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SpaceX Gets FCC License For 1 Million Satellite-Broadband User Terminals (arstechnica.com) 46

Posted by BeauHD from the UFOs-on-a-stick dept.
SpaceX has received government approval to deploy up to 1 million user terminals in the United States for its Starlink satellite-broadband constellation. Ars Technica reports: SpaceX asked the Federal Communications Commission for the license in February 2019, and the FCC announced its approval in a public notice last week. The FCC approval is for "a blanket license for the operation of up to 1,000,000 fixed earth stations that will communicate with [SpaceX's] non-geostationary orbit satellite system." The license is good for 15 years. As SpaceX's application said, the earth stations are "user terminals [that] employ advanced phased-array beam-forming and digital-processing technologies to make highly efficient use of Ku-band spectrum resources by supporting highly directive, steered antenna beams that track the system's low-Earth orbit satellites."

One million terminals would only cover a fraction of U.S. homes, but SpaceX isn't necessarily looking to sign up huge portions of the U.S. population. Musk said at the conference that Starlink will likely serve the "3 or 4 percent hardest-to-reach customers for telcos" and "people who simply have no connectivity right now, or the connectivity is really bad." Starlink won't have lots of customers in big cities like LA "because the bandwidth per cell is simply not high enough," he said.
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SpaceX Gets FCC License For 1 Million Satellite-Broadband User Terminals More

SpaceX Gets FCC License For 1 Million Satellite-Broadband User Terminals

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  • Elon Musk is an amazing person.
    • I didn't see how much he was paying for those licenses. Were they free, for some reason?

      • "I didn't see how much he was paying for those licenses. Were they free, for some reason?"

        You mean, just because he's bringing Internet to poor people in Buttfuck, Idaho that the other companies ignored?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Holy carp, they've already got all those satellites on orbit and they didn't even have a **LICENSE** yet??? That's terrifying.

  • heh heh (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 )

    "user terminals [that] employ advanced phased-array beam-forming,,,

    Might as well be saying; ""Oh goodie! My Illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator."

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday March 23, 2020 @09:22PM (#59865106)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        I had always heard the phrase 'phased array antenna', but never paid it much attention. Thanks, they're far more interesting that I ever thought.

        This is why I keep coming back to SlashDot.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pascoea ( 968200 )
        The coolest part of phased arrays is the "steerability" of the output. By shifting the phase of each element in the array slightly the effective power of the output is directed where you want it. Hence their land station's ability to transmit a signal to a moving satellite with a fixed element antenna. (link [wikipedia.org] from the same article.) Really cool stuff.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by eeloon ( 6270492 )

        I work with phased arrays for radio astronomy. Here's how I explain them to students.

        You've probably seen parabolic (dish-shaped) antennas like this [wikipedia.org] used for communicating with satellites. The parabolic shape focuses the incoming radio waves to a point in front of the dish, where there's a radio receiver that detects them.

        In a phased array, you have a flat surface with *lots* of radio receivers. Each of them detects the radio waves hitting its little patch of the surface. Then, you take the signals from

      • In addition to improving reception, a phased array antenna will allow the creation and aiming of a concentrated beam without moving parts.

        This would be immensely useful for communicating with fast moving satellites.

        A bit complicated, but it all boils down to Fourier.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Only works for transmit though, i.e. from the ground towards the satellite. The receiver will need to either be extremely sensitive or have some way to concentrate the signal, i.e. a satellite dish.

        The main issue is going to be network congestion. Also remember to take anything that comes from a Musk company with a bucket of salt, e.g. "free supercharging for life" or "coast to coast demo in 2017".

        • Actually, due to a radio principle known as reciprocity, if you can send a focused beam with this antenna, you can also receive a focused beam with the antenna.

          As mentioned in one of the other comments, the phased array is made of lots of little antennas. Each antenna, in itself, is receiving a wide variety of signal and noise. Indeed, for any given antenna, the signal may be completely lost in the noise. But, if you add the signal from two antennas, and do a slight time offset between them, the signal
      • The antenna in the nose of the F-16 is similar. It's smaller, overall, and the individual elements are larger. But F-16 tech is decades older.

