It’s got a ways to go yet. I’m considering becoming a subscriber but as part of the process I was able to discover a website that tracks Starlink coverage over a given spot on the planet. Careful observation shows that at least at my longitude and latitude there are frequent intervals of blackout that last for up to a minute or so. The reliability of the system is not quite there yet. Needs more assets on orbit for uninterrupted service at least where I live. Looks promising though.
It looks like Alaska is covered (if you live there) and other North polar areas.
I shouldn’t have said frequent. I should have said occasional. There’s a big difference in assumption. But even so, still not as fully dependable as my cable Internet service, even though that has a tendency to routinely die at 4am for 20 mins or so (routine service I suppose). Fortunately for me, I’m rarely using the Internet at that hour.
The configuration I’m exploring is similar to one I had been considering using GEO satellite Internet. Where the main feed is landline Internet and backup is with satellite. Useful during extended power failures (which I often get during the winter months where I live) when Internet goes down and, with the proper router, can automatically switch between WAN sources. It is all cost and reliability based criterion on my part. Using LEO satellite to rid myself of the latency of GEO, plus it’s ability to more rapidly improve over time, is a bonus, all other costs remaining equal.
Also the additional benefit of low latency LEO satellite, is it enables using satellite for load balancing as well as fail over w/o family complaints whenever sat path in engaged.
This makes it competitive against cellular for example.
Another benefit is that it is easier to cord cut. Often, a person can get rid of cable but still have to pay xfinity or some other lefty conglomorant for internet. This makes it easier to have decent internet and not give the progressive fascists money. You just give an off kilter Musk money.
Almost all the off grid and homesteader types on youtube have it now, great marketing.
“SpaceX filing with the SEC today confirms CNBC’s scoop of $850 million raised in its most recent funding round. SpaceX raised the funds at $419.99 a share (i.e., a cent below $420)… and from 69 investors”
Unfortunatly, Starlink is unreliable, and it’s SpaceX that has demonstrated this issue.
SpaceX is using Starlink for its video and other comms with its droneships. When the Falcon 9 is landing, there’s usually a video dropout.
What this means is that if you have Starlink, and an F9 or similar rocket is landing on your house, you’ll lose internet for several seconds.
Unacceptable!
200 mile line-of-sight capability is great until you plant a tree in the way and offline-of-sight drops to 200 feet.
Chain saws, great remedy.
That’s because when the rocket touches down, engines blazing, it ionizes the air around it…the tightbeam link between the droneship and the support ship is interrupted…for a millisecond or two.
That hardly means the system is unreliable, or that Starlink is unsuitable.
‘Doc,
I still maintain that if a Falcon 9 is landing on your house, and you have Starlink, you’ll lose internet for a few seconds.
Left unsaid is that if a 14 story rocket is landing on your house, it’s within the realm of possibility that you might have more pressing concerns than losing internet for a few seconds. 🙂
Nope, I’m intently watching this unfold on my iPhone as I ty
I have often wondered why SpaceX, knowing that the video is going to drop out on landing, doesn’t cut over to video from the support ship, which I hope is far enough away not to be bothered by ionization or vibrations. I would find it an interesting alternate view in any case.
I just moved to Spain and I checked on SL’s website and they offered me service. I’m going to wait until I buy or rent long term to sign up.
Spain has fiberoptic theoretically everywhere in the country, but in practice it does not.
This will really enable an idea – actually, two ideas – I have for businesses that require internet with no land line or cellular connections. And the price is very reasonable.
Back in the late 1990s, after IRIDIUM declared bankruptcy, Ted Kehl of Motorola called me to cancel the $89 million contract we had to launch 20 of their constellation maintenance satellites. Ted, a newly retired Air Force colonel, had headed up the launch segment of IRIDIUM before anyone knew of its existence. I knew him before his retirement, since he worked at the Air Force Ballistic Missile Office and I worked, at the time, at TRW Ballistic Missiles Division. I had helped start TRW Launch Services Organization (and was Director of Engineering) with IRIDIUM as our target market, and when that was killed by TRW management, left to start Kelly Space & Technology, Inc, again with IRIDIUM as an anchor client. It was an anchor, all right, and sank all of the RLV startups of what is now known as “The Class of 1999.”
In any event, during that call, Ted asked, rhetorically, “You know what killed IRIDIUM?” then gave the answer we both knew: “launch.” In order to put up the 77 original satellites of the IRIDIUM constellation affordably, Motorola needed a low-cost launch vehicle. Orbital Sciences sold them on Pegasus, which was never used to launch a single IRIDIUM satellite, but…well, I’ll not go there.
