Author Topic: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3  (Read 346211 times)

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #760 on: 11/15/2022 12:23 am »
Testing on an actual satellite in orbit requires a license.
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #761 on: 11/15/2022 01:13 am »
Testing on an actual satellite in orbit requires a license.
Very true, but an experimental license is much easier to obtain.
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Offline su27k

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #762 on: 11/15/2022 01:24 am »
Testing on an actual satellite in orbit requires a license.
Very true, but an experimental license is much easier to obtain.

And the license/permit doesn't have to come from FCC, they can get it from another country if they limit testing to that country.

Offline su27k

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #763 on: 11/21/2022 01:26 am »
https://twitter.com/VirtuallyNathan/status/1594359493332455425

Quote
SpaceX is hiring engineers to work on v2.0 solar panel production using teamtechnik Stringer Systems -- the TT2100: https://teamtechnik.com/en/new-energy/stringer-systems/solar-stringer-tt2100-i8 A single system can build 72.5MW-peak per year.


Job posting: https://boards.greenhouse.io/spacex/jobs/6463104002

Quote
SOLAR STRINGER MACHINE SPECIALIST

Working for the Starlink Solar 2.0 team, the Solar Stringer Machine Specialist will be responsible for overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) of all Team Technik 2100 solar stringer machines (TTs). This includes building, installing, commissioning, troubleshooting, and maintaining all TT stringer assets. This specialist is expected to become the subject matter expert on the machines and showcase ownership over their operations.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Responsible for the production outcome of the Starlink solar stringer machines as measured by equipment OEE
Work with production team to develop training plans and standard work instructions for TT stringer operations
Develop and implement robust preventative maintenance schedule with focus on increasing long term machine reliability as measured by machine uptime
Develop new and improve design on existing production assets to improve robustness and ease operations
Commission new stringer assets, effective project management skills to drive efficient project completion
Promote 5S principles of organizing and sustaining efficient and presentable team work spaces
Read, understand and utilize system-level schematics and drawings (mechanical/electrical/pneumatic)
Support production devices (HMIs, VM’s, etc)

Offline su27k

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #764 on: 11/21/2022 01:30 am »
https://twitter.com/VirtuallyNathan/status/1594358497076219904

Quote
SpaceX is hiring engineers to build their own Traveling Wave Tube Amplifiers -- these are expected to be used on v4 Gateway antennas for E-Band connectivity
@mikepuchol @Megaconstellati


Job posting: https://boards.greenhouse.io/spacex/jobs/6425949002

Quote
RF ENGINEER, VACUUM ELECTRONICS (STARLINK)

Starlink provides high-speed internet planetwide with the world's largest constellation of satellites and our global ground network. Our team develops the RF devices that power the satellites and ground antennas - from power amplifiers to waveguide components to reflectors. To enable current and next generation Starlink satellites and gateways, we are developing traveling wave tube amplifiers for high bandwidth communications systems. These devices are being designed for in house manufacturing at a scale significantly higher than typical industry. Want to help build the next era of Internet?

We are looking for creative and driven engineers to develop vacuum electron devices for the next generation Starlink ground antennas. As an RF engineer, you will design, simulate, and test millimeter-wave amplifiers in a cross-functional team with exceptional mechanical, electrical, RF, and software engineers.

Engineers on this team are curious, love to innovate, and excel in dynamic cross-functional teams.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Develop millimeter-wave traveling wave tube amplifier (TWTA) covering every aspect from component to system level - electron gun, slow-wave structure, magnetic confinement circuit, collector
Use simulation tools to accelerate hardware development
Assist in development of test equipment to characterize development hardware and screen production hardware
Achieve great systems solutions through collaboration with engineers owning high-voltage power supply, waveguide networks, modem, antennas, and software
Collaborate with production engineers to bring your designs into production


Note Traveling-Wave Tube Amplifier (TWTA) was first mentioned in a reddit leak in July: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=55795.msg2387898#msg2387898

