Re:Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet
by plopz on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @11:36AM
(#21324857)
I thought I read somewhere that they cancelled the plans to use lasers and were going to use radio instead. But now I can't find anything about it.
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Re:Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet
by Tuna-Fish on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @11:45AM
(#21324991)
They have not cancelled the plans to use lasers, but have delayed the introduction of lasers until "satellite version 2.0", whatever that means.
That is, the initial constellation (my guess, the first 800 satellites) goes up without intersat links and acts as a bent pipe only. Lasers are still very much a plan for the later parts on the constellation, and the laserless satellites will eventually be replaced with ones with the lasers once they age out, but the laser links were simply not ready yet and their spectrum license essentially forces them to put the birds up on as quick a schedule as they can.
The laserless sats will not use radio to communicate with each other, but rather will use it to communicate with customers and fixed earth stations.
Re:Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet
by scrumbledober on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @12:22PM
(#21325493)
minor correction, they have delayed the laser interlink for version 1.0, which should be the next launch. the first launch is considered by spacex to be version 0.9 satellites
Re:Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet
by tpmx on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @11:43AM
(#21324958)
Radio and light have (for the purposes of this comparison) the same speed in vacuum.
Re:Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet
by Tuna-Fish on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @11:46AM
(#21325013)
They don't have FCC licensing for the satellites to communicate with each other using radio, the radio links are sat<->ground only.
Re:Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet
by loose11 on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @12:02PM
(#21325233)
FCC licensing in space...
Re:Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet
by Ajedi32 on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @11:44AM
(#21324979)
The current generation of Starlink satellites don't have satellite-to-satilite links, but I haven't seen any indication that that feature is canceled for future iterations.
Re:Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet
by Rebelgecko on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @01:56PM
(#21326696)
How do they work without sat to sat links? Are they going to build thousands of ground stations?