We finally know a little more about Amazon’s super-secret satellites
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And there are MANY people that like the view of the windmill.
Sidestep - I know, but not completely /s or O/T. Unless you're Don Quixote.
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tf2haberdasher
Smack-Fu Master, in training
Your poor attempt at sarcasm notwithstanding, this is bad logic.
Satellite have been occasionally visible for years. Starlink, as 75% of the man made objects in orbit, does clearly and visibly pose the greatest threat of visual pollution, not to mention the effects of dumping them into the atmosphere, and the other risks.
You can’t say, “Starlink is most of the problem, but 30 years ago someone else also had a satellite visible, ergo Starlink is completely innocent.”
That’s not an argument.
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tf2haberdasher
Smack-Fu Master, in training
The Moon typically stays in its part of the sky.
Starlink will tap dance all over any part of the sky. Point yourselves at your favourite constellation and it won’t take long for a little point of light to wander through your observation.
I don’t take many astrophotos, maybe a couple a year, and yet I still have Starlink making a mess of them.
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No. Satellites have been visible all the god damned time. Where have you been the last several decades? Clearly you haven't been paying attention, because the other thousands of objects that predate Starlink could be seen every few minutes.
I didn't say Starlink is most of the problem. I said Starlink is most of the active objects in LEO. There's a difference. I'm also suspicious that you're even seeing active Starlink satellites with the naked eye. You can see them when they're changing altitude, but once on station, they've been measured at an average +7 magnitude. They've progressively improved over the years, with the first satellites as low as +4. You will not see that unless you've got very good, dark adjusted eyes, with an exceptionally dark sky.
So again, the description of your observation, one satellite every few minutes, is the same description I would give of my own observations from multiple decades ago. Even though we have ~4x as many satellites in LEO now, you're not seeing them. You're just seeing the same satellites we've been viewing for decades.
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You were talking about naked-eye stargazing (specifically, aurorae). I was talking about the moon interfering with naked-eye stargazing (have fun looking at an aurora or a meteor shower during a full moon).
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Starlink reportedly has 400k-ish users in Europe so apparently not even all of Europe is Europe!
<head-blown-animated-gif>
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Astro exposures for a stack will typically go 30-45 seconds, so it's a streak.
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https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y...F9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/jYmGmDK3rKdkk/giphy.gif
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The context was naked eye stargazing. It’s a fucking dot… in the sky… at night.
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The post you answered lamented effect to astrophotography.
The essential questions of the sky that naked-eye observation could answer were addressed centuries ago. The current questions are ones that require instrumentation and workflows much more sensitive than what you can see un-aided.
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I wonder if the Kuiper satellites have gained additional features as a result of their extended development time. Like some regenerative networking features rather than relying entirely on the bent pipe architecture.
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“Regenerative”? Even Iridium back in the late 90s didn’t rely on a bent pipe architecture.
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i understand that there always will be some decrease in accuracy after we correct for / filter out satellites. and obviously we should monitor and limit that. but i was wondering how big of a problem is that or in other words if the tradeoff of benefits we get from those satellites is not worth some interference with other activities. obviously min-maxing makes no sense so we should somehow determine what level of interruption is acceptable and stick to that.
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Better wait till the conflict is over given the number of new Starlink dishes in Ukraine in 2025 is more than others from 2022 to 2025
It's subject to US law, & executive Policy.
If you think they'll knowingly supply a military without a licence or provide service in Crimea without a waiver you know nought.
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Europe just needs OneWeb with lasers and cheaper terminals. Iris² is SDA+Starshield.
Evidence doesn't continue to mount. Every one is quoting a single paper. There's older studies from the USG.
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One of the Chinese constellations is allegedly a copy of SDA.
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60 million is less than the revenue for some Starlink resellers. Italy is on the way. There's no other country. Especially since it's Ontario. Not Canada which is currently discussing Starlink incentives.
The First Nations that were bribed with the money (consultation and training at over 5k per) are complaining about not getting their $$.
SpaceX has invested in extra infra to serve Ukraine in Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary& Turkey.
Eutelsat's CEO just got pushed out. She wasn't able to raise an investment round that's only double what SpaceX usually raises. Even with Europe supposedly behind her.
She'll likely be joining SpaceX as a lobbyist.
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Funding for Starlink deployment like Quebec, Alberta and Wales do is funding for Starlink. Any other thing is all in your imagination. No one says they fund McDonald's.
