[JumpCrisscross]

> How do see the chances for other competitors to be able to catch up with SpaceX/Starlink?

Not the author, but Starlink’s parallel competitive threats are usually exaggerated. They have cheap capital and they own their own trucks. That helps. But it’s not a blocking advantage. Their existing fleet is only a marginal competitive advantage to a new sensor suite; there is little evidence they build better birds than anyone else (versus their rockets, which are in a class of their own).

> congestested frequency spectrum

Lasers.

[georgeg23]

An order of magnitude lower launch costs to LEO (about $1K/kg now for Falcon 9) and another two magnitudes with Starship.. is a blocking advantage. Constellations don't make sense otherwise, see history: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Background

Keep in mind lasers don't work to the ground unless there are no clouds and stable atmosphere. RF 10-30 GHz work fine to ground and are directional enough that spectrum can be reused and multiple beams formed with one phased array. The real limitation is ITU regulation on total power flux density on the ground for all constellations in these frequencies.

[techdragon]

Lasers work to the ground better than your implying. ,

Modern laser communication ground stations are designed or bring designed incorporating adaptive optics to significantly improve their resilience to atmospheric turbulence. Clouds remain an issue but most laser communications networks are designed with multiple ground stations to ensure sufficient good weather to provide continuous communications. Also several laser communications providers are designing their systems using relay satellites either MEO or GEO to serve as the space to ground really, centralising the higher power space to ground laser link and more expensive optics, and simultaneously placing them higher up enabling better ability to switch between multiple ground stations in the event of cloud disruption.

The laser communication industry is very small still but it’s growing as ground stations get more standard and economical, with commercial units available for both space and ground sides, for a couple of years now.

[tpc3]

Recent (12/21/22) article on the subject: Laser links are great for satellite relay, but challenges abound for taking it to ground https://spacenews.com/walking-a-narrow-beam-laser-links-are-...

[toomuchtodo]

https://news.mit.edu/2022/communications-system-achieves-fas...

[JumpCrisscross]

> order of magnitude lower launch costs to LEO (about $1K/kg now for Falcon 9) and another two magnitudes with Starship.. is a blocking advantage

If they used it to block, sure. Starlink’s advantage is SpaceX’s margin.

> lasers don't work to the ground unless there are no clouds and stable atmosphere

Relay.

[marcusverus]

> If they used it to block, sure. Starlink’s advantage is SpaceX’s margin.

As long as Starlink competitors use SpaceX to reach orbit, the advantage is realized on both Starlink launches (as savings) AND on competitors’ launches (as profit). Doesn’t that make SpaceX’s advantage 2x their margin?

[JumpCrisscross]

> the advantage is realized on both Starlink launches (as savings) AND on competitors’ launches (as profit). Doesn’t that make SpaceX’s advantage 2x their margin?

Sort of. Every dollar of competitors’ launch margin doesn’t go to Starlink. SpaceX’s near-infinite fundraising capacity, and thus low cost of capital, is far more significant. (There are also orbital trade-offs between imaging and comms.)

[wpietri]

> SpaceX’s near-infinite fundraising capacity

I have to wonder how sustainable this is. From the perspective of an investor, I would not be excited by Tesla being down 70% off peak and Twitter becoming the most notable corporate clusterfuck of the year. Investing in SpaceX these days seems like a bet that the CEO will be so distracted by his other problems that he won't have time to mess with the people actually running it.

[bboygravity]

Do you have ANY substantiation for Twitter being a coorporate failure or are you just parotting the biggest Twitter competitors (newspapers)?

[nine_k]

Do efficient 30 GHz masers exist?

If not, how narrow can be made a beam by using a beam-forming phased array 10-20 m wide? The diffraction limit at 30 GHz (10 cm) should be reasonably small.

[mikepurvis]

Also, conventional radio can be steered with multiple transmitters, right? Is there a way to steer laser beams in a solid state way?

[JumpCrisscross]

> way to steer laser beams in a solid state way?

Yes, MEMs and waveguides.

[georgeg23]

Unfortunately not ready for prime time yet, optical beamforming today is only a few degrees steerable angle and single beam. Also low power and poorly focused.

[JumpCrisscross]

> not ready for prime time yet

Totally agree. But the frontier is advancing thanks to LiDAR. And in the meantime, the advantages of laser relay and downlink are vast enough to make mechanical actuation worth it. Particularly for unboosted birds in LEO.

[georgeg23]

Curious how LiDAR tech could be used for high speed communication?

At best that is time-multiplexing, not multiple parallel beams of information?