Category Archives: Satellite

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a Starlink satellite above the Twin Cities

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CBS News reports…

Minnesotans spotted a strange sight in the sky this week — a string of multiple lights

“We had no idea what it was,” said Heidi Benson from Champlin.

Chloe Fischer saw it in Brooklyn Park and says she did a double take.

“It was kind of scary, because I feel like that’s one of those things we should either hear about or get a heads up about just so people don’t have that panic moment,” Fischer said.

The lights were low earth orbit satellites from the company SpaceX.

They’re part of the Starlink network that provides satellite internet service.

Star Tribune article on rural broadband spurs comments on fiber vs satellite

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In a weekly catch-up of comments on his columns, Star Tribune’s Evan Ramstad noted reactions to his recent column on rural broadband…

In the online comments section of my Oct. 22 column about rural broadband, the suggestion appeared again and again that people in parts of Minnesota without access to broadband could subscribe to the Starlink satellite service, which is offered by Elon Musk’s SpaceX venture.

That indeed is an option, though, as several commenters noted, not as reliable as optical fiber. Starlink dishes need what’s known as “line of sight” access to a satellite. Trees and hills can get in the way.

Amazon getting into the satellite internet business

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KSTP TV reports…

Amazon launched the first test satellites for its planned internet service on Friday as a rival to SpaceX’s broadband network.

United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket blasted off with the pair of test satellites, kicking off a program that aims to improve global internet coverage with an eventual 3,236 satellites around Earth.

Amazon plans to begin offering service by the end of next year.

SpaceX launches new super huge satellite to improve broadband in rural areas

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MSN reports…

SpaceX delayed by a day the launch of Hughes Network Systems’ Jupiter 3, a satellite designed to modernize an old-school approach to space-based internet access. The Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the satellite is now set to take off at 8:04 p.m. PT Thursday, SpaceX said after a “violation of abort criteria” scrubbed the earlier Wednesday launch plan.

The “vehicle and payload are in good health,” SpaceX said.

When it goes into service in the fourth quarter of 2023, Jupiter 3 should quadruple Hughes’ download speeds to 100 megabits per second, making the technology more useful in a data-hungry world. Hughes hasn’t yet revealed prices for the faster new service.

Launching a single massive communications satellite contrasts sharply with much of the satellite broadband innovation today from SpaceX’s Starlink and rivals like OneWeb and Amazon’s Kuiper. They employ “constellations” of hundreds of smaller, cheaper satellites orbiting relatively close in low Earth orbit.

Hughes’ Jupiter 3 couldn’t be more different. It’s a single nine-ton satellite the size of a bus — 27 feet long and 127 feet wide once its solar panels are deployed. It’s designed to circle the Earth in sync with the planet’s rotation in a much higher geostationary orbit 22,236 miles above the equator. That choice parking place is fixed in the sky, meaning antennas can be pointed at it without having to reconnect with a constant parade of low Earth orbit satellites whizzing by closer to the planet.

Most of us are better served by cable or fiber-optic broadband that offers higher speeds and shorter communication delays, called latency. But for rural customers and others who are beyond the reach of more conventional network technology, satellite communications can play a key role connecting people who are hard to bring online.

A Duluth stargazer view of Satellites: will too many spoil the view?

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I loved astronomy as a kid. One of my favorite things about heading outside of the Cities is the clear, starry sky at night. So I have to admit, I do wonder what will happen to the night sky as humans keep launching satellites. So I was fascinated to read about what Bob King, a photographer from Duluth, was noticing.

The Duluth News Tribune reports…

Back in September I described a new 4G broadband satellite cellular service planned by AST SpaceMobile. At the time, their prototype unit, BlueWalker3 , orbited the Earth but had yet to unfold, the reason it was too faint for most casual skywatchers to track. That’s changed. On November 10, the company “unboxed” the satellite — basically a squash-court-sized antenna array — which greatly increased its surface area and therefore its capacity to reflect sunlight.

The very next night, the first reports trickled in, describing BlueWalker 3 as brighter than most stars. I’ve spent the past few evenings observing passes of the satellite from my driveway here in Duluth, Minnesota, and can confirm those observations. I’ve seen it now on three occasions. During each appearance it showed up on time and grew as bright as magnitude 1.3, equal to Deneb in the Northern Cross and very easy to see with the naked eye even through light cloud and moderate light pollution.

The satellite circles the planet in low-Earth orbit between 312 and 327 miles (508-527km) altitude or about 60-75 miles higher than the International Space Station. Why should you care? BlueWalker 3 is the predecessor of a new “constellation” of some 110 larger satellites (called BlueBirds) that will launch aboard SpaceX rockets in the next few years. The first five are slated for liftoff in late 2023 .