No money has been taken from Verizon. FENS(Verizon) isn't RTRI (L3Harris/CenturyLink/Starlink).
The five year limits are from the government and are for deorbit. Not service. The current life estimate is 5.3 years. And no, if the Feds spend the same amount on Starlink they'll reach more people. Instead of giving the money to local Fixed Wireless operators and WISP's already serving, the cash is going to the competition.
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We're discussing impact to astronomy, but the overall problem is a quite a bit bigger.
I think the more-insidious impact of LEO clutter will be, well, access to LEO and beyond as it becomes less probable to launch and not hit something else. The real ground-breaking astro-imaging is happening on the orbital platforms that have already run the clutter gauntlet, Hubble, JWST, and such, but the sky is large and they can only cover so much owing to geometry. Gradually shutting down terrestrial imaging will hobble overall discovery. But more critically, and so will hobble the ability to deploy replacement/better extra-terrestrial imagers.
We need better management of what we throw up there, and not just to handle the problems of astronomers...
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i invite you to read the news. Billion dollar contracts HAVE been cancelled and given to spacex/starlink. To read about it, you generally have to leave the spacex internet space, as anything that makes leon look bad gets deleted/banned by mods REALLY quickly.
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You really do need to get a life. At least partially outside of republican zealots.
Deletions/bans here are for specific behaviors.
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huh? What makes you think im the slightest bit republikkkan? The party that is pro school shooting and thinks persecuting children is a virtue?
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Reading comprehension fail.
I said get a life outside of publications that have a specific media bias. Preferably that are at least neutral in content.
Also, admins here don't ban users just because they speak out against Musk. Read the rules again.
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are you even aware of the words you typed? It really seems your not. Are you bad ai or just an angry keyboard pounder? Time to unplug man
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Yes I'm aware.
You're entitled to your opinion, but you keep pounding about the mods on Ars and have apparently no clue on what the mods are actually doing.
As var as billion dollar contracts - might want to look at something other than the DOGE sites as far as how contracts are actually cancelled and/or reallocated.
Unless you can post a link to somewhere that deals in actual facts I'm open to looking.
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It is getting there. First with 25yr deorbit standards, and now 5yr deobrit standards. Two years ago, the FCC fined Dish (an admittedly token amount) for failing to move off the GEO ring into a parking orbit. The next step is going to be some sort of bond to protect against organizations selling off to a debt patsy, that can then skirt the fines by going bankrupt.
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also probably using some portion of the license proceeds (and fines) to pay for a specialized tug or something similar to deorbit or graveyard dead satellites.
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Please post a single billion dollar contract from a tier 1 primary news source that shows a cancelled contract in the billions. Bloomberg, FT, Guardian, WaPo, WSJ, Seattle Times, LA Times, Reuters, AP are fine. Industry papers like Satellite Today, Capacity, Space news are also fine too.
Ontario cancelled a $66 million (CAD$100m) and the rural First Nations that were being bribed with it are complaining already. The German Bundeswehr also turned it down after qualification but there was no talk of an amount. I've heard rumors that the Luftwaffe has banned thier use. Italy said they'll delay it until things die down and plan to replace Starlink with thier own constellations because they don't want the French or Germans. Italy now owns a global Fiber network (Sparkle) and as part of the agreement SpaceX is supposed to connect to them everywhere. [They already do in parts of the world]. An Italian bank is also invested in SpaceX.
The US threatened to terminate Starlink contracts in Ukraine and therefore the licence to use it in disputed regions. There's arguments about the exact amount but it's somewhere between $30 million and $1.5 billion a year. It's still there. As is the rest of proliferated LEO which is 90% SpaceX and now has a $10+ billion spending cap (thanks Biden)
If you think the mods here are pro Musk, I put you in the category of our brand new election truthers. The ones that believe Starlink hacked the election.
I know lots about Starlink because I've read everything there is to do with it I can find. I've corresponded with scientists that do research and space and telecom industry consultants and journalists and I've worked in the industry and have ex colleagues that still do. I also participate in industry fora.
The same is true for pretty much every planned Megaconstellation. I watched the last hearing Eva gave to the French Parliament before she was pushed of Eutelsat.
Let's just say a billion dollar contract that's cancelled won't slip my eyes and ears. And that's if I didn't hear rumours about it before. (I knew about the United deal over a year before it was announced).