The Pegasus payload weight and – most importantly – dimensional constraints proved a monumental design challenge for the satellites. The Main Mission Antenna, having sufficient gain to link with IRIDIUM phones despite its limited size, was a technological breakthrough. The solar panels, however, could not be made to deliver sufficient power to allow more than a feeble link margin with IRIDIUM handsets. Despite the fact that the IRIDIUM spacecraft design exceeded the Pegasus’ weight capacity, Motorola stuck with the Pegasus envelope constraints, and thus put a suicidal gun to the head of the program and pulled the trigger. Bigger solar panels, and we’d all be talking on IRIDIUM phones today. Ironically, when the satellites went into production, their predicted weight came down to within Pegasus range (as all of the weight margin designers had piled on evaporated), but by that time the cost of a Pegasus had skyrocketed – no pun intended, but left in place anyway.
Another of the Motorola IRIDIUM launch service buyers, Roy Kampfer, had told me just before the demise of the project that the market surveys were showing that no one cared about voice calling services; all anyone wanted was data. Those market surveys were prescient. I haven’t had a land line telephone in 13 years, but have always had a telephone. For the last 10 years, I’ve had a smart phone. My use of that for voice calls is almost zero, as is the case for almost everyone these days. Now, we text – or in extreme cases, email. I average six voice calls a year, and don’t like making them.
Starlink is the modern IRIDIUM, but based on a now well-established market for data rather than voice. It also has the benefit of much more advanced satellite technology (including optical satellite cross-link communication). Above all, however it benefits from the stupendous reduction in launch cost, and enormous flexibility in satellite dimensions, SpaceX has developed.
Motorola was an electronic device company which sought to enter the telecommunication market. It stubbornly refused to invest anything in the service industry – space launch – that was crucial to its success (though it had no qualms about getting into the satellite business, still a puzzlement to me). As a result, it crashed in a spectacular manner. IRIDIUM’s bankruptcy was the biggest in history at the time.
Elon’s approach of using his super low-cost launch capability to establish a LEO telecom business underscores Ted Kehl’s observation that launch killed IRIDIUM. It is also an existence proof of what we in the low-cost space launch field have maintained for years (against the “wisdom” of all those who argue that there is no price elasticity in space launch): build it, and they will (be able to) come – and will.
I love it that he is making this happen, and wish him all the success in the world.
It’s got a ways to go yet. I’m considering becoming a subscriber but as part of the process I was able to discover a website that tracks Starlink coverage over a given spot on the planet. Careful observation shows that at least at my longitude and latitude there are frequent intervals of blackout that last for up to a minute or so. The reliability of the system is not quite there yet. Needs more assets on orbit for uninterrupted service at least where I live. Looks promising though.
What is the website?
What is the website?
https://satellitemap.space/
Is that Starlink daily coverage estimate?
It looks like Alaska is covered (if you live there) and other North polar areas.
I shouldn’t have said frequent. I should have said occasional. There’s a big difference in assumption. But even so, still not as fully dependable as my cable Internet service, even though that has a tendency to routinely die at 4am for 20 mins or so (routine service I suppose). Fortunately for me, I’m rarely using the Internet at that hour.
The configuration I’m exploring is similar to one I had been considering using GEO satellite Internet. Where the main feed is landline Internet and backup is with satellite. Useful during extended power failures (which I often get during the winter months where I live) when Internet goes down and, with the proper router, can automatically switch between WAN sources. It is all cost and reliability based criterion on my part. Using LEO satellite to rid myself of the latency of GEO, plus it’s ability to more rapidly improve over time, is a bonus, all other costs remaining equal.
Also the additional benefit of low latency LEO satellite, is it enables using satellite for load balancing as well as fail over w/o family complaints whenever sat path in engaged.
This makes it competitive against cellular for example.
Another benefit is that it is easier to cord cut. Often, a person can get rid of cable but still have to pay xfinity or some other lefty conglomorant for internet. This makes it easier to have decent internet and not give the progressive fascists money. You just give an off kilter Musk money.
Almost all the off grid and homesteader types on youtube have it now, great marketing.
“SpaceX filing with the SEC today confirms CNBC’s scoop of $850 million raised in its most recent funding round. SpaceX raised the funds at $419.99 a share (i.e., a cent below $420)… and from 69 investors”
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1364307927792840710
Unfortunatly, Starlink is unreliable, and it’s SpaceX that has demonstrated this issue.
SpaceX is using Starlink for its video and other comms with its droneships. When the Falcon 9 is landing, there’s usually a video dropout.
What this means is that if you have Starlink, and an F9 or similar rocket is landing on your house, you’ll lose internet for several seconds.
Unacceptable!
