SpaceX 'StarLink' satellite service [Starlink & Starshield at war]

[Dr Mordrid]

Game ON,

SpaceX ✔ @SpaceX
Static fire test of Falcon 9 complete targeting May 15 for launch of 60 Starlink satellites from Pad 40 in Florida
11:06 PM - May 13, 2019

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1128134469972447232

[Dr Mordrid]

60 satellites on a cob!!

So, 60 x 6 launches this year = up to 360 birds. Only need 800 to start service.

Elon Musk ✓ @elonmusk
First 60 @SpaceX Starlink satellites loaded into Falcon fairing. Tight fit.
https://t.co/gZq8gHg9uK

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1127388838362378241

Some fancy origami there...

IMG_20190511_215026.jpg

IMG_20190511_215032.jpg

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Replying to @elonmusk
These are production design, unlike our earlier Tintin demo sats
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Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Much will likely go wrong on 1st mission. Also, 6 more launches of 60 sats needed for minor coverage, 12 for moderate.
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Pranay Pathole @PPathole
Replying to @elonmusk @SpaceX
Holy crap that's a lot of satellites, it almost looks flat-packed! I wonder what the dispenser mechanism for that looks like?
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Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
It is flat-packed. No dispenser.
11:02 PM - May 11, 2019

[Dr Mordrid]

StarLink

Date: May 15

Time: 22:30 EDT (02:30 UTC on the 16th)

Recovery: ASDS Of Course I Still Love You at 621km downrange, indicating a quite massive payload.

[Dr Mordrid]

25 ms, eh. Latency sounds too good to be true. Even for a low orbit link.

That's for the 1,100 km orbits. For the lower LEO and VLEO satellites it could be as low as 15ms to the overhead birds.

This using the consumer or business rooftop phased array terminal, which talks directly to the constellation. Slower if the last mile is wired, optical or 5G.

The first batch ("dozens") of the 75 bird test constellation goes up May 15. Once they confirm the up/downlinks to ground stations work then the full constellation deployment starts later this year - up to 6 launches in 2019. The full constellations will route traffic around the world using laser sat-2-sat links - a laser mesh.

1,500+ satellites in the first flock, 4,409 in the LEO segment and 7,518 in the VLEO segment.

[Jammrock]

25 ms, eh. Latency sounds too good to be true. Even for a low orbit link.

[Dr Mordrid]

Recently SpaceX did the second funding round in the last few nonths for STARLINK and Starship/Super Heavy. Together they should bank another $1 billion by years end.

In more news; SpaceX STARLINK statement,

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved SpaceXs request to fly more than 1,500 of its Starlink satellites at an altitude of 550 kilometers. Additional information on the approval can be found here, and the following statement can be attributed to Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer at SpaceX:

"This approval underscores the FCCs confidence in SpaceX's plans to deploy its next-generation satellite constellation and connect people around the world with reliable and affordable broadband service. Starlink production is well underway, and the first group of satellites have already arrived at the launch site for processing."

SpaceX is targeting no earlier than May for launch of a Starlink mission.

Last year, SpaceX became the first U.S.-based company to be licensed by the FCC to operate a NGSO constellation of more than 11,000 satellites.

Earlier this year, SpaceX submitted an application to operate 1 million user terminals as well as its first six gateways to provide the necessary communications links back from the satellites to the global Internet. SpaceX intends to install sufficient gateway sites in the U.S. and around the world to ensure that the Starlink satellites have a visible gateway earth station with which they can communicate from all parts of their orbits.

[Dr Mordrid]

Confirmation: StarLink deployment begins NET June...

@Chris B - NSF @NASASpaceflight

SpaceX open media accreditation for the "Starlink mission" from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral. "The launch is targeted for no earlier than May. "

Confirms an earlier story from Micheal Baylor (@nextspaceflight) that it had entered the manifest: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019...cexs-manifest/ …
4:22 PM - Apr 5, 2019

https://twitter.com/nasaspaceflight/status/1114262117744566272

[Dr Mordrid]

It begins...

SpaceX has filed for FCC licenses in support of a May-June Falcon 9 B5 launch from SLC-40, with recovery on ASDS Of Course I Still Love You about 600km to the NE.

NASASpaceFlight.com reports this is the first of many StarLink deployment launches.

800 satellites to begin service, and a total of 4,425 satellites to fill out the LEO phase. Add another 7,518 satellites for the VLEO phase.

[Dr Mordrid]

SpaceX StarLink joins the SeattleIX Internet Exchange Point, meaning connected to the Internet at 10Gbps. This will be one of many local ground connections, and the bandwidth will grow - a lot.

Reg: AS14593

https://www.seattleix.net

https://ipinfo.io/AS14593

@seattleix
Welcome SpaceX - Starlink (AS14593) at 10G.

https://twitter.com/seattleix/status...94337349029889

[Dr Mordrid]

SpaceX has spun off SpaceX Services Inc. to run the StarLink system.

DoD and SpaceX testing the two test satellites for military aircraft comms. Kinda hard to ASAT ~12,000 redundant birds.

Dozens of early (v1) satellites will launch on Falcon 9 & Falcon Heavy, later (v2) satellites will bulk launch on Starship.