        The F-16 could track multiple airborne objects, usually having the antenna facing forward. The antenna itself didn't move much; the beam could sweep in 2 dimensions from a stationary antenna, sweeping much faster than a moving antenna could handle.

        When attacking ground targets, the antenna would angle slightly downward (yes, it moved, just not much). It could

    • > Might as well be saying; ""Oh goodie! My Illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator."

      Any decent WiFi access point these days has one of your explosive space modulators in it - not exactly SciFi in this decade (or the last).

  • Between the zillions of satellites destroying optical astronomy, and the zillions destroying radio astronomy, so sad too bad.

    • So, yeah... Zillions aren't a thing

      Terrestrial observatories face a lot of pressures from local light pollution, electrical discharges [theguardian.com], and activists trying to deny access to mountain tops.

      Of course they build bigger mirrors and smarter optics, fighting the inevitable dominance of space based astronomy. I appreciate that they have a lot of money in it, but SpaceX is far from a major source of light or EM pollution, and astronomy's real future is off planet. That is where money should be spent

      • I'm actually fond of "zillions" as a very big version of "lots". Few mistake it for a real number, but hearing it indicates something that feels like it's in the *illions.

        Space telescopes are certainly a promising idea, but the cost is still prohibitive. Musk could probably garner a lot of good will by offering free launches for them, but the remaining cost would probably mean there aren't a lot of takers.

        It'd be nice if someone designed a line of (small-)mass-producable space telescopes. If Starship succ

        • When I see the advances in amateur astronomy (automated telescopes, etc...) I find it hard to believe it is 'dead'. Much more likely to see amateurs coordinating with published satellite tracks to choose where to look and when.

          It looks terrifying when they publish lines of satellites tracking against the sky, but those photos are immediately following launch and deployment and have little to do with actual impact of the satellites in their ultimate orbits.

          At this point the "SpaceX/StarLink BAAAAD" noise is

          • Well, it's not dead yet, Starlink is barely getting off the ground.

            The problem is that once there's tens of thousands of these things in space, there will always be a satellite nearby - animations seem to show them about 10* to 20* apart in their orbits, and they'll be moving fast. Which renders any part of the sky near the "strands" their orbital net pretty much off-limits for any sort of sensitive astronomy. You can still look through the "holes" of course, provided you have a narrow enough field of vi

            • Some time ago, an amateur astronomer with a decent (but not exactly pro-grade) telescope and a digital imager noticed that parts of the sky were more blurry (due to atmospheric distortion) than others. He also noticed that he could image the same spot in the sky for a while, align the images (on sub-pixel boundaries), throw away the parts of the images which were blurry, keep the "sharp" parts and build a very sharp, composite image. Indeed, the composite image was accurate and considerably sharper than w

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        Keep in mind that access to space has been extremely limited up to this point. Hubble for example is booked out months to years in advance, missions are extended for years or decades because there was no way to fund and launch a replacement, Only recently has tech gotten to the point where smallsats and cubesats are actually useful, and only recently have launch costs dropped below $5,000 per kilo.

        The current leaders in ground-based astronomy have done amazing things, but over the next two decades they'll

        • At this point the cost estimates for the 30 meter telescope on Mauna Kea are up to $1.4 Billion

          This is competitive with the 'estimates' on Hubble, although the 'actuals' were much higher

          By the time the lawsuits are finished, 30-meter may just be a bunch of polished glass looking for a home

          The progress on JamesWebb has slowed to nothing, we need SpaceX to up the game and offer to put some more observatory satellite into orbit

          • number of professional observatories on the ground: 800. That's not counting the many amateurs that provide observations of scientific value.

            number of observatories in orbit at the moment: a few dozen at most, spread over the entire EM spectrum.

            It'll be a while before we can replace all ground-based observations with satellites.

    • On the plus side, Elon can also offer free/cheap launches for orbital/moon/legrange point astronomy. So in the end, the astronomers will be ahead.

