back to article Starlink's new satellites emit 30x more radio interference than before, drowning cosmic signals

The second generation of Starlink satellites being lobbed into orbit by SpaceX might not reflect as much sunlight as the old ones, yet astronomers say they're leaking up to 32 times the unintended radio waves instead. In a paper published yesterday, a group of scientists reported that observations at the Netherlands Institute …

  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Alien

    Just for curious...

    How much does it cast to launch each of these several thousand satellites? Is there really enough traffic to make it pay? Or is it a huge vanity project?

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Just for curious...

      Musk claimed late last year that Starlink was "cash flow positive". Which means that the monthly revenue from customers exceeds the ongoing monthly cost to launch new satellites. Since the satellites have a finite lifespan estimated at ~5 years they'll forever be launching them.

      The long term problem for Starlink is that as fiber and 5G expand, the potential customer base for satellite internet will shrink every year so the price gonna increase over time.

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge

        Re: Just for curious...

        > The long term problem for Starlink is that as fiber and 5G expand, the potential customer base for satellite internet will shrink every year.

        Maybe. My ISPs are getting worse, not better. I'm getting tired enough of AT&T & Spectrum's shit that I'm starting to seriously consider Starlink.

        1. cyberdemon Silver badge
          Mushroom

          Re: Just for curious...

          Starlink only becomes "useful" briefly at the fleeting moments of Armageddon, when warring states start chopping comms cables all over the oceans.

          Musk is both predicting and accelerating this apocalypse, and stands to make a pointless profit while the world goes to Hell.

          1. chivo243 Silver badge
            Coat

            Re: Just for curious...

            Earth, Elon's personal toilet and dumping ground.

            1. Rich 2 Silver badge

              Re: Just for curious...

              What do toy expect? This is what happens when you employ the “work fast - break things” bollocky modern tech thinking

          2. O'Reg Inalsin

            Re: Just for curious...

            Is it that hard to disable satellites?

            1. MachDiamond Silver badge

              Re: Just for curious...

              "Is it that hard to disable satellites?"

              Yes, in comparison to disabling the far fewer ground stations they have to communicate with.

              1. O'Reg Inalsin

                Re: Just for curious...

                All right then - satellite communication systems - I should have explicitly included that. The point is, such a system can be disabled. Furthermore, for any side whose ground stations have been disabled, there is no longer any reason to hold back on filling the orbits with debris.

                1. jake Silver badge

                  Re: Just for curious...

                  "there is no longer any reason to hold back on filling the orbits with debris."

                  Except that debris would be a major hazard to "the good guys", regardless of which of the many orthogonal "sides" you consider "good".

                  1. imanidiot Silver badge

                    Re: Just for curious...

                    The problem is that there's too many states that have A-SAT capabilities and all it takes is for one of them to decide that the enemy having space assets is more detrimental than them NOT having space assets any longer. Because at that point they'll take out a few star link (and star shield) sats and kessler syndrome will do the rest

                2. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

                  Re: Just for curious...

                  I'm not sure what Starlink's comand and control architecture looks like. But its service is symetrical. And the C&C channels can't take up as much bandwidth as some autistic sperg downloading multiple movie torrents. So if it's just a matter of the controllers having the correct credentials, C&C could originate from just another Starlink ground station. Or a few of them.

                  They could control the constellation from some backpacker in the woods with a portable antenna and transciever.

              2. JClouseau

                Re: Just for curious...

                But will disabling the stations stop the sats from emitting whatever garbage they are emitting ?

                1. DJO Silver badge

                  Re: Just for curious...

                  Probably the opposite. The sats on losing their uplink will start to send CQ messages to try to re-establish it.

              3. Oneman2Many Bronze badge

                Re: Just for curious...

                That is where Starlink has an advantage with its laser sat to sat communications, it can relay traffic to ground stations pretty much anywhere in the world apparently though obviously at the cost of bandwidth.

