[_wmd]

Identify high yield market, commoditize, everyone benefits, except the old school and their previously captive audience and mandatory long-term commitments. Sound familiar?

I wonder if the same principle could work for telescopes, or are radio telescope designs far too specialized to be a commodity? Huge installations funded in spite political boundaries might be possible in such a scenario

[wrs]

Already being done in a small way: https://www.itelescope.net/

[pilsetnieks]

Maybe they're setting up for customers like SpaceX and the like, with potentially huge satellite arrays.

[wmf]

I would predict the opposite. If you have 4,000 satellites you can justify ground stations but if you have one cubesat you might prefer to rent by the minute.

[toomuchtodo]

If you have one cubesat, you'll probably use Starlink (once operational) instead of your own ground station.

[gpm]

Is starlink going to work for third party satellite communication? Somehow I assumed that the antennas would be directional towards earth. Also the proposed ground stations are said to be pizza box sized, a bit large for a cubesat if they can't be miniaturized.

[toomuchtodo]

Good question. I reached out to a contact at SpaceX to get more info.