D2D: satellite to device

[Dr Mordrid]

Satellite communications direct to any device enabled with a cellular radio. Nothing else necessary, an unmodified cell phone would do.

US regulators have given SpaceX's Starlink first-mover status on this, but other companies are also working on it. They will soon be testing it on orbit using Gen 2 satellites with special antennas.

Essentially, when you open up your network settings on a cell phone you would see a Starlink Network listing.

They already have a deal with T-Mobile, which is a US subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG. T-Mobile is making it a standard service.

[VJ]

I know I'm not the target audience for this, and that remote areas can benefit from satellite communication like this, but it seems such an overkill. All those launches, all those satellites with relatively short lifetime, ... We get restrictions on car usage, and meanwhile the number of satellite launches will increase dramatically...

Recently I talked to a guy doing his PhD in astronomy, and those satellite constellations are really problematic. It does not matter that they make the satellites less reflective, as it will still impact the observations. Trajectories are known, but that is also not enough...

I'll add that I don't have a better idea for connecting remote locations, but to me it seems wasteful to make this technology mainstream.

[Dr Mordrid]

In places like the US there are what we call Black Zones, areas where broadband or cellular service is sketchy at best or non-existent. This can occur in suburban areas, not to mention ex-urban and rural parts of Michigan and other Central US states. The service set includes for emergency services, researchers, the military, and other governmental agencies, and financial institutions. Even allied countries are signing up for one Starlink service or another.

For SpaceX it's almost a license to print money, its valuation recently hitting $180 billion, and it's becoming an almost indispensable service.

Even if Starlink did not exist the russians, chinese, and others will also be launching megaconstellations. Amazon will also be launching their Kuiper system..

One solution is to move observation off planet, an even larger generation of space telescopes which are already in development. A vehicle like Starship could launch some truly huge ones. Placed at various Lagrange points large baseline interferometry would be possible.