                Russia and China have predictably said that it can disable Starlink and the Ukraine war has shown periods of outages though I don't know at what cost to Russian communications.

          3. SundogUK Silver badge

            Re: Just for curious...

            Whoa! Bluanon has landed...

          4. DJO Silver badge

            Re: Just for curious...

            Not really. What's more likely? The groundstations are connected by a dedicated backbone or they use the common backbone everybody else uses? Also in the events you suggest, do you think the billing department will be able to operate as normal?

        2. hoola Silver badge

          Re: Just for curious...

          Why will StarLink be any better?

          It will not, at some contention always becomes an issue, whatever the solution that is being used to connect to the Internet.

        3. Ythermos

          Re: Just for curious...

          In a lot of Europe 5G is basically ubiquitous and even unlimited data is like 20-25 Eur per month.

      2. Marty McFly Silver badge
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: Just for curious...

        >"The long term problem for Starlink is that as fiber and 5G expand..."

        Ha. Hahahaha!

        Yeah, telcos have had decades to run fiber to my neighborhood. Hasn't happened, no plans to make it happen. 5G service? I have to drive 8 miles to get a single bar of any cell service, much less 5G.

        Sure, right, now that Starlink is eating their lunch they will invest in upgrading their terrestrial service standards. They walked away from that market years ago and are glad they are not being forced to invest.

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: Just for curious...

          Dunno where you live but where I am in the midwest even the smallest towns are getting fiber, often out to even remote farmsteads because it is the rural electric cooperative that's doing it. AT&T seems to have given up improving their cell network around here, but Verizon keeps lighting up more 5G (including some 6 GHz stuff they list as "UW" even though it isn't, but I see 400 Mbps on speedtest a half mile from the tower...unfortunately not in my house which is in a low spot and will probably always have 2 bars) and I hear TMobile is doing the same with theirs.

          Maybe it helps that we're Centurylink country, so everyone gave up hope long ago that they'd do anything. Now that others are running fiber they've started doing some in my state, but only in the places where there is already fiber! I'm sure that makes sense to some lawyer or beancounter somewhere, but it doesn't make any sense to anyone else.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Just for curious...

            "even the smallest towns are getting fiber, often out to even remote farmsteads because it is the rural electric cooperative that's doing it."

            How dare they! That's communism! They should let the big corporations do their thing, that's the free market we all crave for!

            /s

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Just for curious...

          "I have to drive 8 miles to get a single bar of any cell service, much less 5G."

          You have to know that there are already a couple of options for satellite internet that existed before Starlink. They are in GEO so not good for playing Fortnight, but fine for web surfing, netflix and email.

          1. Helcat Silver badge

            Re: Just for curious...

            Strange: If you can stream netflix (or any other streaming service) without problem then you should be able to play fortnight (or any other online game) - games send/receive smaller data packets than streamed services like video.

            1. spudmasterflex

              Re: Just for curious...

              You’ve never heard of latency I take it. Specifically Geo sat latency, sometimes can measured in seconds for rtt

              1. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

                Re: Just for curious...

                "latency"

                So that's like giving a subset of the FPS gamers matchlocks.

                Click .... fwoosh .... boom!

        3. jake Silver badge

          Re: Just for curious...

          "I have to drive 8 miles to get a single bar of any cell service, much less 5G."

          Only 8 miles? My place in Nevada is about 30 miles from cell service, by road. Or you can go straight up to about 12,000 feet above AMSL (about a mile above ground level). No, I do not have starlink or any other satellite service up there, just POTS. Frankly, I like it that way. Peaceful.

          The family compound outside Fort Bragg was cell-free until a couple years ago. It claims it's 5G, but it's not. I sometimes never take the cell phone out of the glovebox when I'm up there.

      3. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Just for curious...

        "Musk claimed late last year that Starlink was "cash flow positive"."

        The footnotes said that it was for a week and discounted launch costs. ie, BS.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Just for curious...

