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A comment on SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home Internet from Space.

Re:SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home... by Zenst on Monday April 29, 2019 @10:06PM (#19784496)
This could eventually open up other markets for SpaceX. A communication network with that density would be able to offer a better resolution than GPS and sets up SpaceX to be a key backbone service provider for autonomous flying vehicles in any form. Be that personal transports/air taxis or courier drones.

Whilst not the intended market initially and might be some design considerations that prevent that level of branching out. But certainly, something to ponder down the line.

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Re:SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home... by positr0n on Monday April 29, 2019 @10:21PM (#19784571)
Offering a GPS-like service would require totally different hardware. Each GPS satellite has 4 atomic clocks. The StarLink satellites will basically be optical routers and their timekeeping needs can probably be handled by a cheap clock and NTP from the ground.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home... by Zenst on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @02:59PM (#19790839)
Could have multiple clock sources on earth that produce the clock signals for the satellites. So a satellite could get an accurate time if it locked onto a few ground based sources.

Just with that volume and density of satellites, kinda begs some lateral thinking.

[ Parent | on HN ]