SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet constellation has lost more than two hundred satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) since July, according to data from a satellite tracking website. This is the first time that Starlink has lost a significant number of satellites in a short time period, and these losses are typically influenced by solar flares that cause changes in orbit and damage or destroy the spacecraft. The nature of the satellites, i.e. their model, is unclear, and if they are the newer Starlink satellites that SpaceX regularly launches, then the firm will have to conduct at least nine Falcon 9 launches to make up for the satellites lost.
Since it is a SpaceX subsidiary, Starlink has rapidly built the world’s largest LEO satellite internet constellation and the world’s largest satellite constellation by rapidly launching them through the Falcon 9 rocket. However, upgrades to the spacecraft and constraints with the Falcon 9 have reduced the number of satellites that the firm can launch, with its latest launches seeing roughly 22 satellites per launch for a nearly one-third reduction over the 60 satellites that SpaceX launched during the early days of the Starlink buildout.
The newer satellites are second-generation spacecraft that SpaceX received the launch authorization from the FCC less than a year back. They are more powerful and are thus larger and heavier than the earlier satellites, which limits the Falcon 9 ability to squeeze large numbers inside a single payload fairing.
Satellites in orbit or space have to face off against various hazards that can damage or put them out of commission. SpaceX faced one such event in February 2022, when a solar flare damaged at least 40 of the recently launched satellites. SpaceX confirmed this and shared that the heat from the solar flare increased atmospheric density and made it impossible for the satellites to maintain their trajectory.
Every time I read anything about starlink, it all just seems so quintessentially American.
You’ve got effective monopolies of communication infrastructure, which causes everyone to be underserved, and instead of just fixing the monopoly problem, you fire off infinite rockets full of cell towers that burn up in a year
I’m angry at you because I’m about to defend an Elon Musk project… But Starlink is used in many countries. (in)Famously in Ukraine. The idea has merit for anyone living in remote areas (northern Canada, war-torn areas, etc.).
Ukraine is a fantastic example of how bad the whole thing is playing out. Remote areas are always better served by actual infrastructure investment however.
It doesn’t help to have infrastructure if it’s destroyed by war.
The idea has merit for anyone living in remote areas (northern Canada, war-torn areas, etc.)
I will grant you war torn areas, and remote islands, but rural continental communities are better served with terrestrial infrastructure. Just because someone’s willing to fill the sky with space junk as a means of masturbation doesn’t mean it’s the best solution for public infrastructure.
Laying 200km of fiber for a town of ~1000 will always be more expensive than it is worth (for an ISP) and that math only gets worse when you look at last-leg hookups for people spread out ~5km apart around the area and not living directly in the town.
… which is maybe why things that are essentially critical to a developed country’s lifestyle probably shouldn’t simply be companies. If we go off of “it’s not profitable”, public transport wouldn’t be any good, postal services would suck, etc.
The internet should be a public service like mail.
Also, in the US they paid the ISPs to hook everyone up to fiber, and then they just… didn’t.
Over a long enough term it will be worth it.
But as a said elsewhere neither electricity nor phone being run to rural US homes was cost effective for companies. So the US decided that was shit and paid for it to get done. Started to do the same for internet access. Phone companies refused, used the money for other purposes, inflated prices faster the inflation, etc. and yet neither FTC nor congress held them accountable. Other countries have done the same thing for power and phone, there is nothing fundamentally different about physical internet access stopping anyone from doing the same thing.
Terrestrial includes wireless solutions, which are better suited for many last-leg hookups in situations like these.
Sure, there’s a lot of places where these won’t work (eg. mountainous areas), but there are also questions about whether people living that remotely even want broadband or wireless.
Do you think xfinity grade router would do 5km?
Also, serving a community of 2k people as far as 1000 km might cost hundreds of millions. So I don’t believe the 2k community would be happy to pay $5k each monthly to make it profitable for the ISP.
Look up LMG when linus wanted to connect two warehouses that are meters apart with entry level networking solution.
First, no one is talking about standard home-grade routers, though there is technology to make those work at longer distances. We’re talking about say a cellular network, which is considered broadband in most of the US and has an existing infrastructure. Many of these areas are already going to have cellular access, and upgrades to existing networks are significantly cheaper and easier to maintain. There are long-range wifi solutions, and those work too, but most require line-of-sight, so as i stated, aren’t suited for say mountanous area.
Name one community that is stretched out over 1000k. That’s not community, that’s a fucking state or territory. Seriously, that’s more than 10x the width or height of Rhode Island.
