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Truly incredible!
Musk a few years ago fired Starlink leadership and took more control and evalute new leaders. Many on HN were doing the usual "haha Musk an idiot" thing but he decitions have clearly lead to a successful program.
If Musk was the CEO for a year and Starlink was develope before, he might be getting to much credit. But he has literally been in charge for 20 years now.
Literally everybody understands that SpaceX has lots if people working on these projects.
They are still not making money and will require starship before that happens. You can look at other ventures like one web that just didn't get the press that starlink got despite having similar characteristics. Vertical integration with the launch is the only thing that starlink apart technology wise.
You shit on Starlink and then hype up OneWeb a system that is generations behind technologically, went bust and has far, far, far less capability. While also being worst for space pollution.
Also SpaceX just made a profit, despite investment in future Starlink and Starship. Starlink is already cashflow positive and its still in its first generation.
They did not make a profit. That was a speculative article and nobody knows how they're accounting for starlink costs.
Now since you might not want to count that (despite mass production of sats being a huge challange), lets look at some other things. While Electric propulsion isn't knew, it wasn't exactly common specially for non science missions. Starlink v1 used Krypton, as far as I know Krypton wasn't used on operational sats. The Starlink v2 Argon thruster is pretty damn revolutionary in its performance and the first use of argon on operational. So if you want to name 'one' thing this would be it and it isn't really debatable.
Starlinks laser communication is top of the line in terms of performance and having a whole constellation of laser link sats coordinating for best connection is certainty unique. And not as a research project, but actually operational on commercial sats.
Starlink flat construction is also pretty unique, making so many sats stack-able is a significant advance if you compare it how the other largest constellations were deployed. There is additional innovation in the way they are deployed threw a rocket rotation and a spring mechanism, its unique and brilliant.
The Starlink sats also use a sun shield to make the sats harder to see for earth observation, as far as I know this has not been done before.
Starlink operations is also whole unique, on a personal per sat bases SpaceX is leading by far. SpaceX has a very small team for operations and made excellent use of automatic avoidance on a large scale, doing avoidance even for even unlikely collisions.
We simple don't have all the information, we don't know everything there is to know about the antennas for example. They are likely quite a unique design as the ground terminals are, but we just don't know.
I could go on to talk about ground systems as well, be lets leave it here.
The simple reality is, Starlink as system is fundamentally revolutionary. Any claim that cheaper rockets is the only 'new thing' is basically putting a board before your head and screaming 'lalalalal'. Even being charitable and assume that all individual technologies were demonstrated as research before doesn't change how revolutionary the system as a whole is.
Dishy is the first phased array antenna widely available to consumers, as far as I know.
Starlink is the first low orbit massive satellite constellation. The scale is truly new. The older geostationary communication satellites are a distinctly different system.
Dishy is the first phased array antenna that was willing to take a huge loss on each sale to consumers. This goes back to the point of getting VC and FCC money to subsidize the service. The estimated cost of the dish is still $1100-$2000 since SpaceX doesn't have any phased array technology that's proprietary, so at $500 they're taking a loss.
> Starlink is the first low orbit massive satellite constellation
Massive is a property of the launch cadence and not anything specific to the satellites.
> The older geostationary communication satellites are a distinctly different system.
What is different about the satellites compared to something like Iridium, O3b, Intelsat, etc?
There's no FCC subsidy for it. And the fact it's still running means it wasn't necessary for deployment. It will just make profits come faster. Or losses stop faster
The loss on the phased arrays is much bigger since there was a commitment to $2400 for the first million.(Ukraine is a big source of losses if the Feds haven't fully paid up)
But consider what other phased arrays sell for
They won $900M in RDOF funding (based on a lie), which is still in limbo because of the poor performance. It's likely they will still get some or all of that since not all $900M was tied to the same speed tier. There is absolutely no proof this can be sustained forever, just like there isn't for Uber or Lyft not being profitable.