Being larger they’ll likely also be brighter. As skywatchers I think it’s important to know about any new project that adds more machines to the night sky so we can see what’s happening with informed eyes. Like most people I enjoy satellite-watching but fear we’ve reached a saturation point. There are now so many “moving lights” up there they distract from our appreciation of the wild essence of the night.

The author admits that we all want better broadband or a cellphone with coverage everywhere but he recommends contacting the FCC and requiring companies to find ways to lessen the impact of their bright and growing satellites.

Starlink is worried that potential use of 12 Ghz spectrum will interrupt service

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Ars Technica reports…

SpaceX is asking Starlink customers to help the company win a regulatory battle against Dish Network. In an email urging users to contact the Federal Communications Commission and members of Congress, SpaceX yesterday said a Dish plan to use the 12 GHz spectrum band for mobile service will cause “harmful interference [to Starlink users] more than 77 percent of the time and total outage of service 74 percent of the time, rendering Starlink unusable for most Americans.”

Those percentages come from a study SpaceX submitted to the FCC last week, which claims mobile service in the 12 GHz band would interfere with Starlink user terminals that use the same spectrum for downloads. Tuesday’s email from SpaceX was posted on the Starlink subreddit and covered by The Verge.

The US is quietly paying millions to send Starlink terminals to Ukraine, contrary to SpaceX claims

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This is a double share of Benton Institute for Broadband & Society’s recap of a Washington Post article…

After Russia launched its invasion, Ukrainian officials pleaded for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to dispatch their Starlink terminals to the region to boost Internet access. “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route,” Musk replied to broad online fanfare. Since then, the company has cast the actions in part as a charitable gesture. “I’m proud that we were able to provide the terminals to folks in Ukraine,” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said, later adding, “I don’t think the US has given us any money to give terminals to Ukraine.” But according to documents obtained by The Washington Post, the US federal government is in fact paying millions of dollars for a significant portion of the equipment and for the transportation costs to get it to Ukraine. On April 5, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced it has purchased more than 1,330 terminals from SpaceX to send to Ukraine, while the company donated nearly 3,670 terminals and the Internet service itself. While the agency initially called it a “private sector donation valued at roughly $10 million,” it did not specify how much it is contributing for the equipment or for the cost of transportation. Sometime after the announcement, the agency removed key details from its release. It now states that USAID “has delivered 5,000 Starlink Terminals” to Ukraine “through a public-private partnership” with SpaceX but does not specify the quantity nor value of the donations.

Amazon launching satellites for “fast, affordable” broadband

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports…

Amazon has deals with three rocket companies to help launch communications satellites that the online retail giant says will help provide fast, affordable broadband to millions of underserved people around the world.

Seattle-based Amazon said Tuesday that Arianespace, United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin will combine for up to 83 launches during the next five years, deploying the majority of Amazon’s 3,236 low-earth satellites to be used for what Amazon is calling “Project Kuiper.”

Not a lot of specifics offered but they do note…

Amazon has 1,000 employees working on Project Kuiper, which it says, once deployed, will be able to serve tens of millions of residential, business, and government customers in places without dependable broadband.

NASA concerned about SpaceX’s plan to launch thousands more satellites

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The Wall Street Journal reports…

Elon Musk’s satellite internet venture is fueling concerns from one of SpaceX’s most important customers—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration—about traffic congestion and potential collisions hundreds of miles above Earth.

SpaceX has been ramping up satellite deployments to power Starlink, the high-speed internet service the company has been rolling out in markets around the world. In January, SpaceX asked the Federal Communications Commission to authorize the company to use a particular setup for 30,000 additional satellites it would send up over time. Those satellites represent the bulk of the 42,000-satellite fleet that SpaceX hopes to ultimately deploy for Starlink.

NASA said in an early February letter to the FCC that the 30,000 devices, if deployed, would significantly boost the number of tracked objects in space—by a factor of more than five in certain lower orbits.

“An increase of this magnitude into these confined altitude bands inherently brings additional risk of debris generating collision events,” the space agency said in the letter. NASA also raised concerns about how the automated-maneuvering systems that Starlink satellites use may interact with other networks of satellites with similar capabilities, given the dearth of rules to govern such interactions.

The sky is falling! Or maybe it’s just SpaceX satellites

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The headline is hyperbole, but I couldn’t resist. The satellites aren’t falling onto the streets but they aren’t keeping in orbit either. AP News reports…

SpaceX’s newest fleet of satellites is tumbling out of orbit after being struck by a solar storm.

Up to 40 of the 49 small satellites launched last week have either reentered the atmosphere and burned up, or are on the verge of doing so, the company said in an online update Tuesday night.

SpaceX said a geomagnetic storm last Friday made the atmosphere denser, which increased the drag on the Starlink satellites, effectively dooming them.

Ground controllers tried to save the compact, flat-panel satellites by putting them into a type of hibernation and flying them in a way to minimize drag. But the atmospheric pull was too great, and the satellites failed to awaken and climb to a higher, more stable orbit, according to the company.

