Why SpaceX And Amazon Are Launching 42,000+ Satellites

Since the beginning of the space age, more than 8,800 objects have been launched into Earth's orbit. But in a few years, that number could increase significantly. Private companies plan to launch tens of thousands of

satellites

into space to beam Internet to customers on Earth. Elon Musk's SpaceX alone has announced plans to launch 42,000

satellites

as part of its Starlink Internet project. If this happens, SpaceX alone will be responsible for quintupling the number of spacecraft launched by all of humanity. Technically, a satellite refers to any object that orbits another larger object in space, such as the Earth orbiting the sun.

But when we talk about satellites, we usually think of man-made satellites. The first artificial satellite launched into space was called Sputnik and was about the size of a beach ball. This is Russia on October 4, 1957. On the launch pad is the First Sputnik Assembly. Loosely translated as "travel companion to Earth." The Soviet Union launches the first Earth satellite. Sputnik marked the beginning of the space race. And since then, we have put more and more objects into orbit. Now, companies like SpaceX, Amazon, Telesat and OneWeb want to launch thousands of satellites to form what they call megaconstellations. A megaconstellation is a network that has hundreds, or even thousands, of satellites in orbit and working together in a complete system.

The reason these companies are pursuing these mega-constellations essentially comes down to two factors. One is that the cost of hardware for these types of satellites has gone down and their size has decreased considerably. And the second is that there is a growing demand for data around the world. Therefore, providing high-speed data to any point on the planet is an increasingly valuable asset. Satellites providing Internet are not necessarily a new idea. Companies like Hughes Network Systems and ViaSat are already transmitting Internet to rural areas of the planet that do not have fiber cable connections. About 49 percent of the world's households are still not connected to the Internet.

And these are the people that traditional satellite companies have tried to reach. Today, there are only a small number of satellite consumer Internet offerings. They tend to be more expensive and also tend to have a fairly low number of users. In the United States, there are only about 2 million customers of our more than one hundred million households that use satellite Internet. A big problem with current satellite networks has been latency. Traditional satellites orbit very far from Earth. And that distance increases the overall latency on the network. Latency is the responsiveness of the network. So if you're streaming something online, what's important is how fast it loads or how well it runs.

Most Internet satellites today operate in what is called "geostationary orbit," which is about 36,000 kilometers above the Earth's surface and remain fixed on top of an area. But the satellite systems proposed by SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon and Telesat will operate in what is called "low Earth orbit," or between 180 and 2,000 kilometers above the Earth's surface. In theory, this should reduce latency issues, with speeds up to 20 times faster than current GEO satellites. But to get the same coverage with LEO satellites, you need more. The speed of light transmission in fiber is 40 percent slower than in air or vacuum. In fact, you can build a fairly extensive network of satellites in low Earth orbit and have very fast communications capacity because they are lower.

You actually need more to cover an effective area, right? They simply cannot see all parts of the Earth. Therefore, our higher orbit satellites used to be able to operate with a much smaller number of actual orbiting vehicles, while these new lower Earth orbit constellations require more. However, there is more to it than that. They also need to have adequate power. And if they're going to provide connectivity to a lot of people, they need to have a lot of capacity. Therefore, you need more satellites to do that. Whether having 10.20 thousand or more satellites in orbit is justified for any of these remains to be seen.

Satellites still need something on Earth to receive their signals. Beyond building the satellites for these mega-constellations, these companies will also have to invest in large amounts of ground infrastructure. Thousands or even millions of antennas will be needed around the world to receive the signal from satellites and distribute it to consumers on the ground. Plans to deliver internet from space may sound familiar, as both Facebook and Google have considered developing such satellites before. But Facebook hasn't announced anything in more than a year since it talked about its Athena satellite. And Google is one of the main investors in the SpaceX system.

That's why they are expected to watch Starlink develop very closely. The main companies pursuing megaconstellations are tech giants SpaceX and Amazon, as well as satellite builders OneWeb and Telesat. . The leader in this category, at least by number of satellites launched, is SpaceX, as it has launched 120 of its Starlink satellites so far this year and is scheduled to launch another 60 very soon. And we have confirmation of the deployment. You can hear the team in the background. This is an incredible moment for SpaceX. You can see those flat Starlink satellites slowly gliding from the top of the second stage.