          Doesn't matter, a fact was created, and will be repeated whenever appropriate.

      4. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: Just for curious...

        Yeah nah. You obviously don't live in Australia, where fibre roll-out into regional areas has pretty much stalled. I will never see it, one hour away from the city. Along a major thoroughway, which they would need to run fibre along even just to connect the 2 nearest towns. IF they were actually doing that.

        Instead they're fobbing us off with "fixed wireless" which gives me a third of the speed of Starlink. A fifth of the speed for uploads.

        5G? When I can barely get 1 bar 4G from Telstra (and zilch from Optus)? Very funny!

        I loathe having to give Musk money, but see little alternative, post-destruction of the original NBN plan.

        1. Mark Exclamation

          Re: Just for curious...

          Conversely, I ditched "fixed wireless" (maximum 50mbps up/5mbps down and not very reliable) and switched to Telstra 5G; now I get up to 750/40 and rock solid.

          1. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge

            Re: Just for curious...

            How far are you from the 5G tower? Back when it was my only option, I had to use a MIMO antenna on the roof to even get acceptable 4G.

            I see that Telstra at least no give decent quotas. I remember paying more than their current plan for less than a measly 100GB.

        2. Ribfeast

          Re: Just for curious...

          I'm on NBN fixed wireless too, they just updated my Gen2 antenna to a Gen4 2 weeks ago, now getting 140Mbps. If I switch ISPs I can get 400Mbps. Some people are seeing 500-600Mbps on fixed wireless now. I was nearly ready to go to Starlink and then this came along.

      5. jmch Silver badge

        Re: Just for curious...

        "the potential customer base for satellite internet will shrink every year so the price gonna increase over time."

        No, the price would only increase if *actual* customers went down, not potential ones. While fiber / 5G expand in more developed countries, other people in developing countries will start to get rich enough to afford it (even if it's group ownership eg at a community centre). There's also the possibility, recently tested, of making connections to Starlink directly from a smartphone, which could compete more directly with 5G as a sort of 'global roaming'. So the potential customer base will anyway never dry up.

        And there will always be certain places on Earth where it would anyway be economically unfeasible to install fiber for direct access or for 5G backhaul (and the economic justification for rolling it out to remote areas is actually decreasing exactly because Starlink exists). So I'm pretty sure it would eventually reach a near-steady-state where the cost of new satellites and maintaining the network is just about covered by a stable client base.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Just for curious...

          "eventually reach a near-steady-state where the cost of new satellites and maintaining the network is just about covered by a stable client base."

          That's exactly the situation that seems to herald a death knell for companies these days. On the stack markets, growth is almost everything, the other is meeting or exceeding market expectations. If either of those conditions are not met, the company is seen as "failing". SpaceX and hence it's subsidiary Starlink are not public, so that's not an issue, yet...

          1. Richard 12 Silver badge

            Re: Just for curious...

            True, but that situation cannot last for long.

            Unbounded infinite growth is fundamentally impossible. Eventually the stock market will discover this.

            The market correction when the shift change occurs will be quite horrific, mind you.

            You'll need a lot of popcorn.

            1. Oneman2Many Bronze badge

              Re: Just for curious...

              They don't need infinite growth though there is plenty of potential growth out there in non-NA markets plus transport (road vehicles, trains, ships and planes, etc), IIoT, direct to cell, military and I'm sure there will be other uses.

              Also factor in that bandwidth to orbit costs are likely to drop by 10x or more once Starship is up and running. So they will have the option of increasing profit or increasing bandwidth, I am guessing they will go for the former.

      6. Jim Whitaker

        Increased expectations

        Maybe but other factors will come into play, principally (I would argue) increasing expectations. An example from my own experience. Last week I was out on an event which takes place in the depths of rural, forested areas. Mobile phone coverage, including any data, is nil. For the first time, the reporting point were were co-located with, had a Starlink terminal positioned alongside. Logging in to the wi-fi that setup gave us phone and data coverage about as good as sitting at home with fibre to the premises. Now I am, mentally at least, going to judge any event by whether it has set up the same level of connectivity.

