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Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps
From: Tom Beecher <beecher () beecher cc>
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2023 10:24:35 -0400
They are supposed to automatically de-orbit in ~5 years (atmospheric drag) if they are DOA based on a quick search. That does mean that they are space junk for a while but not permanent space junk.
Sorta. At 500km, an uncontrolled object can take around 10 years to deorbit naturally. It's a function of cross sectional area, mass, and drag coefficient. An uncontrolled object will also, over time, slowly orient itself to a position of least drag, which thereby extends the curve. This is also subject to natural atmospheric density fluctuations. 5 years for a spent bird at 550km is most likely the best possible case, and won't be the norm. On Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 4:32 AM Mark Andrews <marka () isc org> wrote:
They are supposed to automatically de-orbit in ~5 years (atmospheric drag) if they are DOA based on a quick search. That does mean that they are space junk for a while but not permanent space junk.On 19 Jun 2023, at 17:44, borg () uu3 net wrote: Heh, its kinda sad that noone mentions space environment impact at all. How that 40k sats will pollute already decently pulluted orbit. I wonder if decommision process will be clean (burn in atmosphere). If there will be failure rate, we will end up w/ dead sats at orbit. I really wonder if thats really necessary. I think that money could be better spent building earth infra reaching those under-serviced places. Cheaper, easy maintenance, less centralization. We also need orbit for more importand sats out there than internet. GPS, earth monitoring infra, space telescopes, R&D. ---------- Original message ---------- From: Tom Beecher <beecher () beecher cc> To: Dave Taht <dave.taht () gmail com> Cc: nanog () nanog org Subject: Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact ofData CapsDate: Sat, 17 Jun 2023 21:11:53 -0400The principal barriers to another launch are a successful test of the new water deluge system, and qualifying a more advanced flight termination system.The fact that not only they tested WITHOUT a water deluge system thefirsttime, OR a flame trench, is why the Cult of Musk will continue to holdthemback. It's fascinating to me to watch him 'discover' solutions toproblemssolved 50 years ago that he chose to ignore. The environmental impact was far less than believed. An analysis ofthe dust spread across town was shown to just be sand, not vaporised fondag, as thought.The easily predictable environmental damage around the launch area still exists and is significant, and will take them months to clean up via the terms of their contract with the state of Texas. There is really massive construction going on, replacing the existingmegabay, the damaged tanks are being replaced rapidly, the launch site has been dug out and partially repaired, and a new launch license was issued for the next 6 months last week.Also here, the fact that they even have LOX and CH4 thanks THAT CLOSE to the pad itself is borderline negligent, but still absolutely mind boggling. On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 8:04˙˙PM Dave Taht <dave.taht () gmail com> wrote:On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 5:16˙˙PM Tom Beecher <beecher () beecher cc>wrote:Also: they plan to use Starship when it's available which has 10x morecapacity. If it really is fully reusable as advertised, that is going to really drive down the launch cost.Starship is years away from being flight ready. The most recent testlaunch from Texas was not a 'successful failure' as widely portrayed inthemedia. Reputable people who have been working in this field for decades have pointed out tons of massive problems that are not quick fixes. 1) I agree that they are years from flight ready, however the improvements in the queue for the next launch are already impressive. A lot of nay-saying concerns have been addressed since the launch. The environmental impact was far less than believed. An analysis of the dust spread across town was shown to just be sand, not vaporised fondag, as thought. While the everyday astronaut and starbase_csi can be thought of as fanbois, they are also producing the most quality reporting and analysis that exists: https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut https://twitter.com/CSI_Starbase They are good folk to track. Eric Burger is a more conventional tech journalist covering all ofspace:https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/ There are an amazing number of individuals reporting on daily progress, with live video feeds. There is really massive construction going on, replacing the existing megabay, the damaged tanks are being replaced rapidly, the launch site has been dug out and partially repaired, and a new launch license was issued for the next 6 months last week. The principal barriers to another launch are a successful test of the new water deluge system, and qualifying a more advanced flight termination system. The next ship and booster will possibly be tested next month, and these have replaced the hydrolic controls with electric and have better motor shielding in general. Yes, an utterly amazing amount of things need to go right to launch a spaceship, but ... my best bet for another launch of starship would be early september.On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 6:56˙˙PM Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com> wrote:Whether or not it makes business sense isn't really what I was talkingabout. I was talking about the home dish costing $1k. That sounds likeitcould easily be reduced significantly unless there is some underlyingtechreason.Also: they plan to use Starship when it's available which has 10x morecapacity. If it really is fully reusable as advertised, that is going to really drive down the launch cost.But your calculations don't take into account that they are not atanywhere close to a full constellation: they are only at 4k out of the40kthey need so they literally can't support higher numbers. Their new generation of satellite is also suppose to be doing some in-orbitroutingor something like that which would I would assume will really help onthebandwidth front. How much that affects their maximum subscriber basewhenthey are fully deployed I don't know but it's bound to be a lot more possible subs than they have now.I mean, this could be a spectacular flop like Iridium but a lot haschanged in 20 some years not least of which is the cost of launch.Mike On 6/17/23 2:53 PM, Tom Beecher wrote:As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm not sure that the current economics arethe real economics. I'm pretty sure they've been purposefully throttling demand because they still don't have the capacity so it would makesense toovercharge in the mean time. Is there something inherent in their cpethatmakes them much more expensive than, say, satellite tv dishes? I can see marginally more because of the LEO aspect, but isn't that mainly just software? It wouldn't surprise me that the main cost is the truck roll.