This is the largest number of satellites SpaceX has ever deployed at one time. SpaceX's use of its renewable Falcon 9 rocket dramatically reduces the cost of sending satellites into space. FCC documents show that SpaceX expects Starlink to become operational once at least 800 satellites are deployed. The main value of Starlink is to provide low-latency, high-bandwidth access to sparse and moderately dispersed areas, such as relatively low-density areas. It can probably serve three to five percent of the people in the world. SpaceX started with the idea of ​​

launching

12,000 satellites. But in October 2019, the company requested permission for 30,000 more. SpaceX has also applied to the FCC for up to 1 million ground stations, which end customers will use to communicate with its satellites.

The US Air Force is also testing Starlink satellites on its military aircraft and has so far reported favorable results. SpaceX has said it will begin offering internet service in 2020. Hot on SpaceX's heels is OneWeb, which is already building its own satellites, having launched six earlier this year. We've created a joint venture with Airbus and we have a factory in Cape Canaveral and we've really established a supply chain and we're using the same satellite over and over again to populate our system. And we are going to produce 650 for the first layer of capacity, which will be for global coverage.

But we will go up to 2,000. Like SpaceX, OneWeb has its own set of big-name backers, including Softbank and British business magnate Richard Branson. OneWeb says each of its satellites costs about $1 billion to produce. But unlike SpaceX, OneWeb must rely on Russian-built Soyuz rockets to launch its satellites. Unlike OneWeb and SpaceX, Amazon has not yet launched any satellites and is in an early stage of development as it is still seeking regulatory approval for its Kuiper Network project. Amazon's Project Kuiper plans to launch a total of 3,236 satellites into low Earth orbit. In April 2019, Amazon hired the former leader of SpaceX's satellite program to run Project Kuiper after Musk fired him.

Musk had reportedly become frustrated with the pace of Starlink development. Although it is behind in building satellites, Amazon already has a lead in terrestrial infrastructure. In November 2019, the company announced AWS Ground Station, a new business unit that will build twelve satellite facilities around the world to provide the vital link needed to transmit data to and from satellites in orbit. Furthermore, although it is technically a different company, that of Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin would be the obvious choice to launch these satellites. Also in the mix is ​​Canadian satellite builder Telesat, which has received significant investment so far but has yet to launch any satellites.

They are negotiating with companies that would build their network, which is estimated to cost around $3 billion. Astronomers are now very concerned about these new, large constellations that are being launched. The planned number would exceed all satellites launched to date. And the real challenge here isn't necessarily the number of new releases. It's the shine, how bright these things will be. That will saturate our detectors and cause all kinds of difficulties in astronomical observation. This image, taken from a telescope in Chile in November 2019, illustrates astronomers' concerns. The telescope, intended to view images of distant stars and galaxies, instead captured light trails from 19 Starlink satellites.

Some astronomers took to Twitter to voice their concerns after SpaceX launched the first 60 Starlink satellites in May 2019. Summarized After astronomers raised these concerns, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet that his company I would study how they can reduce the brightness. of these Starlink satellites. SpaceX President Gwen Shotwell also told reporters in December 2019 that they planned to address the issue. SpaceX will put a special coating on the underside of one of the satellites on its third launch to test whether that will decrease the satellite's brightness. We have monthly conference calls with SpaceX engineers to discuss these things.

The LLST project in Chile also has another set of conference calls on a regular basis to try to address these issues. No action has been taken yet, but we are hopeful that something will change. The company says it is committed to keeping the night sky dark. These satellites could also affect radio astronomy. In a statement following the first launch of the Starlink satellites, the International Astronomical Union summarized its concerns by saying: "despite notable efforts to avoid interfering with radio astronomy frequencies, aggregate radio signals emitted from satellite constellations can still threaten astronomical observations at radio wavelengths." Recent advances in radio astronomy, such as obtaining the first image of a black hole or understanding the formation of planetary systems, were only possible thanks to concerted efforts to protect the radio sky from interference.' Another major concern is debris.

