My working hypothesis is that it will accelerate starship development. Why? Multiple factors.
- deterioration of US-RU relationship may force the hand to find fast a ISS replacement.-
bankrupt roscosmos
In this thread, I would like to discuss the possible implications on the spaceflight sector, and on starship in particular, of a serious escalation in Ukraine.It's a hot and saddening topic, and a hard one to discuss. I would therefore ask EVERYONE to avoid making any judgement or taking any position. Please simply discuss potential implications for spaceflight and SpaceX.My working hypothesis is that it will accelerate starship development. Why? Multiple factors.- deterioration of US-RU relationship may force the hand to find fast a ISS replacement.- competition, also for space 'leadership' will ramp up. SpaceX can bankrupt roscosmos if it comes to a space race.- military interest in fast and mass satellite deployment will skyrocket.- point to point delivery! May also be attractive to the military.What are your thoughts?
How do compare military satcom and starlink terminals in size/weight/easyness of install? Say, I could imagine usefulness of starlink for internet access in danger areas.
Quote from: JayWee on 02/22/2022 03:33 pmHow do compare military satcom and starlink terminals in size/weight/easyness of install? Say, I could imagine usefulness of starlink for internet access in danger areas.SX also needs to have base station coverage in the arena.
Quote from: DistantTemple on 02/22/2022 10:42 pmQuote from: JayWee on 02/22/2022 03:33 pmHow do compare military satcom and starlink terminals in size/weight/easyness of install? Say, I could imagine usefulness of starlink for internet access in danger areas.SX also needs to have base station coverage in the arena.Not with lasers. They’ve already been deploying them.
Incidentally, the mass-growth 'Starlink 2' does somewhat resemble the much enlarged Starlink-derived satellites for the DoD 'Transport Layer' contract.
Quote from: edzieba on 02/23/2022 08:35 amIncidentally, the mass-growth 'Starlink 2' does somewhat resemble the much enlarged Starlink-derived satellites for the DoD 'Transport Layer' contract. Not surprising. The current v1.5 Starlink bus doesn't have any room to host sensors for the DoD.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 02/23/2022 12:42 amQuote from: DistantTemple on 02/22/2022 10:42 pmQuote from: JayWee on 02/22/2022 03:33 pmHow do compare military satcom and starlink terminals in size/weight/easyness of install? Say, I could imagine usefulness of starlink for internet access in danger areas.SX also needs to have base station coverage in the arena.Not with lasers. They’ve already been deploying them.Thus far, that only applies to areas within LOS of the new laser-equipped satellites, which is only a few bands. The currently built out constellation is subject to the groundstation coverage issue and will remain so until the entire new constellation is launched. The current laser-link equipped satellites have also only been launched to service polar obits, so that likely means waiting for the larger 'Starlink 2' birds to build out the next constellation layer for regular global coverage. Incidentally, the mass-growth 'Starlink 2' does somewhat resemble the much enlarged Starlink-derived satellites for the DoD 'Transport Layer' contract.
Quote from: edzieba on 02/23/2022 08:35 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 02/23/2022 12:42 amQuote from: DistantTemple on 02/22/2022 10:42 pmQuote from: JayWee on 02/22/2022 03:33 pmHow do compare military satcom and starlink terminals in size/weight/easyness of install? Say, I could imagine usefulness of starlink for internet access in danger areas.SX also needs to have base station coverage in the arena.Not with lasers. They’ve already been deploying them.Thus far, that only applies to areas within LOS of the new laser-equipped satellites, which is only a few bands. The currently built out constellation is subject to the groundstation coverage issue and will remain so until the entire new constellation is launched. The current laser-link equipped satellites have also only been launched to service polar obits, so that likely means waiting for the larger 'Starlink 2' birds to build out the next constellation layer for regular global coverage. Incidentally, the mass-growth 'Starlink 2' does somewhat resemble the much enlarged Starlink-derived satellites for the DoD 'Transport Layer' contract.Not true. You don’t need the ENTIRE constellation launched to take advantage of it.
Additionally, there’s the possibility of hopping using regular Starlink terminals (gateways work at a greater angle, tho).
…User terminals are not set up for global packet routing. …
Oh, they wouldn’t be as high performance?? Now compare that to nothing after asats take out everything else. But the military has options such as putting a Ka band Gateway on an airplane: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/10470/air-force-one-jet-reemerges-with-upgraded-communications-for-world-tripAnd no, you do not need the whole constellation. Absurd assertion. You need more than one ring, sure, but you definitely don’t need all 30,000 Starlinks or whatever.