Other phased arrays with their specs do not sell for much more. They're small, low G/T, low EIRP, "cheap" units.
Kymeta dishes in Ukraine that replaced starlink go for $25k minimum
Not one dime of RDOF was paid. And knowing how the last RDOF equivalent worked they had every right to apply and get awarded (delivery is dubious though except in less densely populated areas). They don't seem to fake speed tests too unlike the US Telco they are partnering with for direct to cell.
The flat design means way more sats per launch. And that means you're mass rather than volume limited. It's a big difference maker since theres no central stand. Check out the SpaceX OneWeb launch as a comparison.
Iridium links are microwave. SpaceX is a laser. The tech is licensed. It's not just bit rate. And I don't think you can do 10 to 20 up on Iridium. is it possible? Is it possible at say Viasat Maritime prices? Iridium to carry drone video and/or Netflix at $10k to $20k p/m?
Is it financially viable? Time will tell. Some space economist claims SpaceX twisted the arm of the Feds for over a billion in Ukraine. I don't believe him
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36552.1200
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5MEPWsdo-UE
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/36165/why-will-sta...
I don't know if it's cheaper because it's something im not particularly familiar with.
But there's people who think SpaceX isn't launching (internal costs) for less than 60 million anyway and reuse isn't saving money
The fact that I can get a 210+ Mbps bandwidth[1] for a monthly cost comparable to the cheapest alternative ISP available to me (which forces 10 Mbps cap on me)?
How much would it cost to blast that speed for 24 hours on Iridium? Trick question, Iridium is "176 Kbps to 704 Kbps"!
[1]: Just ran a speed test for that number, it's actual not theoretical.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37250468
You can say 210Mbps all you want, but that's simply not even close to what most starlink users get.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/ookla-starlinks-...
Starlink's median download speeds in the US dropped from 90.6Mbps to 62.5Mbps between the first and second quarters of 2022, according to Ookla speed tests.
Satellite broadband has been able to hit 200Mbps to a single terminal for over a decade, but it makes no business sense to do that. This is why Starlink speeds are slowly degrading to where legacy satellite companies are. So having an anecdote from 4 years ago where the first Starlink terminals hit those speeds has really no basis in reality today as the system fills up.
What me being in a relatively uncongested area means is that I'm exactly the kind of customer Starlink was meant for...
And these are peak hours rather than median living day hours that providers usually use
There is no precedent for this, and it was a credible question whether Russia would use anti satellite weapons triggering a larger war.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_...
As you implied, reductively saying “running a website where you post 280 characters is something that is easy for someone who is good at running companies that are good at doing other things” is laughably untrue.
as you can already see, aligning with conservative fascists on twitter/X isn't really doubt free. also he doesn't design starlink, thousands of engineers do.
Elon Musk obtained a B.A. in Physics and a B.S. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, with concentrations in finance and entrepreneurial management. These degrees were officially conferred on May 19, 1997.
Sources:
1. Ron Ozio, Director of Media Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, confirmed Elon Musk's educational background.
The information can be found at: https://undergrad.wharton.upenn.edu/alumni-leaders/ | (Elon Musk, C’97, W’97) https://magazine.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/fall-2010/he-wont-...
2. Additional information about Elon Musk's education can be found at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elon-Musk#ref341081
It's fascinating how some individuals still spew blatantly false information online when it's easily verifiable. All for a lame attempt to dunk on someone.
His BA diploma is missing any reference to physics. This is the same school that graduated Donald Trump.
More doubt here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/
>In 2019, Aaron Greenspan, owner of the legal website Plainsite, as well as a frequent critic of, and litigant against, Elon Musk, asked Penn for a statement on Musk's degrees. In response, the university's public affairs office stated that:
>>Elon Musk earned a B.A. in physics and a B.S. in economics (concentrations: finance and entrepreneurial management) from the University of Pennsylvania. The degrees were awarded on May 19, 1997.