200 mile line-of-sight capability is great until you plant a tree in the way and offline-of-sight drops to 200 feet.
Chain saws, great remedy.
That’s because when the rocket touches down, engines blazing, it ionizes the air around it…the tightbeam link between the droneship and the support ship is interrupted…for a millisecond or two.
That hardly means the system is unreliable, or that Starlink is unsuitable.
‘Doc,
I still maintain that if a Falcon 9 is landing on your house, and you have Starlink, you’ll lose internet for a few seconds.
Left unsaid is that if a 14 story rocket is landing on your house, it’s within the realm of possibility that you might have more pressing concerns than losing internet for a few seconds. 🙂
Nope, I’m intently watching this unfold on my iPhone as I ty
I have often wondered why SpaceX, knowing that the video is going to drop out on landing, doesn’t cut over to video from the support ship, which I hope is far enough away not to be bothered by ionization or vibrations. I would find it an interesting alternate view in any case.
I just moved to Spain and I checked on SL’s website and they offered me service. I’m going to wait until I buy or rent long term to sign up.
Spain has fiberoptic theoretically everywhere in the country, but in practice it does not.
This will really enable an idea – actually, two ideas – I have for businesses that require internet with no land line or cellular connections. And the price is very reasonable.
Back in the late 1990s, after IRIDIUM declared bankruptcy, Ted Kehl of Motorola called me to cancel the $89 million contract we had to launch 20 of their constellation maintenance satellites. Ted, a newly retired Air Force colonel, had headed up the launch segment of IRIDIUM before anyone knew of its existence. I knew him before his retirement, since he worked at the Air Force Ballistic Missile Office and I worked, at the time, at TRW Ballistic Missiles Division. I had helped start TRW Launch Services Organization (and was Director of Engineering) with IRIDIUM as our target market, and when that was killed by TRW management, left to start Kelly Space & Technology, Inc, again with IRIDIUM as an anchor client. It was an anchor, all right, and sank all of the RLV startups of what is now known as “The Class of 1999.”
In any event, during that call, Ted asked, rhetorically, “You know what killed IRIDIUM?” then gave the answer we both knew: “launch.” In order to put up the 77 original satellites of the IRIDIUM constellation affordably, Motorola needed a low-cost launch vehicle. Orbital Sciences sold them on Pegasus, which was never used to launch a single IRIDIUM satellite, but…well, I’ll not go there.
The Pegasus payload weight and – most importantly – dimensional constraints proved a monumental design challenge for the satellites. The Main Mission Antenna, having sufficient gain to link with IRIDIUM phones despite its limited size, was a technological breakthrough. The solar panels, however, could not be made to deliver sufficient power to allow more than a feeble link margin with IRIDIUM handsets. Despite the fact that the IRIDIUM spacecraft design exceeded the Pegasus’ weight capacity, Motorola stuck with the Pegasus envelope constraints, and thus put a suicidal gun to the head of the program and pulled the trigger. Bigger solar panels, and we’d all be talking on IRIDIUM phones today. Ironically, when the satellites went into production, their predicted weight came down to within Pegasus range (as all of the weight margin designers had piled on evaporated), but by that time the cost of a Pegasus had skyrocketed – no pun intended, but left in place anyway.
Another of the Motorola IRIDIUM launch service buyers, Roy Kampfer, had told me just before the demise of the project that the market surveys were showing that no one cared about voice calling services; all anyone wanted was data. Those market surveys were prescient. I haven’t had a land line telephone in 13 years, but have always had a telephone. For the last 10 years, I’ve had a smart phone. My use of that for voice calls is almost zero, as is the case for almost everyone these days. Now, we text – or in extreme cases, email. I average six voice calls a year, and don’t like making them.
Starlink is the modern IRIDIUM, but based on a now well-established market for data rather than voice. It also has the benefit of much more advanced satellite technology (including optical satellite cross-link communication). Above all, however it benefits from the stupendous reduction in launch cost, and enormous flexibility in satellite dimensions, SpaceX has developed.
Motorola was an electronic device company which sought to enter the telecommunication market. It stubbornly refused to invest anything in the service industry – space launch – that was crucial to its success (though it had no qualms about getting into the satellite business, still a puzzlement to me). As a result, it crashed in a spectacular manner. IRIDIUM’s bankruptcy was the biggest in history at the time.
Elon’s approach of using his super low-cost launch capability to establish a LEO telecom business underscores Ted Kehl’s observation that launch killed IRIDIUM. It is also an existence proof of what we in the low-cost space launch field have maintained for years (against the “wisdom” of all those who argue that there is no price elasticity in space launch): build it, and they will (be able to) come – and will.
I love it that he is making this happen, and wish him all the success in the world.