a lot.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Quantity is how they get the price down I guess!

        • Quantity is how they get the price down I guess!

          Then let's tack onto their low price per unit the price of cleaning this crap out of orbit and see what effect that has on SpaceX's bottom line.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        Don't worry, Trump will BUILD A WALL IN SPACE to stop any and all illegal satellite entry. And, we will make the Mooninites pay for it. MAKE LOW EARTH ORBIT GREAT AGAIN!
    • by quadrantviewer ( 4702349 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @06:42AM (#53304317)
      The proposal’s technical attachment does contain a reasonable de-orbiting plan for the satellites, involving reducing the perigee to around 300 km which would result in a fairly rapid re-entry. The problem is that guidelines about time to removal (including the remarkably arbitrary 25 year recommendation) are just that: guidelines. There is no real international agreement about this either. Satellite manufacturers currently do little more than pay lip service to debris mitigation, and will use the cheapest, untested debris removal technology they can, with little expectation that it will actually work. Beyond an altitude of 600-800 km (depending on solar activity levels etc.) solar radiation pressure overtakes atmospheric drag as the dominant force acting on a satellite. SRP generates tiny forces which tend not to be applied in a way likely to accelerate deorbiting. The satellites as described in this article are likely to have a ballistic coefficient which will leave them in orbit for hundreds, if not thousands of years in the very likely case that their end-of-life manoeuvre fails. There just isn’t an incentive for Space-X to make it reliable.
      • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @07:11AM (#53304393) Homepage

        Preventing dead satellites from accumulating in the middle of their constellation isn't incentive?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Visarga ( 1071662 )
        Can they use electrodynamic tethers of deorbiting?
      • by mlts ( 1038732 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @08:04AM (#53304583)

        The ironic thing is that it is definitely in their interest. If they hose things and satellites start getting destroyed with debris going everywhere in that orbit, Kessler Syndrome will be definitely a show-stopper and not just shut SpaceX down, but pretty much endeavor that goes past the atmosphere. This is already happening, with the ISS already having a solar panel get perforated by debris, and occasionally having to do maneuvers to avoid larger items.

        Unless someone has a magic cure for getting space debris to just give up and fall into the atmosphere, fuck-ups by any satellite maker can affect every single space venture there is to the point where launching anything into space becomes an impossibility.

    • Satellites have deorbiting devices, they can ordered to fall back to earth in a controlled way.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by stud9920 ( 236753 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @08:24AM (#53304697)

      Have you bothered reading the PDF ? It has a quite long description of the deorbiting parameters, which involve putting them in elliptic orbit with perigee of 300km, meaning if they miss and only reach 400km, they're only good for 2.9 years before orbital decay.

      I made some calculations, lowering the perigee from 1075km to 3000km is actually relatively cheap, some 200m/s Delta V. Depending on the Isp of the engine, and the total mass (not clear if the 386kg are with or without propellant), we're speaking of 25-40kg op propellant. Make that 30-50kg and aeorbraking is not even needed because you're impacting the ground. Barely significant compared to the total mass.

    • Their real goal is to shadow out sunlight with the satellites, in order to mitigate global warming...
    • Fine by me. If they can pull this off, we'll have some decent mass-production going on in the satellites and rockets departments, the prices of all things space will go way down.

      And we can always send up a scavenger satellite to repair/deorbit/gather the dead satellites. And if all else fails, 4000 pieces of space junk isn't really that much; space is big, bigger than most people can imagine. Might be problematic if a few of them smash up, but then the smaller pieces will de-orbit that much quicker.

  • Rural Africans etc. will install satellite tracking dishes and there'll be a half minute interruption every few minutes as satellites fly by? Or it doesn't need line of sight?

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @05:50AM (#53304215) Journal
      RASCOM, Regional African Satellite Communication Organization was to do a lot with Libya's funding.
      Libya was going to give Africa telephone, television, radio-broadcast, telemedicine and long-distance learning (WIMAX) without the West's corporate profit taking.
    • by Rei ( 128717 )

      You could just read the document, you know.

      User terminals operating with the SpaceX system will use similar phased array technologies to allow for highly directive, steered antenna beams that track the system's low-Earth orbit satellites.

