What Is Starlink

What Is Starlink By SapceX

If You are watching this video, that means

you have an internet connection, although

you may live in an area with limited providers

or network speeds. Still having internet accessibility

can improve everything from entertainment,

to work, to education, and health care. But

41.3% of the world does not have access to

the internet… at all. And that’s where

SpaceX comes in with Starlink, which is getting

very close to launching their service. What

is it, what are the latest developments, and

why should you care?

I’m Matt Ferrell ... welcome to Undecided.

So as I mentioned, internet access isn’t

ubiquitous. Just over 40% of the world doesn’t

have any access to the internet yet, and even

in areas with access it can be spotty if you’re

not in more urban areas. Places like Africa,

the Middle East, and Asia are lagging behind

areas like North America and Europe. Laying

long cable runs into remote regions can be

costly given the number of potential customers.

Even building out wireless signals in those

areas is costly, which is why there are still

many low bandwidth areas or places with no

signal at all in the United States. While

96% of urban areas have access to broadband,

only about 61% of rural areas do.

Satellite internet service solves some of

that problem because you can cover large areas

with a single satellite, but there are some

big downsides.

Current satellite-based internet services

are using geostationary satellite’s that

are orbiting over 35,000 km (22,000 mi) above

the surface of the earth. It’s that distance

that creates the first major problem: latency.

A radio signal takes about 120 ms to reach

a eostationary satellite, with another 120

ms to relay that signal back down to the ground.

So in theory you’d be looking at at least

240 ms, but in practice you often see a round-trip

latency between 400 - 600 ms. 12 times slower

than what you see on the ground. And then

you have the challenge of how much bandwidth

a single satellite can handle at once, which

can affect the download and upload speeds

for everyone sharing that satellite. That

means your maximum upload and download speeds

will most likely be on the lower side, and

you’ll have some data caps to contend with

each month. Viasat and HugesNet are two of

the options you have today and cost between

$30-$150/month for speeds between 12-100 Mbps.

And Viasat’s current throughput in their

satellites is about 260Gbps, which is shared

by everyone using it.

What this means is that there’s an opening

for competition, and that’s where SpaceX

comes in with Starlink. Since we already have

satellite internet, what makes Starlink different?

It’s a low earth orbit (LOE) constellation

of satellites that operate around 1/3 to over

1/100 the height of geostationary satellites.

As of April 22, 2020, there are 422 satellites

in the Starlink constellation so far, with

most of them deployed at around 550 km (340

mi) above the surface. They’re trying to

launch 60 satellites per Falcon 9 flight for

a total of around 4,400 satellites in phase

1. And they’ll add another 7,500 in phase

2. So around the year 2027 they’ll have

nearly 12,000 satellites deployed in three

orbital shells. Now it’s not guaranteed,

but SpaceX has also submitted paperwork for

an additional 30,000 satellites beyond that.

Why so many satellites? Low earth orbit satellites,

being much closer to the earth, means they

can’t be stationary. They have to move faster

to maintain their orbit, and they also have

a smaller cone of coverage. But a big benefit

of being so much closer is a much lower latency

for communication. It will have latencies

around 25-35ms, which makes it comparable

to cable and fiber optic networks. However,

when using lasers to communicate between satellites,

which Starlink will eventually do, it gets

a little physics boost. Light travels through

a vacuum about 47% faster than through glass,

like a fiber optic cable. So even when accounting

for transmitting from the planet and back,

the faster laser transmission speeds between

satellites will give the network a latency

edge compared to long stretches of fiber on

earth. And each satellite will be able to

handle 1 Tbps, which is almost 4 times the

capacity of Viasat. That’s roughly 40,000

people streaming 4K video at once.

While all of that sounds incredible, this

in’t a service that’s meant to knock

out terrestrial internet service. It’s a

service meant for a smaller segment of the

market, which is primarily areas less densely

populated. Just this past March, Elon talked

about that at the Satellite 2020 conference.

”And the challenge for anything that is

space-based is that the size of the cell is

gigantic. It’s great for very low to maybe

medium sparsity situations, but it’s not

good for high density situations. We’ll

have some small number of customers in L.A.,

but we can’t do a lot of customers in L.A.

because the bandwidth per cell is simply not

high enough.” -Elon Musk

With tens of thousands of satellites being

put into orbit, it’s going to dwarf everything

That’s come before. At this point in our

history, we’ve only launched about 9,000

objects into space. And of those a little

less than 6,000 are still in use today. SpaceX

is going triple that number in 5 to 7 years.

And if they move forward with the additional

30,000, you can probably understand why a

lot of people are concerned about overcrowding

and space debris. If you’ve ever seen the

movie Gravity, then you probably know about

Kessler syndrome. It’s the theory that an

object colliding with another in a densely

packed area of space could cause a cascade

of destruction.

