Sat Analyst

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@TMFAssociates With a ~5 year lifetime (less if in VLEO), Starlink needs to launch 40 satellites a week forever just to maintain today’s constellation. Factories are Capex - at what point are satellites simply considered consumables and counted as OPEX?

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@FREESPEECH1017 @alx They don’t use mail-in voting. Perhaps Californians don’t like ink on their fingers.

https://t.co/zBeNDW1ry0

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@SemiAnalysis_ @TMFAssociates One of the first articles I’ve seen to describe the latency issues of LEO DC (ie the data/compute you want may be half a world away). The proximity of DC in various global clusters today mean they can share storage - will orbital DC physically cluster (in SSO) to do the same?

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@FREESPEECH1017 Well used F9 grid fins with syrup.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@philliplyle410 If the FCC decides to put the spectrum out in a new processing round then Viasat will have lost claim to it (in the US) and have to try and recover what they can amidst a flurry of others. Very sad outcome for a resource that is critical to so many global safety systems.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@philliplyle410 A bit of history - Inmarsat (long before Viasat) was compelled by the FCC to loan spectrum to Ligado’s predecessor who wanted to create a terrestrial service underlay. Inmarsat was initially able to collect but as successive businesses failed was unable to reclaim their spectrum.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@philliplyle410 Inmarsat became a creditor in bankruptcies and dragged into never ending renegotiations. Viasat turned up the volume, seeking cash that would likely never come - and putting its claim to the spectrum at risk with their own LEO plan.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@shashj California has “ballot initiatives” that allow specific matters to be directly voted by the public. Of course, when asked, they all favor lower taxes and more spending on their favourites. The process is dominated by competing special interests and avoids hard fiscal decisions.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@ulalaunch @pbdes @Amazonleo Amazon was smart to diversify its launch supply - you never know when a mishap will disrupt the campaign.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@LionnetPierre The first HTS - bowing out at the right time. Led to VHTS and XHTS (VS3). With LEO now becoming predominant it’s not as clear that later birds will recover their cost of capital.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@FREESPEECH1017 @DavidRose_n It would be an ironic twist given Iridium’s history of trying to extract spectrum from Globalstar

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@FREESPEECH1017 Great way to sterilize LEO

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@FREESPEECH1017 Honestly, the book price of a quick-launch F9 is probably more than $120M and SpX Vandenberg (non-Starlink) processing facility manifest looks full - mostly with USG.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@pronounced_kyle @TMFAssociates They know the US is watching and they’ve cuddled a non-military satellite constellation to basically say - we can do this at will. 98.7 deg is a special “sun synchronous” inclination with a LOT of other satellites at differing equator crossing (RAAN) times. Not chosen at random.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@TMFAssociates I expect any changes to phase in while LEO firms focus on narrower 5GNR standards (1.8MHz?). There should also be narrowband IoT allocations, perhaps in guard bands, to support existing and future European civil/commercial IoT markets.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@TMFAssociates I will be surprised if they don’t move towards at least a third allocation within the band, shrinking existing two allocations to 10x10 over some period of time. It takes at least 20MHz in each direction to get 4 color reuse for current 5GNR so even current setup won’t support.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@TMFAssociates With sufficient density, inter-satellite links will simplify to physical trailer hitches.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@FREESPEECH1017 While that is an impressive number of beam centres, the more important figure for capacity is the degree of frequency reuse within the footprint.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@BeenThereCap @TMFAssociates @GavinSBaker There’s a big difference between possible and practical. One factor few discuss is the fact that data overhead will be on the other side of the planet in 45min. Replicating data to reduce latency would make the storage and interconnect highly inefficient.

[Sat Analyst @cto451]

@RunwayGirl @Megaconstellati This has long been the plan for HBC+, ie. the company that controls the plane/router controls the network and can get recurring revenue from it. Commoditises connectivity, which will drive out profit from the individual network operators to the benefit of airlines (and Airbus)