Also hearing rumours of an Emirates Airlines deal as part of tariff negotiations. The UAE has multiple airlines but it seems it might end up only being Emirates.
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i was under the impression we were talking about working satellites. disposal of junk we put there is also more and more pressing issue but i think this could be handled separately.
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"Regenerative" seems to be the term in use now. It's been a while since I read up on this so I did some research before posting the comment. That seems to be the term used for what I'm talking about. It was news to me too. Though I could easily be wrong since I'm a little out of my depth.
For quick context - Google "alternatives to bent pipe satellite architecture" and you get
AI Overview "Alternatives to the "bent-pipe" satellite architecture include regenerative/transparent architectures, software-defined satellites, and mesh networks. These advancements enhance satellite communication by moving beyond simple signal relay to incorporate processing and potentially even local network functions on board the satellite."’
Do you have a source for Iridium doing something other than a "bent pipe architecture" in the 90s for general data/internet traffic, which we are talking about here? I'm assuming you're talking about their phone or paging service. Since that would be a lot easier to do with on orbit hardware. Which last I heard was not possible for small Leo satellites like Starlink satellites.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation#Ground_stations
Iridium had a microwave link to other satellites within the same plane. Calls were routed around the ring to the nearest ground station. These ground stations were located at high latitudes to allow just a few stations to service the entire constellation.
Phone service is no different than data, and Iridium did offer rather awful data service as well. As far as I’m aware, they did not offer point-to-point service. Everything had to route down through the nearest ground station before optionally back up to another customer.
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Regenerative is a different issue than whether a network is bent pipe or not.
A regenerative system actually stores the data temporarily and then generates a new packet that is what gets sent on.
Satellites that can regenerate packets are more flexible. They can retain larger queues, process headers in a more complex way, have more flexibility in changing encoding/modulation and how they multiplex, have better SNR, etc. Basically, they can act like how we might expect a terrestrial router or cellular node to act.
For instance, first generation Iridium used a satellite-to-satellite mesh, but packets were just routed directly between receivers/transmitters. They did not read out the packet, store the data, then retransmit it. Iridium’s NexT satellites are regenerative. The fundamental mesh concept doesn’t change — with satellites transmitting data between satellites until one that has a field of view to a ground station or the requisite handset — but regeneration allows for multiplexing data more efficiently along the way.
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Even if they don't die. It's negligable.
There are 7105 satellites in the structure. With a lifespan of 5 yrs, this equals to a replacement rate of 118 sattelites/month. One falcon can carry 28 satellites. So basically needs 5 rockets each month to keep that thing alive or it dies. Make up your own mind.
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A bit of a necropost, but this is completely false. Satellites in general are not "totaly visible" with the naked eye from a city environment. Basically the only thing visible from city environments are lucky flares of satellites, Starlinks immediately after launch before reorientation (because of their intentionally high reflective surfaces), and the ISS (and maybe the Chinese space station). Everything else is down at at least 3rd magnitude or so which is invisible in any city.
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For the record, I live on the border of Greater London, and I (plus kids) have seen satellites, both in west-east & south-north orbits, after sunset on clear nights. Not flares. Not just the ISS. Totally.
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You’ve been able to for decades. The latest Starlinks are speculator reflectors. They’re highly reflective, but only in one direction, and they can maneuver that to point away from Earth. They have a large solar array, but they can also angle that to be largely masked by the hull. The end result is apparently an average of 7th magnitude, which is effectively invisible under any conditions.
You could catch a rare flare (reflection off that specular hull) as they’re stabilizing their orbit on initial deployment. They’re likely more visible as they’re adjusting altitude rather. The older satellites are more visible, but they’re being slowly deorbited and replaced as SpaceX has already hit their 7.5K authorized cap.
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This might not be popular with astro-photographers, but I'll miss them if/when they become harder to spot. I quite like to see them tbh. If nothing else, they were a consolation spot if we failed to see meteors when out during a meteor shower.
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Are you sure you were seeing them? Per commentary from past pages, Starlink observations, if you're seeing Starlink, are going to be several per minute. If you're seeing "other stuff" (mostly spent upper stages), you'll see one every couple minutes. There's a whole lot of spent upper stages up there, and they're big and bright.
https://www.heavens-above.com/AllSats.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=UCT
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