Offline su27k

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #765 on: 11/21/2022 02:47 am »
New study highlights need for better space weather observations and forecasts for the emerging commercial spacecraft industry

Quote from: NOAA
A new study in Space Weather, a journal published by the American Geophysical Union, provides an analysis of space weather conditions that led to the Starlink satellite loss. Scientists from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado at Boulder worked closely with SpaceX Starlink to co-author this study. They used observations from the Starlink satellites and forecasts and numerical simulations from NOAA to demonstrate the disturbance in the upper atmosphere and enhanced satellite drag conditions during the February event. This study confirms SpaceX’s preliminary analysis: high satellite drag conditions reduced satellite stability and made the orbit-raising process impossible. In response, the satellites quickly deorbited and ultimately burned up during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.



The paper: Space Weather Environment During the SpaceX Starlink Satellite Loss in February 2022

Quote from: Abstract
On 3 February 2022, SpaceX Starlink launched and subsequently lost 38 of 49 satellites due to enhanced neutral density associated with a geomagnetic storm. This study examines the space weather conditions related to the satellite loss, based on observations, forecasts, and numerical simulations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). Working closely with the Starlink team, the thermospheric densities along the satellite orbits were estimated and the neutral density increase leading to the satellite loss was investigated. Simulation results suggest that during the geomagnetic storm, pre-launch Monte Carlo analyses performed by the Starlink team using empirical neutral density inputs from NRLMSISE-00 tended to underestimate the impact relative to predictions from the operational coupled Whole Atmosphere Model and Ionosphere Plasmasphere Electrodynamics physics-based model. The numerical simulation indicated this minor to moderate geomagnetic storm was sufficient to create 50%–125% density enhancement at altitudes ranging between 200 and 400 km. With the increasing solar activity of Solar Cycle 25, satellites in low-Earth orbit are expected to experience an increasing number of thermospheric expansion events. Currently, no alerts and warnings issued by SWPC are focused on satellite users concerned with atmospheric drag and related applications. Thus, during geomagnetic storms, it is crucial to establish suitable alerts and warnings based on neutral density predictions to provide users guidance for preventing satellite losses due to drag and to aid in collision avoidance calculations.

Offline su27k

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #766 on: 11/23/2022 12:46 pm »
According to reddit, it looks like Starlink is starting to roll out IPv6:

Quote from: r/certuna
There have been occasional reports over the past months of small-scale testing, but over the past week the Starlink network has jumped from near-zero to over 10% IPv6 capable - clearly something new has been switched on.

Good news for all of you that do not enjoy life behind CG-NAT.

Offline Mandella

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #767 on: 11/23/2022 04:43 pm »
According to reddit, it looks like Starlink is starting to roll out IPv6:

Quote from: r/certuna
There have been occasional reports over the past months of small-scale testing, but over the past week the Starlink network has jumped from near-zero to over 10% IPv6 capable - clearly something new has been switched on.

Good news for all of you that do not enjoy life behind CG-NAT.

As best I can tell from user reports, It's just Seattle right now. Previously it was available briefly in Atlanta. Hopefully they do a wild rollout soon!

Can somebody give me a baby talk explanation of the benefits here? I'm not very well versed in network jargon, and I honestly don't understand why I should not be enjoying my life behind CG-NAT (it seems fine right now).

Is this something that has big benefits for residential users, or is it more a business use thing?

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #768 on: 11/23/2022 09:56 pm »
One of the issues I've seen in a few reviews on in the past is with NAT appears to various streaming services to show the IP address of the ground station not Dishy. Streaming services often map those addresses to a rough physical location, and may block services if things like billing address do not add up with your location.

For instance if you are located in Florida and the ground station the satellite talks to is in Atlanta, to the streaming service you are in Atlanta and not Florida. This can cause issues with the streaming service. That was an actual issue for one Starlink user who posted a long YouTube on the issue that I cannot quickly put my fingers on for a link.