      The antennas aren't physically steered, they're steered by adjusting the relative phases of the individual sub-antennas.

  • by athmanb ( 100367 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @06:03AM (#53304225)

    2/3rds of the satellites will always be over water and have their bandwidth utterly wasted. A significant part of the rest will be over areas where almost nobody lives, or nobody can afford to pay for internet with hard currency. Meanwhile all 400m Europeans that live in the populated 5m square kilometers have to use the same 20 to 100 satellites.

    Because the satellites are not geostationary they'll need to use omnidirectional antennae which puts some hard limits on bandwidth, while a lot of people will get FTTH and 5G mobile networks in the next decade.

    Iridium can get away with these shortcomings because they target the customers that doesn't care about prices. But I kind of doubt that market can support 4000 satellites

    • Because the satellites are not geostationary they'll need to use omnidirectional antennae

      What? Who told you that? There will be over 4,000 sats. They're not going to be highly directional, but they'll still be able to point them at the planet.

    • "2/3rds of the satellites will always be over water and have their bandwidth utterly wasted. " Internet on vessels sucks. Buoys at sea observing weather, all those unmanned vehicles need to provide camera feeds to operators in Topeka. upside of global warming? Ships can now take a shortcut from asia to Europe by the Canadian North... where there is little to no civilisation and very limited weather info available. Think Titanic... yes, ships in ice-prone waters... Above 75 degrees north, geo-stationary
      • by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        Those satellites, assuming they're not serving ships and small islands, will also be routing data for the rest of the constellation. They're not just bouncing data back down on the same satellite, the data goes up from the client and travels from satellite to satellite until it hits a peering point.

        • I expect that thought occurred to these folks, and there are planning multiple peering points distributed across the globe. The more downlinks, the less bandwidth is needed in the sky. Like cells, where the usage is high, you place more land stations.
  • What kind of bandwidth / latency does that translate into?

    • Speed of light can easy be googled.

      So for a hight of 1000miles, 1600km, one hopp up is 0.02 seconds, one hop down also 0.02 seconds, I doubt the satellites are communicating with each other and transfer a signal to the other side of the planet, if they do, it is like 14,000km distance, which is another 0.3 seconds.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      round-trip latency of radio signal at that altitude: abt 6-7 milliseconds. But that's just ground -> 800km -> satellite. Then there's device speed, satellite-to-satellite signal and other factors. But in the end the latency could be competitive.
      As for speed.. who knows which devices, how many users etc.etc. I bet it will start at 1mbit

  • by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @06:23AM (#53304267)
    That is an enormous amount of weight to send up. Space-x is aiming for (has not achieved) $1,000 per pound. Their current cost is more realistically $4,000 [stackexchange.com].

    4425*850*4000=$150,450,000,000. Then add the cost to send up another 4427/7=630 satellites per year (630*850*2000(because they'll get costs way down if they can send up that much material)=$1 billion dollars per year. They need to spend 150 billion dollars initially and an ongoing 1 billion dollars per year.

    In 2014 SpaceX had a "market cap" of (optimistically) 12 billion dollars [fool.com]. Let's assumt that 12 billion dollars have already been justified. Now rumors [profitconfidential.com] of an IPO [moneymorning.com] have been heard, so let's assume a massive over-the-top [investopedia.com] IPO: 13 billion dollars. Then add in a billion dollars. (assuming every penny they can scrape together goes to this plan) 12+13+1=26 billion. Using realistic numbers for launch costs and hyper-optimistic numbers for funding, they're about 125 billion dollars short. And I don't see Trump signing a 125 billion dollar Space-X pork bill. If we're very optimistic about launch costs that hypothetical bill could go as low as a still-highly-unlikely 75 billion dollars.
    • I used the wrong number here, and I apologize. $2000 per pound is a realistic number for initial launch costs, halving each following number in the projection.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      4425*850*$4000=$15 045 000 000
      so $26 billion would be enough.

      • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @09:05AM (#53304925) Homepage

        Beyond this, I expect that a lot of these would actually be nearly "free" - I would not be in the least surprised if their plan is to pack these as secondary payloads in existing launches to take up the remaining payload capacity of the launch vehicle.