SpaceX still has close to 2,000 Starlink satellites orbiting Earth and providing internet service to remote corners of the world. They circle the globe more than 340 miles up (550 kilometers).

Premium SpaceX gets 150-500 Mbps download for $500 per month

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Business Insider reports…

Elon Musk’s SpaceX released a faster version of its Starlink satellite internet service. It comes with a $2,500 kit and costs 5 times the standard service.

Some details…

The website said users of the premium version could expect download speeds of 150 to 500 Megabits per second, compared with maximum speeds of 150 Mbps available to standard-service customers.

A standard subscription to the network is $99 a month, but Starlink Premium will cost $500 a month, the order page said.

The deposit for the premium service is $500, compared with $100 for the standard Starlink service.

It’s an interesting proposition. After reading hundreds of comments from rural broadband users, I learned that people are very frustrated with their options (in some areas). They are very hopeful for Starlink to be the answer but at the time of the surveys, Starlink was still in beta most people who mentioned it were on a waiting list.

The costs will likely be a barrier for most people but that perhaps this is an opportunity for SpaceX to field test (and presumably prove) the speeds they have been reporting. But at this cost at least in many rural areas, the customer base will likely not interfere with speeds – so it feels like a padded test.

Le Sueur talks to State Reps and Senator about frustration with RDOF and State grants creating blockage for better broadband

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Le Sueur County News reports…

According to a report by the Blandin Foundation, nearly one in four Le Sueur County households are under-served or unserved. But despite the record $70 million in Border to Border grants, Le Sueur County is at risk of not seeing a single cent in state grants.

Many under-served and unserved areas of Le Sueur County are now ineligible for Border to Border grant dollars since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auctioned over $408 million in grants to internet service providers to construct fiber optic networks across northeastern and southern Minnesota.

Of all the companies competing for grants, the largest sum is expected to go to a little-known ISP: LTD Broadband. The telecom provider bid for over $311,000 in 102,000 locations across the state. LTD’s planned fiber optic network encompasses approximately two thirds of unserved and under-served areas in the county.

I’ve written before about the situation in Le Sueur, they have been ineligible for state funding because of the LTD proposed opportunity with RDOF. So far nothing has changed as we wait to hear with LTD gets the funding but Le Sueur has been working to tell the story and on new plans…

Le Sueur County officials and the Board of Commissioners aired these frustrations to state legislators in a meeting on Tuesday. County officials pushed Sen. Rich Draheim (R-Madison Lake), Rep. Todd Lippert (DFL-Northfield) and Sen. Julie Rosen (R-Fairmont) to bring the eligibility issue to the DEED Office, which distributes Border-to-Border grants, and the governor’s office.

“It seems that the state is going to receive a significant amount of money from the federal government for broadband investments, and if this policy issue isn’t addressed, we’re not going to be eligible for these investments,” said County Administrator Joe Martin.

Draheim responded that the state was tied by conditions attached to federal dollars and believe the county’s concerns are primarily tied to the federal government’s actions.

“I think it stems more from the federal government than the state government,” said Draheim. “I definitely will be in contact with the broadband department and others at the state level to see if there’s anything we could work around, but I think we need to be talking to Washington and not St. Paul.”

Draheim offered to have a non-partisan staff member answer clarifying questions on whether it was a state decision or federal conditions that led to the county’s grant request being denied.

In the future, Draheim advocated for the state to shift its focus away from fiber networks and toward subsidizing rural high speed internet through satellite dishes.

”It’s very disappointing for Le Sueur County that we’re in this position. Moving forward, I think the state legislators are going to have to look at what’s the next step,” said Draheim. “We have literally pumped billions of dollars into internet across Minnesota. Unfortunately, most of those federal dollars go to ‘rural internet,’ but it just connects large cities through rural Minnesota and doesn’t help the people of rural Minnesota.”

I think it’s worth noting Draheim’s focus on satellite. I’m afraid we may see a resurgence of interest in satellite in the legislature because it has gotten better but it still does not compete with the fiber, which is built for today’s need and future needs. People and businesses will move to an area with fiber to build a future; they won’t move to areas with satellite-only.

Starlink speeds flattening as new customers are added

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Tom’s Guide reports…

Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet company, seems to be hitting a speed plateau, according to data collected by one of the biggest speed test websites on the internet.

Ookla, known for running SpeedTest.net, says that Starlink speeds didn’t increase during the third quarter of this year. In some areas, speeds began to wane.

According to Ookla, median speeds between Q2 to Q3 2021 saw a decrease from 97.23 to 87.25 Mbps. Ookla speculates that this could be a symptom of Starlink adding new customers to its satellite network, which may eat away at available bandwidth.