Quote from: edzieba on 02/23/2022 01:39 pm…User terminals are not set up for global packet routing. …Source?
Quote from: Robotbeat on 02/23/2022 01:54 pmOh, they wouldn’t be as high performance?? Now compare that to nothing after asats take out everything else. But the military has options such as putting a Ka band Gateway on an airplane: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/10470/air-force-one-jet-reemerges-with-upgraded-communications-for-world-tripAnd no, you do not need the whole constellation. Absurd assertion. You need more than one ring, sure, but you definitely don’t need all 30,000 Starlinks or whatever.You need full coverage for full coverage. That's hardly a contentious assertion. The current ~1800 operational satellites is now just sufficient (requires continuous overflights, as any missed slots means connection dropout) for full coverage in some locations, but has not yet achieved global coverage (all locations continuous overflights). That puts a reasonable floor on a similar number of laser-equipped Starlinks needed for full coverage without a local ground station - as both the satellite overhead that you are talking to and all satellites in the chain back to the nearest ground station or Starlink endpoint endpoint must all have laser links too.Quote from: Robotbeat on 02/23/2022 02:17 pmQuote from: edzieba on 02/23/2022 01:39 pm…User terminals are not set up for global packet routing. …Source?The user router is based on a Qualcomm IPQ4018, which relies on ASIC local routing for packet handling. It's not capable of any reasonable SDN (it's ARM cores for the host OS could maybe handle a few packets per second if you demanded they do the routing and switching instead) and does not have the hardware for global routing. Remember that the routing performance of consumer combo-box devices are masked by hardware switching: add a fast host link and you can often see consumer devices start to cap at well below line-speed (and hit latency issues before then due to bufferbloat) due to routing speed limitations, even without adding acting as a BGP router into the mix. It's why you can have a little desktop box for a home router, but an enterprise router is a 7U rackmount monster with a single network input and a single network output, sucking down hundreds of watts just on the task of routing with no switching involved.
Quote from: edzieba on 02/24/2022 09:04 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 02/23/2022 01:54 pmOh, they wouldn’t be as high performance?? Now compare that to nothing after asats take out everything else. But the military has options such as putting a Ka band Gateway on an airplane: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/10470/air-force-one-jet-reemerges-with-upgraded-communications-for-world-tripAnd no, you do not need the whole constellation. Absurd assertion. You need more than one ring, sure, but you definitely don’t need all 30,000 Starlinks or whatever.You need full coverage for full coverage. That's hardly a contentious assertion. The current ~1800 operational satellites is now just sufficient (requires continuous overflights, as any missed slots means connection dropout) for full coverage in some locations, but has not yet achieved global coverage (all locations continuous overflights). That puts a reasonable floor on a similar number of laser-equipped Starlinks needed for full coverage without a local ground station - as both the satellite overhead that you are talking to and all satellites in the chain back to the nearest ground station or Starlink endpoint endpoint must all have laser links too.Quote from: Robotbeat on 02/23/2022 02:17 pmQuote from: edzieba on 02/23/2022 01:39 pm…User terminals are not set up for global packet routing. …Source?The user router is based on a Qualcomm IPQ4018, which relies on ASIC local routing for packet handling. It's not capable of any reasonable SDN (it's ARM cores for the host OS could maybe handle a few packets per second if you demanded they do the routing and switching instead) and does not have the hardware for global routing. Remember that the routing performance of consumer combo-box devices are masked by hardware switching: add a fast host link and you can often see consumer devices start to cap at well below line-speed (and hit latency issues before then due to bufferbloat) due to routing speed limitations, even without adding acting as a BGP router into the mix. It's why you can have a little desktop box for a home router, but an enterprise router is a 7U rackmount monster with a single network input and a single network output, sucking down hundreds of watts just on the task of routing with no switching involved.The original ARPANET ran on Honeywell 716 minicomputers. They had 56 Kbps trunks and 32 kilobytes of memory. They were about 1000 times less capable than an ARM. I assure you: an ARM can handle a whole lot more than "a few packets per second". There is no need for BGP in an area mesh. However, the terminals will need the same specialized type of forwarding table updates that must be used by the satellites and the teleports in order to efficiently transition between satellites as the satellites move. the requirements for this type of forwarding table update are quite different than those needed for other types of dynamic mesh networks. Not really harder, just very different.