Comments on: SpaceX launches sixty more Starlink satellites; plus an installation report from one customer

By: wayne

wayne — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 04:08:45 +0000

Jay–
received my email announcement from Starlink as well. No active service in my area but if I order now I can expect delivery within 6 months.

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 04:04:32 +0000

The gods have smiled on me. I finally received the email and I will be getting my Starlink!

Thanks Steve for your review!

By: Steve Golson

Steve Golson — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:32:23 +0000

Bob commented: [Editor’s note: Where I live in Tucson Starlink will work for almost the entire city population, as we have few apartment buildings and most homes are on reasonably large lots with very clear views of the sky. And the few apartment buildings can easily install one for all.]

Now you run into a fundamental limitation of Starlink architecture: it can only support a limited number of ground stations in one “cell”. For Starlink, a “cell” is a roughly hexagonal patch on the ground, a few miles across. At any given moment, every station in a particular cell is sharing access to a single satellite. (Currently just one satellite; in the future perhaps a handful.) Thus the maximum bandwidth of the satellite downlink limits how many customers Starlink can service in a small area. Exactly what that limit is remains to be seen.

Starlink’s target market is populations not well covered by cell towers, copper or fiber. See Elon Musk’s comments here:

https://www.lightreading.com/services/musks-starlink-is-not-some-huge-threat-to-telcos/d/d-id/758092

By: Steve Golson

Steve Golson — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 15:59:12 +0000

wayne: The dish is a seriously sophisticated piece of RF equipment. Check out this story, which reports on a teardown by Ken Keiter:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/12/teardown-of-dishy-mcflatface-the-spacex-starlink-user-terminal/

And another analysis here, including x-rays of the circuit board: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6MfM8EFkGg

By: James Street

James Street — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 13:57:40 +0000

A Seattle area woman walked out of her house on Tuesday February 9th at 6:10 in the morning and saw a line of lights moving across the sky. She snapped a picture of it with her phone and started digging what they were. It turns out they were the 60 Starlink satellites that SpaceX launched on Thursday February 4th.

Article and picture:
SpaceX Starlink satellites spotted over western Washington
https://www.king5.com/article/weather/weather-blog/spacex-starlink-satellites-western-washington/281-e76aff03-280c-49dd-b9e0-209c96535524

By: Sayomara

Sayomara — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 01:38:36 +0000

Nice write up. I’m interested to hear what happened with the landing of the first stage. On a related note to starlink. Spacex did a polar launch out of Florida a few weeks ago and there was reporting that it was the first polar launch down the space coast in a long time. I didn’t think about it much at that time but those satellites were heading into the Southern Hemisphere for places like Austria. It is interesting of see all the different types of Launches SpaceX is needing to do, to make this constellation a reality.

By: Joe Rosario

Joe Rosario — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 22:35:42 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experience Steve Golson. It will be interesting to see how this product matures over time.

By: LocalFluff

LocalFluff — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 21:22:47 +0000

My update after the last launch posted here, on LEO maximum capacity successfully launched (I was at least 20 kg off last time, I’ll make a structured spread sheet out of this tomorrow):

WORLD 157,220 kg
USA 114,800 kg 73%
CHINA 27,200 kg 17%
RUSSIA 15,220 kg 9.7%

USA 114,800 kg
SpaceX (114,000 kg)
+ 5 of Falcon 9 Block 5 = 22,800 kg each *UPDATED*
Rocket Lab (300 kg)
+ 1 of Electron = 300 kg each
Virgin Galactic (500 kg)
+ 1 of LauncherOne = 500 kg as to SSO230km each

CHINA 27,200 kg
+ 2 of Long March 3B/E = 11,500 kg each
+ 1 of Long March 4C = 4,200 kg each
– 1 of Hyperbola 1 = 300 kg LAUNCH FAILURE

RUSSIA 15,220 kg
+ 1 of Soyuz 2.1a = 7,020 kg each
+ 1 of Soyuz 2.1b = 8,200 kg each

For the British and Americans, you can intuitively translate the rational units to your own by considering that 10,000 kg is the same as 7,874 long and 1,653 short tonnes, 47 and a quarter stones, the weight of a yard length British brown oak log at 12 7/13 inch diameter, 154 and a half pound sterling silver 883 shilling and 2,649 pence, with 8 13½/17th pints of beer. Give or take a cup of salt.

By: wayne

wayne — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 14:28:24 +0000

Yes, great info from Steve!

Ref: “Various people have done teardowns and analysis of this equipment, and conservatively estimate it costs $2,500 to manufacture. ”

Could somebody expand on that thought? (I’m just a social-science major, but that number feels excessive.)

By: Blair K Ivey

Blair K Ivey — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:49:18 +0000

Compliments to Steve Golson for sharing his experience with new tech; a fun and interesting read. Not sure if the $99/month price would work for me, given options in the my area. Still, new tech coming in at a reasonable price, and reliable operation ‘out-of-the-box’.

Thanks!

By: Jeff Wright

Jeff Wright — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 06:23:06 +0000

I would still like to see Starship or Falcon Heavy place a large Orbital Antenna Farm in geosynch' with Dragon XL for the type of Comm-Station that A. C. Clark wanted. The frame remains with dishes... The electronic breadboards being swapped out. Additions possible-multi-use.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 05:41:18 +0000

I really want one of these! A local ham radio operator living outside of Spokane WA. recently got one and reported “running a
consistent 100 down and 30-40 up” rate. It also has been able to keep up with all the snow we have been getting lately.