This is summarized in a theory called Kessler syndrome, which postulates that when two objects collide in space, they generate more debris that then collides with other objects, creating even more shrapnel and debris until the entirety of Earth's lower orbit is destroyed. becomes impassive. This hypothetical scenario came to life in February 2009, when a dormant Russian communications satellite Cosmo's 2251 collided with an active commercial communications satellite operated by US-based Iridium Satellite. Around 2,000 remains were produced from the incident. The debris is particularly important considering SpaceX, OneWeb and Amazon have said their satellites would have a useful life of only 5 to 7 years, which is about half the lifespan of traditional satellites.

When the companies are done with the satellites or they fail in orbit, they plan to deorbit them, meaning the satellites would be intentionally pushed back into Rarth's atmosphere, where they would burn up during re-entry. One of the key questions facing this industry is who regulates these mega-constellations. And that's a gray area. We are not mandated to approve or reject any space activity by any sovereign government or company. Companies are under the jurisdiction of the state in which they are located. It is up to these states to establish a system of authorization and continuous supervision. In the United States, the authority to regulate these satellites largely rests with the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC is in charge of radio frequency distribution and mitigating debris that may arise from these satellites. Under Ajit Pai, the FCC has been eager to work with these companies. At a 1.6 million foot view, you could say we see a rapidly changing industry in space. And we're trying to make sure that our regulations change with it. A byzantine system of licensing and regulatory approval could be a bottleneck that hurts both consumers and innovators. And that makes a difference because now a satellite can be built in a matter of months, weeks or even days in some cases, and launched by a private provider on demand.

ForksThat's why under my leadership, the FCC is committed to matching the pace of the industry we regulate. Our space agenda involves reducing bureaucracy and giving the green light. In the same speech, Pai promised that the FCC would do a thorough review of its orbital debris rules to address recent market developments. Other US regulators also include the Air Force, FAA, and, in some cases, NOAA. The Air Force maintains the official catalog of objects in orbit that the United States uses to avoid conjunctions and close approaches in orbit. The FAA controls launch licenses, and if you have a camera watching you, you'll need a license from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.

The connectivity market worldwide is certainly over $1 trillion. Of course, you have to look at the market that each of these companies addresses. In many cases, they will not compete very effectively with your local mobile provider or perhaps your fiber to the home provider if you are lucky enough to live in one of those areas. But for areas where there aren't many good options or maybe no options today, this will be an attractive opportunity. However, caution is that there really is a limit to what many people in the world can pay for the internet. You know, if you live in an area where you lack clean water or perhaps don't have a constant supply of food, having internet service may not be your first priority.

We are going to work first on the verticals where there are people willing to pay a lot. On planes and ships. And then we're also working with partners. And those partners are governments and also land mobile operators that want to expand their networks. And then when we think about what we're trying to do as our social mission, which is to connect everyone, I mean, the best line about the company is OneWeb, one world. We want everyone to be connected. Still, some more established satellite companies aren't buying into the hype of low-Earth orbit megaconstellations. ViaSat currently serves around 600,000 residential customers in the US and Europe and is

launching

a new geostationary satellite that expects to be in service globally by 2022.

The reason we have focused on GEOs is that GEOs They seem to be able to offer more bandwidth. and more speed at lower cost, and that's what our end users want. There are also a number of really important risks that still need to be addressed in the LEO environment. A lot of that is regulatory risk. It is not clear that any individual company or country can safely scale the number of satellites being envisioned. And without that scale, there's a big question about how economically viable these systems will be. And the other really important issue is the geographic distribution of demand.

When building a LEO system, satellites should be distributed based on orbital characteristics, not based on ground demand. During a media call in May 2019, Elon Musk estimated that Starlink could generate revenue of $30 billion a year and would be key to funding his vision of colonizing Mars. Experts agree that the estimate is not unreasonable. We believe that satellite constellations can be tremendously profitable. Launching satellite broadband networks involves a significant upfront cost, but they are very important cash generators. So when we think about Project Kuiper, you know, taking advantage of a $100 billion opportunity, we think about that $100 billion opportunity as consumer broadband as a whole, with Project Kuiper, you know, in a position to take a portion of that.

People should not get carried away by launching seemingly outrageous numbers from individual satellites. We really have to stay focused on what they enable, what the business will be, and what kind of services they offer to consumers and businesses.