Starlink out of beta but not shipping soon due to chip shortages

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Ars Technica reports…

If you ordered Starlink broadband service and don’t receive your “Dishy McFlatface” satellite dish any time soon, the global chip shortage may be one reason why.

“Silicon shortages have delayed production which has impacted our ability to fulfill orders. Please visit your Account page for the most recent estimate on when you can expect your order to be fulfilled,” SpaceX said in an FAQ on the Starlink support website. The language was added to the Starlink website on Thursday night, according to a PCMag article.

Starlink has apparently just exited its beta status. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in September that it would emerge from beta in October, and the word “beta” was deleted from descriptions on the Starlink homepage late last week. The website was also updated to advertise “download speeds between 100Mbps and 200Mbps and latency as low as 20ms in most locations,” an improvement over the previously stated “50Mbps to 150Mbps and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations.”

But the move from beta to general availability doesn’t necessarily coincide with widespread availability. PCMag also pointed out that expected shipment times for Starlink have been pushed to late 2022 or early 2023 in additional parts of the US. The Starlink website reports expected service times of “early to mid 2022” in other areas.

The scoop on Starlink? Depends who you ask!

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It was fun to see MinnPost pick up an impromptu conversation on StarLink that happened during the Broadband conference earlier this month. Starlink is the low orbit satellite service that is in beta testing now. I’ve written about it before the MinnPost article does a nice job outlining it.

Proponents:

  • State Rep Garofalo
    “This is just another example of technology solving our problems for us,” Garofalo said. “When they’re talking about making sure that communities have access, well everyone already does have access. The infrastructure is already in place, it’s just the monthly fees.
    “Rather than subsidizing a fiber connection to a wealthy suburbanite who has a cabin in northern Minnesota, put some means testing onto some Starlink annual plans,” Garofalo said. “That way you’re going to get more people more access to broadband at a lower price.”

Concerned:

  • Economic Developer Lezlie Sauter
    One person who chimed in was Lezlie Sauter, the economic development coordinator at Pine County in east-central Minnesota. While the Legislature and some local governments have consistently funded broadband grants used on fiber in recent years, Sauter said in a later interview that some people are dismissive of her efforts to expand fiber broadband in the area with public money “because they’re like ‘Starlink will fix it all, I don’t know why we’re even talking about putting fiber in the ground.’ ”
    Starlink could be the only option for some people, but she said it’s not affordable for many while and fiber internet is reliable, fast and “almost fail proof” since it’s in the ground. Pine County residents have among the worst access to quality broadband in the state.
  • Economic Developer Michelle Marotzke
    Marotzke, from the Willmar-based Mid-Minnesota Development Commission, said Starlink poses other concerns. Problems may not be able to be fixed as easily as traditional infrastructure, where someone can call a provider like an electric cooperative and have a technician show up at their house.
    Starlink’s internet can still be slowed by inclement weather and obstacles like trees, and Marotzke said ongoing costs associated with thousands of satellites could prove to be expensive compared to fiber that requires little maintenance once it’s buried. “We have technology that is proven, that is solid,” Marotzke said. “We can literally put the shovel in the ground and get it done.”
  • Computer Science Professor Peter Peterson
    Peterson, the UMD professor, also expressed doubts about Starlink being a broad solution to internet problems long term. SpaceX has to keep launching satellites as it gains customers, raising environmental “space junk” concerns and affecting astronomy. (Starlink has previously said it hopes to launch 42,000 satellites.) Rural America also shouldn’t be forced to rely on one company, Peterson said, because if there are issues or outages that could affect a massive number of people. But if another competitor comes along, he said that would only grow the huge constellation of satellites.
  • Chair of MN Broadband Coalition Jay Trusty
    One common argument among fiber proponents is also that it can be done now, while Starlink isn’t widely available yet. “We’re already behind,” said Jay Trusty, who chairs the Minnesota Rural Broadband Coalition, which includes telecom companies, counties, economic development officials and even the Mayo Clinic.
    During the pandemic, Trusty said, “we had all these kids that couldn’t access their schools, people stayed at home trying to work from home.”
    “We’ve got broadband issues that aren’t going to wait five, 10, 15 years.”

Professor Peterson concern for competition is compelling; lack of competition leaves rural residents stuck. I think that is what had folks most concerned because even those concerned about Starlink, aren’t opposed to it – in fact many have tried to sign up for it…

Despite their concerns, public officials skeptical of Starlink said it could still be a good option for many Minnesotans. Sauter, from Pine County, signed up for the service roughly eight months ago, though she said she has yet to receive equipment.

Peterson, the UMD professor, said his only option in Lakewood Township north of Duluth is brutally slow DSL. And while he hopes his area can get grant money to start a fiber cooperative as a long-term solution, for now he also applied for Starlink and is on a waiting list. “I’m signed up for it because we don’t have fiber in our neighborhood,” Peterson said.