        Also, spending a few billion years on average during operation is a very small amount compared to the amount spent globally on internet infrastructure.

    • That is an enormous amount of weight to send up.

      It's also an insane amount of launches.
      To get all 4425 satellites up within 7 years, they'd have to launch about 52 per month.
      Even if they deploy 5 at the same time, that'd still be 10 launches per month.
      Currently, they do less than that in a year.

    • by Mindbridge ( 70295 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @10:04AM (#53305303) Homepage

      There are some issues with these calculations.
      1) The per pound price:
      - The prices you used are per kilogram, not per pound
      - The prices do not take into account the first stage reusability that will presumably become standard by the time the sats are launched
      - If we use the Falcon Heavy costs with reusability (e.g. from here [reddit.com]) we get $50mil/(0.7*119930) = about $600 per pound.
      - The $600 price per pound includes the SpaceX profit margin. If that is not taken into account the price would be even lower.

      2) SpaceX will first launch only 1600 sats to make the system operational. From then on the future expansion can be funded by the operational profits.

      Given the above calculations, the launch prices for getting the system to work will be 1600*850*600 = $816 million
      That is well within the SpaceX financial capabilities.

      Now, the above assumes that the FH launches of the sats would be mass limited, rather than volume limited. I suspect that in reality they would be volume limited, however, thus the price would be higher. In any case it would be much lower than your original estimate.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    386 kilograms - 13 by 6 by 4 feet (4 by 1.8 by 1.2 meters)

    Launch cost $1.79 million per satellite
    or $7.93 billion per constellation which last 5-7 years.

    Lets say an average cost of $50 million per satellite, which is very low, were looking at $221.3 billion.

    So, let's say roughly $230 billion, just to break even over a 7 year life span would require an annual revenue generation of $32 billion. Given that most people without an internet connection would be in rural areas, or poverty striken areas, we're look

    • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Thursday November 17, 2016 @09:07AM (#53304935) Homepage

      You think a low latency broadband network available to the entire planet's 7,5 billion people is only going to be able to get 91 million subscribers?

      • by ledow ( 319597 )

        Compared to a $20 a month ISP connection across most of the first world, and no access to computers - let alone Internet - across most of the third-world?

        Er... I think they're going to struggle.

        And I think a bigger point is that then share's one satellite across - at least - 20,000+ people. Good luck managing the bandwidth on that one...

        • by Rei ( 128717 )

          So because you're assuming that it'll be more expensive than ISPs in the First World (and let's pretend that the first world is all 100% net connected, why don't we), and because only a quarter of the world's 7,5 billion people currently own a computer, that means that there's no way to get 90 million subscribers?

          Compelling argument there.

          Let's also pretend that there's no other markets for satellite data service, such as shipping, aviation, backbone data transmission, etc why don't we.

          I'm sure all of the p

          • by ledow ( 319597 )

            Yeah, because I don't specify networks for a living, or tie in leased lines, or pay for broadband.

            Shipping, aviation, etc. all have satellite data where necessary.

            We're not talking about those areas - at best their things get cheaper, at worst they make no changes to what they are using.

            We're talking about 20,000 people (on average, likely more), operating on a limited bandwidth in a licensed channel, simultaneously, with something they expect comparable to a basic broadband connection (Let's say 10Mbps, bu

            • by Rei ( 128717 )

              Yeah, because I don't specify networks for a living, or tie in leased lines, or pay for broadband.

              Which totally makes you an expert on economics, communications satellites, and launch vehicles! In the same way that living in Alaska makes Sarah Palin an expert on Russia!

              It also somehow magically gives you all of the data available to SpaceX involved in making their decisions.

              Shipping, aviation, etc. all have satellite data where necessary.

              Right, there's absolutely nobody who would pay for always-on bandwidt

            • by Rei ( 128717 )

              Just ran into these things - and gee, whatchaknow, backs up everything I said:

              Also twitter from @malderi

              "Musk: Have to pay attention to security. Bad if hacked, either by AI or people."
              - very important IMO, this would get round state censorship, so attack by states possible.

              "Musk: biggest concern about success: important to assume that competitors get better, too. Teledesic didn't."
              - it will be interesting to see how they build a system that can be expanded to more bandw

              • by Rei ( 128717 )

                Followup from the same engineer:

                Oops! I am off by a factor of 2.

