I think the "if Amazon/Google/FB don't comply, someone else will take their place" argument is weaker when replacement requires a constellation of thousands of satellites.
> I don't think anyone has the ability to shoot down enough Starlink satellites to make a difference.
Not with rockets, but maybe with lasers? What damage can a single one do? Could a country deploy them at specific orbits to have enough coverage to destroy a sufficient amount?
We are very very far from that happening. Even with most satellites being in the same torus around earth, if every single one in orbit right now were to instantly shatter, each piece would have something like a 1000sqkm volume to roam in.
Seems like there's an opportunity to produce an open-source SpaceX compatible antenna that someone could build themselves. I wonder if at some point SpaceX could allow this on their network?
I’m not an electrical engineer, but (both) family members who got electronics qualifications have told me RF phase matching circuits are a PITA to build right, and this antenna is a many-element phased array.
They told me this about 20 years ago and I don’t know what’s changed since then. Presumably someone here knows if it’s still hard or if it became easy since 2001?
indeed. i'm leaning on that "at least" pretty hard. i figured establishing that you'd have to spend as much as the prefab'd hardware cost in order to get something that isn't warrantied, and would be the first thing starlink customer service would blame your problems on, would be enough to make this completely unreasonable.