[caseyy]

This is what the future of communication looks like. It's really a massive step forward. No one will have to die from exposure when their cars break down, no planes will go missing, and no more black spots in natural disasters. It is also quite dignified and civilised that we are using this technology first to help the most vulnerable.

Communication is and has always been an important element in human organisation. Imagine if corrupt governments could no longer shut down the internet and cell service. Even a world war probably wouldn't disrupt this. People will be really empowered by this technology, we just need more competition in this space. But one step at a time.

Also: simmer down Elon fans and haters, this is not only about Elon. Look at the bigger, global picture.

[acidburnNSA]

Agree with all of that, except the world war part. Satellites will definitely be fair game in world war 3... probably one of the first targets.

Ham radio will live on!

[caseyy]

I don't know – would we risk Kessler Syndrome for a war? Win a piece of land and doom humanity for a hundred years of regress in space? Maybe, probably can't be ruled out.

As for jamming, is it feasible or practical to jam very large parts of the world? I can't imagine it would be. It seems to me like jamming would probably be used for specific military purposes and people would be left alone to communicate with each other otherwise.

It's not that I'm saying this could not be done. It could. But this is not the most likely scenario in my head. The immense benefit to all humanity is a very likely scenario, in contrast.

LoRa is another equally exciting technology that has a lot of potential in all the spaces I mentioned. I just can't currently imagine a reason it would go mass-market.

[0xffff2]

Of course we would. And anyway the Starlink constellation is low enough that even destroying the whole constellation would have a minimal impact after a decade.

[jeroenhd]

With how close to earth Starlink satellites fly, it won't take hundreds of years. Without the occasional boost back into orbit, it'll only take a couple of years for them to fall back to earth. Same with most spy satellites. We can do without space internet for a few decades if we blow up several of these constellations.

As for further-away satellites (Iridium etc.), that's a bigger risk, but there aren't that many that make sense to target in a war.

[Heliosmaster]

Energetic collisions can send debris on higher orbits with significant longer time to decays. It all depends on kinetic energy added

[Rebelgecko]

If pieces got bumped into a higher apogee wouldn't their orbit end up with a lower perigee as well? If so I think that might actually be better for deorbiting quickly

[meowster]

As long as it doesn't hit something while it's in apogee.

[throw9474]

Diffuse debris while at higher orbit can take out satellites in those higher orbits (like Iridium, Kuiper, etc..)

[mattashii]

> it won't take hundreds of years

Maybe not for Starlink itself, but its debris may be eccentric enough to hit satellites in higher orbits, thus causing an upward cascade of collisions resulting in debris clouds that do have a real possibility of remaining in orbit for many times the debris of Starlink.

[bryanlarsen]

Eccentric orbits mean higher apogee but also lower perigee, which for something at Starlink altitude likely means perigee is below the Karman line. Which means they'd deorbit within 90 minutes. So they'd only have one chance to hit something in higher orbit. You won't get enough collisions to start Kessler.

[mattashii]

Starlink operational orbits are generally >500KM high (original license "at 525, 530, and 535 km", -Wikipedia).

I think it is not unreasonable to expect any debris clouds from Starlink to impact orbits from 300km to 700km for many months, if not years. Even if the debris with highest eccentricity will quickly burn up in the upper atmosphere, there will likely remain a significant portion in orbits that are eccentric enough to be problematic for higher orbits for years, (slowly?) cascading the debris orbits upward. It doesn't have to happen immediately after impact, but kessler syndrome doesn't have to imply 100% guaranteed loss in a day either.

[wazer5]

Precisely

[croes]

The same type that risks a nuclear war would easily risk Kessler Syndrome.

And don't forget there are people who think their god would protect them.

[whaaaaat]

> would we risk Kessler Syndrome for a war?

I mean, yes, absolutely! I wouldn't trust world leaders to understand Kessler syndrome, let alone care about it. If a world leader is comfortable killing hundreds of thousands of people to make their nation "safe", targeting civilian infrastructure, I have no doubt that they'd blow up some stuff in orbit.

To be clear, I don't want to risk it. I'd prefer we didn't live in such a warlike world. But the current world leaders are out here bombing nuclear plants and residential districts. A few satellites will feel very, very far away to them.

[bagels]

Yes. The military believes that our adversaries would attack their satellites. China, USA and India have demoed the capability to shoot satellites in non wartime, adding tons of debris.

[ianburrell]

LoRa will never take off since it doesn't have the bandwidth for wide usage. Short messages are the limit. It also can't replace this usage since there aren't nodes in the middle of the ocean. If anything, this will reduce the need for LoRa messaging.

[yarg]

There a plenty of men who would be content to be kings of the ashes;

Don't consider this from the perspective of a reasonable person - ask yourself: what would psychopaths do?

[aaomidi]

It’s less that and more just basic strategy.