                It should be 100Mhz per 1Gbps.
                256QAM transmits 8bits/Hz (quite common). 1024QAM is 10bits/Hz. So 100Mhz would be 800-1000Mbps raw but with error correction bits (10-12bits for each 8 data bits) plus a compression factor you get the 1000Mbps(1Gbps).

                So max capability per spot area of full constellation would be 1Tbps (100X100mile sized spot) data rate density of 1Gbps/10square miles.

                So divide revenue figures in half. But they still are in the $B

          • 22 million subscribers @$60/month or $720/year for lowest tier of internet.
            $14,400,000,000/year in revenue.

            100+ million broadband users in the U.S.
            220+ million cell phone users in the U.S.

            Let's theorize a $50/month fee for internet and cell service. That's
            $600/year. Let's say these combine to 200 million users.

            That's $10,000,000,000 ($10 billion/year)

  • 7 year max lifespan, times 365 days a year, is 2555 days of maximum lifespan.

    So for 4400 satellites, how exactly are they going to maintain a launch rate capable of sustaining this? This would inevitably require maintenance launches 2 or 3 times per week.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      They'll lose 2 a day. A Falcon Heavy lifter can take 100 at a time, so one replacement flight ever 50 days or so.

      • by Atryn ( 528846 )

        They'll lose 2 a day. A Falcon Heavy lifter can take 100 at a time, so one replacement flight ever 50 days or so.

        100 at a time? Each is the size of a MINI Cooper car... Do they fold up smaller for launch?

  • Such an endeavour would shake up China’s censorship of the internet (or anyone else for that matter). There’s a strong potential here for Internet 2.0 — as independent of terrestrial WAN, while "Free" in the sense that might operate independent from the regulations of any one country.
  • We in fact desperately need an orbital based internet to break the earth bound telecommunication firms. Expect Cable companies to lobby heavily against this.

    Each satellite should have a system to retrieve it to earth. By that, I mean a small system that would be deployed upon failure to push the satellite down to lower earth orbit until it plunges and burns up in atmosphere. This should in fact be a requirement of EVERY satellite.

  • "Operating lifetime was estimated at five to seven years per satellite."

    Doesn't that seem like a really sort span of time to have to send something into space? That means in like any given year you could be replacing 20% of your satellites? I guess perhaps with the idea that technology would be advancing so a 30 year old satellite might not really support current technology... Anyway still seems a bit crazy...

    • by Atryn ( 528846 )

      "Operating lifetime was estimated at five to seven years per satellite."

      Doesn't that seem like a really sort span of time to have to send something into space? That means in like any given year you could be replacing 20% of your satellites? I guess perhaps with the idea that technology would be advancing so a 30 year old satellite might not really support current technology... Anyway still seems a bit crazy...

      And, if he says it will cost $20B that also implies $4B / year in replacement costs... I'm sure he is betting on the tech improving (cheaper and longer lifespan) as they move to scale. On that, he's probably right.

  • Tesla uses internet to update and monitor their vehicles.

    This would give Tesla access around the globe to perform those updates to any Tesla, no matter WHERE in the world it is.

    And they would no longer have to pay telecoms fees to use their cellular systems.

  • This just proves that SpaceX will be a short-lived company. I doubt they have the capital to put it in place, let alone maintain it. And for what?

    • For what? Telecom industry is a 2e12$ business(yearly) globally. If one company can provide 1Gbps internet anywhere in the world, maybe tag TV on it, potentially even stuff the capability into cellphones.... mon-dieu, that could be the global monopoly to beat East India Company out of the history books. Are they actually capable of doing it, I don't know, but if they did, well they sky is the limit as far as potential goes.
  • ..and they want their Internet back?

    I thought satellite Internet was one of the worst options available? Most expensive, least performance?

    • Current satellite internet is that way because all the data is funneled through a handful of satellites up in geostationary orbit. This system uses a much larger number of much closer satellites, so latency's far lower, signal levels and link bandwidth are higher and you don't need a big dish to make your link budget work, and system bandwidth is orders of magnitude higher.

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