Edit: Try this video


« Last Edit: 11/23/2022 09:59 pm by kevin-rf »
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Offline tbellman

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #769 on: 11/23/2022 10:36 pm »
Can somebody give me a baby talk explanation of the benefits here? I'm not very well versed in network jargon, and I honestly don't understand why I should not be enjoying my life behind CG-NAT (it seems fine right now).

Is this something that has big benefits for residential users, or is it more a business use thing?

The "old" version of IP, version 4 ("IPv4"), has a limited number of addresses it can use for addressing devices.  You may have seen numeric IP addresses consisting of four numbers with periods between them looking like e.g. 198.51.100.17; these are what is really behind domain names like "forum.nasaspaceflight.com".  There are only about four billion addresses in IPv4, and for various reasons, not all of them can be used as device addresses, and due to even more reasons, there will be significant swathes of addresses that will be unused.  So perhaps one, or maybe two, billion devices can be addressed.

But there are significantly more devices than that connected to the Internet.  To handle this, people employ Network Address Translation, NAT.  This puts a special device (a "NAT gateway") in front of a bunch of devices, and pretends all of them have the same IP address.  On the inside of the NAT gateway, the devices will have "private" addresses, which are then translated to the single public address by the NAT gateway when the devices talk to the rest of the Internet.  Those private addresses are not globally unique; there will be many devices in the world with the same private address.

If you have a home router, then this almost certainly performs the duties of a NAT gateway as well.  CG-NAT is Carrier Grade NAT, and long story short, this is when your ISP performs NAT for you.  They may have hundreds or thousands of public addresses, used to cover tens of thousands of customers.  (Since you are likely doing NAT yourself in your home router as well, this means there will be two layers of address translation between your device and the global Internet.)

The problem is that, since devices then don't have unique addresses, those devices can't contact each other directly.  This is similar to how some decades ago, a company might have more phones than they had phone numbers.  You could then not call a specific person inside that company directly, but instead had to call the company's switchboard and ask to be connected to "extension 4711".  (And then there was often a limit on how many people in the company could actually be talking on their phones at the same time.)

Since NAT has been prevalent for a couple of decades by now, everyone developing applications using the Internet, have of course made sure that their applications work when NAT and CG-NAT are employed.  Often by having a server with a public address (i.e, not behind NAT) acting as a go-between between end-user devices.

However, these NAT gateways need to be somewhat complicated, and at the scale that an ISP operates, they become somewhat expensive as well.

And there are some things that simply can't be done when you are behind a NAT gateway.  You can't set up an email server or a web server at home, for example.  And several applications become more complicated due to the need for "go-between" servers.



The "new" version of IP, version 6 ("IPv6", which is actually more than 25 years old by now), solves this by having a much larger address space.  IPv6 can easily address a quintillion (a billion billion) individual devices.  (There are actually more than three hundred billion octillion, 3×1038, IPv6 addresses, but in practice only a very tiny fraction of them can be effectively used; still many many more than in IPv4.)

For now, most normal people will not notice anything being better with IPv6 than with IPv4.  There are some services that are only available over IPv6, but, at least in the USA, those are pretty niche.  But things are changing.  I believe India and China have a fair number of services that are only on IPv6.  And even in the USA and Europe, companies have some difficulty getting public IPv4 addresses, which may mean that they will soon need to deploy some services as IPv6-only.  (I have heard of some that have "internal" services only on IPv6, so if their employees want to work from home, they need IPv6 at home.)


EDIT to add: I was reminded of one problem that can actually affect even the most ordinary of ordinary users for IPv4.  Due to the shortage of IPv4 addresses, ISPs often need to buy address blocks (by the hundreds or thousands) from others that got those blocks earlier when there was less or no shortage.  But those "pre-owned" blocks may have been owned by less scrupulous actors that didn't police their users well, or even actively used them for sending spam or other nefarious objectives.  Those addresses can then end up on lists of "bad" addresses, and some people or organizations will refuse to talk to anyone using those "bad" addresses.  And it can take some time and lots of effort for the new owner to clear the reputation of the address block, and in the meantime the new owner's users suffer.