- Starlink currently reports around 1.5M subscribers. At $110 a month,that's $165M in revenue,- A Falcon 9 launch is billed out at $67M. A Falcon 9 can carry up to60 Starlink sats. That's ~667 launches to reach the stated goal of 40ksatsin the constellation. So roughly $45B in just launch costs, if youassumethe public launch price. (Because if they are launching their own stuff, they aren't launching an external paying customer.)- The reported price per sat is $250k. Assuming they give themselves a friendly internal discount, theorbitalbuildout cost are in the neighborhood of $30B for launches, and $10B for sats.- The satellite failure rate is stated to be ~ 3% annually. On a 40Kcluster, that's 1200 a year.That's about 20 more launches a year, and $300M for replacement sats.Let's round off and say that's $1B a year there.So far, that's a $40B buildout with a $1B annual run rate. And that'sjust the orbital costs. We haven't even calculated the manufacturingcostsof the receiver dishes, terrestrial network infra cost , opex fromstaff ,R&D, etc .Numbers kinda speak for themselves here.I mean, I get that Musk is sort of a cuckoo bird but say what youwillhe does have big ambitions.Ambition is good. But reality tends to win the day. As does math. On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 4:38˙˙PM Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com>wrote:On 6/17/23 1:25 PM, Tom Beecher wrote:Won't Starlink and other LEO configurations be that backstop sooner rather than later?Unlikely. They will remain niche. The economics don't make sense forthose services to completely replace terrestrial only service.Why would they put up 40000 satellites if their ambition is onlyniche? I mean, I get that Musk is sort of a cuckoo bird but say what you will he does have big ambitions.From my standpoint, they don't have to completely replace theincumbents. I'd be perfectly happy just keeping them honest.As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm not sure that the current economics arethe real economics. I'm pretty sure they've been purposefully throttling demand because they still don't have the capacity so it would makesense toovercharge in the mean time. Is there something inherent in their cpethatmakes them much more expensive than, say, satellite tv dishes? I can see marginally more because of the LEO aspect, but isn't that mainly just software? It wouldn't surprise me that the main cost is the truck roll.Mike On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 4:17˙˙PM Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com>wrote:On 6/16/23 1:09 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:On 6/16/23 21:19, Josh Luthman wrote:Mark, In my world I constantly see people with 0 fixed internet options. Many of these locations do not even have mobile coverage. Competition is fine in town, but for millions of people in the US (and I'm going to assume it's worse or comparable in CA/MX) thereisno service. As a company primarily delivering to residents, competition is notafocus for us and for the urban market it's tough to survive on a~1/3take rate.I should have been clearer... the lack of competition in manymarketsis not unique to North America. I'd say all of the world suffersthat,since there is only so much money and resources to go around. What I was trying to say is that should a town or village have the opportunity to receive competition, where existing services are capped, uncapping that via an alternative provider would be low hanging fruit to gain local marketshare. Of course, the alternative provider would need to show up first, but that's a whole otherthread.Won't Starlink and other LEO configurations be that backstop sooner rather than later? I don't know if they have caps as well, but evenifthey do they could compete with their caps. Mike-- Podcast:https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7058793910227111937/Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos-- Mark Andrews, ISC 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: marka () isc org
Current thread:
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps, (continued)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Crist Clark (Jun 17)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Tom Beecher (Jun 17)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Mike Hammett (Jun 19)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Michael Thomas (Jun 17)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Tom Beecher (Jun 17)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Michael Thomas (Jun 17)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Dave Taht (Jun 17)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Tom Beecher (Jun 17)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps borg (Jun 19)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Mark Andrews (Jun 19)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Tom Beecher (Jun 19)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Dave Taht (Jun 17)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Tom Beecher (Jun 17)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Mike Hammett (Jun 19)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Mike Hammett (Jun 19)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Mark Tinka (Jun 19)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Mike Hammett (Jun 20)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Mark Tinka (Jun 20)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps sronan (Jun 20)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Mark Tinka (Jun 20)
- Re: FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps Owen DeLong via NANOG (Jun 16)