Your enemy has sat communications. You don’t. Well, it’s unlikely you’re going to get sat communications - so what do you do?

It’s logical to take out enemy communications.

The other side of the coin is, the enemy with the satellite can try to offer you the use of them as well, so you wouldn’t feel the need to destroy them - but will they?

[michaelt]

If I have a rocket/missile capable of reaching a communication satellite orbit... why don't I have sat communications?

[gosub100]

International sanctions.

[throw9474]

It's much easier to intercept than enter orbit. ASATs are 100 kg rockets.

[kortilla]

Russia has risked Kessler syndrome for less with ASAT missiles

[ShakataGaNai]

While I really really hope no one would be that stupid as to risk a Kessler syndrome... I think it's really likely in a very specific situation:

A non-space-dominant power (so not Russia/China/USA) gets into a tiff with someone using satellites. This player does have access to at least the vaguest concept of a ballistic missile. They take said missile and program it to fly into space (as most beyond the tactical level do), and detonate.

Nuclear or not, they don't even have to hit the satellite, they just have to throw up shrapnel. Hell, you can replace most of the explosive warhead with ball bearings. It may not immediately take down a specific satellite but it's almost assured to fuck space up.

And in case it's not obvious, this seems like a very North Korean type thing to do. Their missiles aren't terribly reliable or accurate (so far), but good enough to get into space and ruin everyones day for a very long time there after. They have, what, a single satellite? [1] when everyone else has hundreds? Why not level the playing field and assure no one can use any of them - given enough time.

I'd be willing to be its in someones MAD playbook as well. It only takes a few hundred nukes to effectively end all life on earth, permanently. There are still 5,000 plus in both Russia and the US's stockpile [2], not to mention China, France and the UK has a couple hundred each. What do you do with some of those few thousand extra nukes? Detonate them in air and orbit to take out your Doomsday planes [3] and any potential orbital capabilities - just in case you survive.

But honestly, the Kessler Syndrome wouldn't really be a concern at that point since everything, including the roaches, would be a radioactive pile of glass.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/north-koreas-first-...

[2] https://fas.org/initiative/status-world-nuclear-forces/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_plane

[gruez]

>It only takes a few hundred nukes to effectively end all life on earth, permanently

Human civilization maybe, but "all life on earth" is a stretch

[out_of_protocol]

There's some life kilometers deep into the Earth, don't think it's possible to destroy that without deep-frying whole planet

[gosub100]

By definition of going to war, they are willing to risk their very existence. Taking out satellites and making orbit entry fraught with hazards seems a very rational choice for many opponents on the world stage.

[aaomidi]

If the recent Middle East events have shown anything, nothing is off the table with a ww3 scenario.

[tzs]

> This is what the future of communication looks like

Is there sufficient capacity?

For broadband Starlink has an upper limit on the density of its customers. By density I mean number of customers per km^2 rather than some prohibition against dumb people using Starlink :-)

Estimates of this limit vary. When I did a back of the envelope calculation a couple assuming all 12000 planned satellites get deployed I got 4.4 simultaneous people doing full speed downloads per km^2. I had to make some guesses for that, in particular the number of satellites visible. If the satellites were spread uniformly around the Earth then at any one time about 360 would be visible from any given location. But they aren't uniform. They have orbits that favor spending more time over the mid latitudes than the high latitudes. That increases the number visible from the mid and low latitudes and lowers the number visible from high latitudes. I just assumed an even 1000 at any one time in mid latitudes.

Others estimates are as high as 30 simultaneous people using full speed per km^2.

This is why providers of wired/fiber or terrestrial wireless broadband in decent sizes cities aren't worried about Starlink.

I'd expect Starlink LTE to have the same kind of limitation, albeit with very different numbers. The bandwidth needed for one 100 Mbps download would be enough for at least 1000 telephone quality voice streams, but I doubt the satellites have the same amount of bandwidth available over LTE as they do over whatever they are using for the internet stuff, so I don't see any way to get a good estimate.

[ActorNightly]

>Look at the bigger, global picture.

Global picture doesn't work with people in charge of this. If someone shows substantial evidence of mental decline, would you want them anywhere near anything that has to do with global communications?

[hcarvalhoalves]

> Imagine if corrupt governments could no longer shut down the internet and cell service. Even a world war probably wouldn't disrupt this.

That’s quite naive, to believe a private company is not under political influence.

https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-inf...

[throwaway48476]

The aircraft body attenuates the signal. That's why all the antennas are placed outside.

[wkat4242]

Planes have had access to sat Comms for decades. MH380 had it but it was deactivated. Most likely by a suicidal pilot. The engines had their own uplink that was still active. But Starlink isn't going to solve that kind of problem.

[numpad0]

Why does this exact word "hate" always appear in the top comment on Musk related topics? Is someone grepping this string for some purposes?