    • Just stop recording when a satellite pass is imminent. Although airplanes and clouds, neither of which have realtime updated tracking databases, don't seem to be a problem for astronomy. Kind of pathetic that the space exploration haters have suddenly taken up Astronomy -- a hobby they know nothing about, right after protesting the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope.

      • Just stop recording when a satellite pass is imminent. .

        You mean like all the time? That will be the inevitable result of building the Satellite broadband networks.

        • I think that you have little grasp on how large the sky is, how small a section is observed at a time, and how small a chance there actually is of having a well planned observation occluded by a satellite

    • Terrestrial astronomy? What year is it?

      If Elon can launch all these Starlink satellites, he can launch an assload of astronomy satellites too. Just as soon as we stop wasting money on terrestrial ones and pay him to do so.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        If Elon can launch all these Starlink satellites, he can launch an assload of astronomy satellites too. Just as soon as we stop wasting money on terrestrial ones and pay him to do so.

        Giant mirrors manufactured and polished to sub-micrometer precision are terribly hard to launch without breaking them. "An assload" isn't very useful if none of them actually has the resolution to see anything new. Then they're just stargazing like 99.9% of amateur astronomers do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bengie ( 1121981 )
      I wonder about that. Elon is claiming that while the cluster of them were clearly visible shortly after launch, they were not in their final orbit and were tumbling. He says good luck finding them with an optical telescope now that they're in their final place.

  • Approve and launch these yesterday! We need broadband on airplanes. Netflix and youtube on an airplane would be game changing. Astronomy will adapt. I don't need fools who have never looked through a telescope to cry about astronomers. I am strongly into amateur astronomy, but I also love space. Space industry must advance, revenue from space technologies is important as a stepping stone to Mars and beyond.

    • They've launched 240 so far in 4 launches (plus 2 demo units).

      They've said they need 6-8 launches to get enough coverage to begin rollout. So they're close.

  • It may seem like alot, but 1M will not be nearly enough.... Here is why:

    - There are about 10M RV owners in the US, and quite a few live in them year-round. Many of the ones I know are full time telecommuters

    - Quite a few people living in Rural areas do not have Cable/Wired-ISDN/4G connections

    - Boats/cars/trucks

    - Military *will* want access....
    So, I imagine the first round of being able to "purchase" a station becomes available, it will be sold out in days (if not hours) of the offering....
    (T

    • >So, I imagine the first round of being able to "purchase" a station becomes available, it will be sold out in days (if not hours) of the offering....

      I'll be getting the autopilot option with mine.

    • Keep in mind this is only FCC licenses, and you're right, for American coverage, that really only catches the most remote people with no access. It would not surprise me if SpaceX is in talks with other nations' respective spectrum allocators for similar licenses. There's little point have thousands of satellites in orbit just to serve 3-4% of the most remote users of a single country.
    • Military already has access.

      https://spacenews.com/air-forc... [spacenews.com]

      The article mentions an upcoming test with an AC-130. Trying to find the article talking about the fact that they tested it. Controllers in the CONUS were able to connect, live, to an AC-130 and direct fire on targets. The bandwidth was sufficient and the latency was low enough they could select moving targets and see them splashed, real-time.

      From the other side of the globe.

      Oh, yeah. Uncle Sam is REAL interested.

  • I can't wait. Only have local telco for service. 12/1 service but I've never ever seen more than 10

  • Yes, let's put more out-of-control junk up there (along with the pieces they eventually shed). We have no other alternatives. Profit is king. What could possibly go wrong?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      These are in LEO, atmospheric resistance will eventually deorbit all of them.

    • These satellites are made and put in orbit in such a way that they will deorbit toward their end of life. Remember also that Tesla reuses their first stage rockets, something that other companies just throw away (i.e. orbits for years/decades) as space trash. The use of space and space exploration in general is never going away. However, Tesla is showing how it can be managed correctly. I don't understand why there is so much animosity toward Telsa and Musk in general?

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