Again, as I said, it’s questionable whether those people even want high-speed internet in the first place. You’re probably not living remotely to be on-the-grid.
Governments generally fund the buildout for this, so it’s rarely on citizens anyway.
The LMG video is irrelevant. Linus is far from an expert.
In on starlink because it’s now the only half decent option. There is a fairly strong 4g tower reception but it’s underprovisioned and gives less than 3mbps downloads. 25 up though. We did have ADSL for a long time but they’ve shut that network down.
I’m on a farm 15km from town in hilly terrain.
Sorry English isn’t my first language so I meant 1000 km far from networking infrastructure. Not stretched out over 1000 km.
Linus isn’t professional. I just want you to have an idea of the cost. Specifically the fiber optic cables.
That doesn’t include maintenance, professional installation, and hardware to distribute the connection to multiple users / houses.
Even wireless solutions would not make it viable. I am not an expert but I would assume you need 100 towers for 1000 km (a tower for each 10 km) to relay data to keep speed and stable connection in check.
The average cost of a barebone cellular tower in USA is $250k without networking hardware. This would result in $25,000,000 just for towers.
If each person in the town of 1000 subscribed and paid $100 monthly it’d be $100k a month which I don’t think would cover the operation expenses of the service.
It will never be commercially viable to run a cable into the extreme rural reaches of North America. People just don’t understand the scale of the expanse.
Neither was running phone lines or electricity in the rural US, but we did it anyway because it was better for the country.
Money is no object? Sure. Running fiber to every cabin in the woods though? That’s going to run up a cost…
Yes it will. Just like doing the exact same thing for power and phone lines to every single place in the entire US ran prices up. Difference is we paid for it and enforced companies do to it. For internet access we just paid for it and then never made them provide the internet access to everyone everywhere.
I lived in a semi-rural area that had fiber access 1 mile away on the same road and they refused to run it unless i paid them $20k. The area was separated by a railroad track, which required permits and they didn’t want to deal with it.
I wouldn’t say I’m underserved (I live in a tech hub). Overcharged? Definitely.
Rural folks do have a hard time without satellite though, and one thing a lot of Europeans do not viscerally realize about the States is how big the country is, and how much empty space there is.
Even as someone living on the east coast of the US, I’m always surprised when I visit the Midwest and Central US to see just how much “nothing” there is. At least compared to the relative density of driving up and down the northeast corridor
Wow, I didn’t realize they’re already at more than 5000 satellites. Crazy numbers.
This is a complete non story. They have a design life of only a few years. They have already been replaced in orbit with upgraded ones.
Total clickbait.
“This is a non story”
Billionaires adding to space junk that will keep us from getting the fuck off this rock is a non story, eh? Tell me more.
Sure! I’d be happy to.
The satellites operate in an extremely low orbit. At the end of their life they are manually de-orbited. If they fail, they will naturally de-orbit themselves in just a few years. They contribute to “space junk” in no way.
The precise position of all the Starlink satellites is known, and space is much bigger than you appear to be imagining, so the network will in no way impede lauching rockets.
There is no need to simply make stuff up about Starlink. There are plenty of reasons to hate Elon without inventing things.
I’m no expert by any means but it seems incredibly wasteful that we build satellites, then expel tons of CO2 into the atmosphere to get them into orbit, only for them to just burn up after a few years.
We can’t even reclaim the material because it literally burns and disintegrates as it’s falling out of orbit.
Seriously what the fuck are we doing???
Do they deorbit? Or did musk just pollute our orbit for no reason whatsoever?
They deorbit very quickly.
That’s good. Happy to hear that.
This place hates Elon Musk so goddamn much they suddenly become experts on satellites. I bet Musk has very little to do with the day to day at Starlink.
One can hate Musk and Starlinks separately.
They ruin our night sky and make Kessler syndrome worse and worse.
These are also mostly irrelevant to Kessler syndrome. At such low orbits, any debris is cleaned out in months or only a couple years
The number of satellites in orbit right now should have next to 0 impact on your view of the night sky. This can be proven with some pretty simple equations. Should we get rid of GPS satellites too?
what is this supposed to prove. Go outside at night and look, they’re not clogging up the sky. At the very worst they’re a faint little line you can barely see. I think that is worth giving internet to unserved areas of the world.
So billionaires filling Earth 's orbit with junk …
luckily LEO junk will be pulled into Earth’s atmosphere without propulsion
Sounds like a lot of space debris :(
One of the benefits of such a low orbit - they deorbit quickly