[croes]

Satellites can be hacked, jammed or destroyed

LEO satellites need constant replacement.

[bigfatkitten]

> no planes will go missing

This doesn't change anything for aircraft because aviation has had this capability for decades.

Even light aircraft have ELTs and ADS-B, and larger aircraft operating in oceanic airspace also have real time position reporting via datalink over VHF radio and SATCOM.

> Imagine if corrupt governments could no longer shut down the internet and cell service.

Satellite operators will continue deny service to particular areas whenever they're told to, just as they do today.

[delfinom]

Eh? Planes going missing is because operators don't want to buy into satcom systems or the pilot pulled the fuses. Most US airlines fully know where their plane is at all times , complete with plane internal telemetry beamed to an engineering department at the airline.

[acover]

Drones staying connected in enemy territory.

[akira2501]

> Imagine if corrupt governments could no longer shut down the internet and cell service.

Even in the parts of the world where this occurs it has been shown to be nothing more than a surface level inconvenience.

> Communication is and has always been an important element in human organisation.

Precisely. We don't exactly need the internet or cell service. We've got techniques and historical methods going back to the beginning of, unsurprisingly, recorded history.

> People will be really empowered by this technology

They're already empowered. This will mostly just convenience them.

[gruez]

>> Imagine if corrupt governments could no longer shut down the internet and cell service.

>Even in the parts of the world where this occurs it has been shown to be nothing more than a surface level inconvenience.

"Internet shutdowns" like the ones in Kashmir involves all internet being shut down, not just a few sites being blocked on the ISP's DNS servers. That's hardly a "surface level inconvenience".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India#I...

[akira2501]

You've misunderstood me. People who have ears and mouths will communicate. Even if you blind and gag these, they will _still_ find a way to communicate, and to organize.

Put another way, these peoples lives are "not good," not because the Internet is hard to use, it's because of other factors. Which means improving their internet access will only _minimally_ improve their position.

[asynchronous]

I agree with the sentiment but LEO constellations like Starlink can and have been disrupted, via sub-orbital jamming. Not to mention that in actual large conflict surface to LEO missiles will simply destroy large amounts of satellite constellations.

[dotnet00]

Starlink is supposedly harder to jam than typical satellite comms due to its use of phased array communication. IIRC you need to either be flying overhead or putting out a ton more power in a ground based jammer to be effective.

And as the other user mentioned, no country at the moment has the kind of stockpile of ASAT weapons needed to wipe the constellation (plus, due to orbital dynamics, there's a limit to how quickly they can take out satellites).

Between trying to wipe the constellation and jamming it, it'd be far more cost effective to jam even accounting for the higher power requirements/lower jamming range.

There would also be other interesting options like capturing and using enough terminals to force the entire cell to be disabled. That has been one of the challenges SpaceX has had to deal with near the frontlines in Ukraine.

[throwaway48476]

You can build a Faraday cage with a hole in the roof and starlink will be mostly unjammable.

[throw73391073]

Starlink satellites are vulnerable to repeated uplink transmitting their preamble code (which is public and the same across any user terminal). The satellites are so tuned to that code you can jam them through their receive sidelobes.. taking out all beams on the satellite.

[throwaway48476]

Won't you need n jammers = n satellites in view for this? I haven't seen anyone commit to investing in this.

[throw73391073]

A single omnidirectional transmitter on the ground can transmit this one preamble code in all directions and it jams all satellites in view. All Starlink satellites use the same uplink code and they can't change it because it's how new terminals enter the network.

[bagels]

You could use a phased array to target each of them rapidly

[panick21_]

No government currently exists that has nearly enough rockets to impact Starlink. There is a big difference between doing individual tests and taking down a constellation of 1000s.

[verzali]

You don't need to hit every satellite. You only need to create a lot of debris, and that'll do it for you. Alternatively the radiation from a nuclear blast could take out a big chunk of the network, which is presumably why Russia is working on orbiting nuclear weapons.

[panick21_]

Actually its not that easy even if you did create some debris. Orbit is much bigger then people think. And these sats are much smaller then people think. Without propulsion lots of that stuff quickly drops below the level of the sats. Sats can also raise their orbit in response and fly corrections.

Even modest investment in better tracking could massively improve crash avoidance. It would take far more then a handful of sats to truly impact the functioning of the network. And even more to complete take it out.

Russia is working on everything if you believe their marketing. I seriously question if any work on 'orbital nuclear weapons' is anything other then marketing. And its questionable how effective that would actually be.

This isn't as easy as people think. A country like Russia might have some readiness of nuclear weapons. And maybe a small readiness of anti-sat weapons, but not anywhere close to enough to attack a network like Starlink. Preparing for something like that simply wasn't a thing anybody considered necessary until 2020 and Russia certainly hasn't invested huge amounts of money in that since then and given their recent success with rocket development, I not sure how effective it would have been even if they had.