The FCC required very strict plans from SpaceX

to mitigate space debris, which meant achieving

a higher level of de-orbiting reliability

than NASA uses for itself: 90% of satellites

reliably de-orbiting. With a targeted lifespan

of 5-7 years, SpaceX told the FCC that it

will "implement an operations plan for the

orderly de-orbit of satellites nearing the

end of their useful lives at a rate far faster

than is required under international standards."

And that SpaceX satellites "will de-orbit

by propulsively moving to a disposal orbit

from which they will reenter the Earth's atmosphere

within approximately one year after completion

of their mission." About 95 percent of the

satellites’ parts will disintegrate in the

Earth’s atmosphere as they de-orbit.

There’s also been concerns about the impact

on astronomical observations. With the satellites

being very visible when deployed, and also

noticeable as they’re reaching their final

orbit, astronomers are worried about the light

pollution. SpaceX has been working with astronomers

to address these concerns with strategies

like painting sections of the newer satellites

black to reduce reflection. Or adjusting their

orbit orientation to minimize how the satellite

will catch and reflect sunlight towards the

surface during their orbit. And even adding

a sun shade to the satellite to help block

reflections. They’re calling it VisorSat.

There’s still a lot of outstanding questions

around how this will ultimately impact visual

and radio telescope observations, but SpaceX

is actively trying to address them.

SpaceX isn’t the only company working on

low earth orbit constellations for internet

service. Companies like Telesat, Oneweb, and

Amazon all have plans, but nobody has successfully

launched a business out of this. Amazon is

working on Project Kuiper, which will have

around 3,200 satellites, but has yet to put

any satellites into orbit. And OneWeb, which

launched 74 satellites, just filed for bankruptcy

in March of 2020.

”Guess how many LEO constellations didn’t

go bankrupt. Zero. Zero. Iridium is doing

okay now, but Iridium 1 went bankrupt. Worldcom

went bankrupt. Globalstar, bankrupt. Teledesic,

bankrupt. Am I leaving anyone out? There’s

a bunch of others that didn’t get very far

... and they all went bankrupt. Anyway, they

all went bankrupt.” -Elon Musk

“So you’re focusing on making it work

first?” -Jeffrey Hill

“Not bankrupt.” -Elon Musk

There’s a big business opportunity for the

company that can get up and running first,

which is looking like SpaceX. In 2018 they

estimated the total cost to be about $10B,

which is a lofty price tag for a company that’s

expected to make around $3B - $5B a year from

launches by 2025. The projections for yearly

revenue from Starlink are $30-$50B a year

by 2025. But that’s a means to an end for

Elon and SpaceX. In a media call before the

launch of the first Starlink satellites Elon

said:

”We see this as a way for SpaceX to generate

revenue that can be used to develop more and

more advanced rockets and spaceships. We believe

we can use the revenue from Starlink to fund

Starship.” -Elon Musk

Which leads right into the goal for becoming

a multi planetary species.

”There are really two fundamental paths

history is going to birfricate along two directions.

One path is we stay on earth forever, and

then there will be an eventual extinction

event. I don’t have an immediate doomsday

prophecy, but eventually history suggests

that there will be a doomsday event. The alternative

is to become a space faring civilization and

a multi-lantern species, which I hope you

agree that is the right way to go. Yes? That’s

what we want. (Points at Mars)” Elon Musk

Back to earth, we’re not going to have to

wait too much longer before seeing Starlink

in action.

But before I get to when Startlink is actually

going to be available, it’s a good time

to talk about getting a VPN for your internet

… whether it’s terrestrial or space based.

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The private beta service is scheduled to start

in the northern US and Canada around August

2020, with a public beta following that up

in November 2020. Part of the reason for the

limited scope is due to where the current

satellites are orbiting. As more satellites

join the constellation, we’ll see more areas

rolled into the beta program. It’s going

to be interesting to see how well the system

performs over the next year or two, and what

opportunities it opens up for mobility, internet

access, and other businesses. Areas that have

no or poor internet availability will benefit

the most from Starlink, but so will areas

with a lack of competition. And if it proves

to be as low latency as promised, it could

be a huge moneymaker for high frequency stock

traders. It’s not just gamers that benefit

from low latency. Starlink’s projected 25-35

ms latency is faster than anything stock traders

have today between major trading centers in

the US and Europe. In businesses where every

millisecond counts, Starlink could mean bi

business.

If you liked this video be sure to check out

my video on EV charging. Even if you're already

familiar with EVs, I cover some aspects of

how charging works and what it means for our

electric grid. Now, Jump into the comments

and let me know what you think about Starlink.

And as always, thanks so much for Visiting

Vijay Bhand

Hey there, This is Vijay Bhand a Blogger by Passion. Also an SEO Expert, Affiliate Marketer, Traveler, and an Online Entrepreneur.

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