Alan Boyle ✔ @b0yle (GeekWire)
.@SpaceX's Hans Koenigsmann says first set of #Starlink satellites (beyond last year's prototypes) will launch this year, but isn't able to say anything more than that. #CST201
4:53 PM - Feb 12, 2019

https://twitter.com/b0yle/status/1095440746566610945

[Dr Mordrid]

FCC approves StarLink's 7,518 satellite VLEO constellation

Washington Post...

Elon Musks SpaceX wins FCC approval to put 7,000 Starlink Internet satellites into orbit

Federal regulators are allowing entrepreneur Elon Musk to use an expanded range of wireless airwaves for his plan to deliver cheap, high-speed Internet access - from space.

The decision Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission paves the way for SpaceX to build its full network of about 12,000 satellites intended to blanket the earth in wireless Internet access. Proponents say next-generation satellite Internet technology could help developing countries and rural areas connect to economic opportunities currently out of reach for them because they lack competitive Internet access.

"I'm excited to see what these services might promise and what these proposed constellations have to offer," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. "Our approach to these applications reflects this commission's fundamental approach to encourage the private sector to invest and to innovate and allow market forces to deliver value to American consumers."
>

[Dr Mordrid]

A while back Aviation Week published an article about the US Air Force Research Laboratory plans to test using these satellite constellations for military comms,

http://m.aviationweek.com/space/could-f-16s-battle-talk-commercial-space-internet

Now SpaceX has filed for a StarLink license mod for testing comms to "tactical aircraft" conformal antennas with the government. (READ: US Air Force Research Labratory, for military aircraft and ground comms)

From the PDFs

>
In this application, SpaceX seeks to modify the experimental authorization for Microsat-2a and -2b in order to reflect additional test activities undertaken with the federal government. The tests are designed to (1) demonstrate the ability to transmit and receive information between two ground sites (Ground-to-Ground) and between the ground and an airborne aircraft (Ground-to-Air) using Microsat-2a and -2b, and (2) communicate using an additional antenna at its Redmond, Washington test site. Nothing about the operation of and transmissions from the Microsat-2a or -2b satellites will change under this modification. The only change will be the addition of two new types of earth stations, one of which will transmit uplink signals to the Microsat satellites first from the ground and later from a moving aircraft...
>
>-------------
>
For this effort, SpaceX is working with a manufacturer of conformal antennas for tactical aircraft, which will provide antennas required for aircraft testing. This will assist SpaceX in analyzing the data link performance and installation options for user terminals with conformal arrays. To prepare for the Ground-to-Air testing, SpaceX will first test the SpaceX modem integrated with the inertially stabilized electronically steered array technology as part of the ground testing. This ground testing is expected to take place near other planned testing at SpaceXs Redmond, WA facilities. It will include interfacing the modem RF and antenna steering interfaces to the antennas. SpaceX will not begin Ground-to-Air integration and testing until it has performed sufficient characterization of the airborne antenna configuration with representative motion profiles. SpaceX will perform a series of tests with the integrated airborne prototype terminal that is similar to the tests contemplated with other fixed earth stations under its current authorization. These include antenna static angles from 0 to 40 degrees from boresight, and then varying motion for representative roll and pitch rates of a high performance aircraft. For the Ground-to-Airscenario, an antenna will be built and integrated onto an aircraft. The antenna manufacturer is designing a custom installation kit consisting of mechanical plates for the low-profile antennas and fairings reducing wind drag in order to limit the impact to the aircraft for this installation. The antennas will interface with SpaceX test equipment to form a user terminal for the demonstration. The existing antenna design meets the required transmit effective isotropic radiated power and receive gain over temperature when using four transmit subarrays and six receive subarrays. SpaceX anticipates that the Ground-to-Air testing will require four to six weeks to complete. Air operations will consist of repeated short-duration sorties with flight operation during the satellites test pass, contained within a relatively small operational area in close proximity to a currently authorized test site. Specifically, consistent with SpaceXs existing experimental authorization, the aircraft will operate no more than 150 km from the SpaceX broadband ground station in Redmond,
>

[Dr Mordrid]

Nitant Bhartia @nitantbhartia
How’s the global internet project coming along?
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Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Pretty good. TinTin A & B are both closing the link to ground w phased array at high bandwidth, low latency (25 ms). Good enough to play fast response video games.
3:07 PM - May 26, 2018
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G C @SmileSimplify
Will TinTin A & B be the only demo units Starlink deploys before start of full <satellite> production & deployment? Or will there be a few more? Do you have an (aspirational) timeline for when Starlink would begin commercial service?
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Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Will do another rev before final design
8:19 PM - May 26, 2018

[Dr Mordrid]

More info on the Fidelity investments,

Fund: Fidelity Investments (major player)
Series: I
Amount: $510 million
Estimated share price: $165±
Valuation: $27.4 billion (up ≥25% vs. 2017)

In 2015 Fidelity invested $100 million shortly after the StarLink announcement. Google added another $900 million.

[Dr Mordrid]

Fidelity Investments just invested $500 million in SpaceX for the StarLink deployment.