Or the ISP may buy address blocks where the previous owner was in some other part of the world, and geolocation services (that tries to associate specific IP addresses with geographic locations) have registered those addresses as being in outer Mongolia.  As with reputation, it can require quite a lot of effort from the ISP to get all geolocation services to understand that those addresses are now for users in Pitcairn instead of Mongolia, and in the meantime, Netflix, Disney+, et.c. will refuse to serve the ISP's users, and Google will insist on presenting their pages in a language not understandable to you.
« Last Edit: 11/23/2022 11:23 pm by tbellman »

Offline DigitalMan

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #770 on: 11/23/2022 11:26 pm »
Yea, there are a bunch of people on reddit that talk about wanting to set up servers and are looking for IPv6 to enable them.
« Last Edit: 11/23/2022 11:27 pm by DigitalMan »

Offline Mandella

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #771 on: 11/24/2022 06:12 pm »
Thanks for the explanations guys. That makes it a lot clearer.

As a note, my previous satellite provider (Viasat) also tended to give me locations based on where I presume the downlink stations were, so I presume the issue isn't limited to Starlink.

Offline Asteroza

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #772 on: 11/24/2022 11:22 pm »
I wonder what kind of geomapping/IPv6 address assignment will be done for fixed site Starlinks? Setting a /32 per cell seems reasonable...

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #773 on: 11/30/2022 01:57 pm »
Hyperbole. I would be surprised if it’s profitable to make the dishes even at $700.
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline Ghoti

Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #774 on: 11/30/2022 02:00 pm »
Hyperbole. I would be surprised if it’s profitable to make the dishes even at $700.
Since it is likely a large percentage of dishes are being purchased via government and third party donations it makes less sense to subsidize their sale.

Offline deadman1204

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #775 on: 11/30/2022 02:32 pm »
Hyperbole. I would be surprised if it’s profitable to make the dishes even at $700.
Its only happening in the ONE country, which can be inconvenient to certain narratives.

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #776 on: 11/30/2022 02:34 pm »
Considering with all the damage to infrastructure, it seems that the amount of bandwidth used per dish is also higher compared to other markets where multiple people are not sharing the same dish. Justifying the monthly fee going from $60 a month to $75 a month in the market.

I still wonder if they are using ISL to provide better coverage in Eastern Ukraine. It does seem a stretch for the ground stations in Poland and Turkey.
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Online mn

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #777 on: 11/30/2022 03:03 pm »
Companies will typically subsidize upfront costs, banking on a long term return.

Considering that these are short term accounts, with most of them likely to stop paying soon after the war ends it's not unreasonable to want to get your money upfront. (Exactly how to do that fairly is more complicated).

How long do they need an account to be active to recover the upfront costs?

Offline deadman1204

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #778 on: 11/30/2022 03:35 pm »
Companies will typically subsidize upfront costs, banking on a long term return.

Considering that these are short term accounts, with most of them likely to stop paying soon after the war ends it's not unreasonable to want to get your money upfront. (Exactly how to do that fairly is more complicated).

How long do they need an account to be active to recover the upfront costs?
Why are you apologizing for this? If comcast was doing this in ukraine, everyone would be grabbing their pitchforks. The entire mood of this conversation is different because the richest human to EVER exist runs a very successful popularity campaign, and makes himself the public face of this company.

Offline M.E.T.

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Re: Starlink : General Discussion - Thread 3
« Reply #779 on: 11/30/2022 03:41 pm »
Companies will typically subsidize upfront costs, banking on a long term return.

Considering that these are short term accounts, with most of them likely to stop paying soon after the war ends it's not unreasonable to want to get your money upfront. (Exactly how to do that fairly is more complicated).

How long do they need an account to be active to recover the upfront costs?
Why are you apologizing for this? If comcast was doing this in ukraine, everyone would be grabbing their pitchforks. The entire mood of this conversation is different because the richest human to EVER exist runs a very successful popularity campaign, and makes himself the public face of this company.

Please just stop. Do you have to engage in this effort on every thread, only to result in deleted posts?

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