      7. Irongut Silver badge

        Re: Just for curious...

        Of course he didn't say how much SpaceX was charing Starlink for launches.

        Starlink could very well be cash flow positive if it isn't paying SpaceX the going rate and the launcher company is instead eating the costs.

        1. Richard 12 Silver badge

          Re: Just for curious...

          It's also easy to be briefly cashflow positive by not launching for a couple of weeks in between other monthly bills.

          Starlink needs to wrap up more airline, cruise line and shipping customers, as they will pay a lot more and sign longer contracts than direct to consumer. There's also a lot less legal protection for those customers.

      8. mIVQU#~(p,

        Re: Just for curious...

        You can't get fiber or 5G in the middle of the ocean on a yacht or a camp in the middle of nowhere. I don't love it, but star link will have its place in the future.

    2. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Just for curious...

      We probably won't know. It is likely that Starlink's profits will grow as they add more regions. There has been proven demand in many parts of Africa that they don't serve, so that will probably help them if they can add those regions. They're also clearly banking on the connection to phones being profitable, although I doubt it will end up being popular because I expect it to cost a large amount, only allow you to send a few text messages, or both, and I doubt many people will buy that.

      In the US, Starlink may be able to sustain their profits by joining other ISPs to prevent the FCC from trying to improve the state of rural broadband. Starlink stands to gain even more than other companies because those ISPs can continue to collect their subsidies, but Starlink can provide service that people want to buy if they can afford it. While Starlink is not very competitive if you have fast wired internet, there are lots of places that don't have that. If they can prevent wires from being installed and keep expanding into those regions, it could make them plenty of money. I'm less convinced that it's making them that much money now, Musk's claims notwithstanding.

      1. DS999 Silver badge

        Re: Just for curious...

        In the US, Starlink may be able to sustain their profits by joining other ISPs to prevent the FCC from trying to improve the state of rural broadband

        Starlink wants to prevent it because those funds are only for building infrastructure in rural areas to connect people who live there. That's the holdup in a lot of places, it costs a lot to wire them up and won't pay back for 10 or 20 years. Telcos want payback in 5 years or less or they won't invest. This is not a subsidy to pay their bills, it goes directly to the telcos for capital investments they wouldn't otherwise make.

        It is not intended to subsidize companies who already provide connectivity in those areas, which Starlink does, so Musk is pissed he can't dip his wick in billions of taxpayer funds like he did at Tesla and SpaceX. Because he can't have it, he wants the program shut down. Come to think of it, that's probably why he wants to be Trump's "efficiency" guy, his one act will be to shut down that program and then he'll quit.

        1. gauge symmetry

          Re: Just for curious...

          Are you speaking of the program, funded to the eye-watering tune of 42B USD, and operating for the last 3.5 yrs, that has connected exactly ZERO customers to broad-band? That program? BTW, for those unaware, 42 BILLION DOLLARS is a lot of money.

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Just for curious...

        "It is likely that Starlink's profits will grow as they add more regions"

        It is likely that Starlink's losses will shrink as they add more regions. FTFY

        The regions they have to add are the ones that already have options. The vast majority of people in the world can't afford the service, don't own a computer and it would make little difference to their lives. All they have are customers that earn enough, rely on computers and have no other options. That's a very small slice of pie. For densely populated areas, more subscribers means slower speeds all around.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: Cost to launch a Starlink satellite

      About $1,000,000. The satellites and ground stations also cost money. The cost of terminals is covered by the up-front fees. The subscribers' monthly fee varies by location but $120/month is about as inaccurate as my estimate of the launch cost. There are around 3,000,000 subscribers which would fund 360 new satellites per month. Starlink actually launch less than half of that leaving room to cover other costs and still make a profit.

      One of the important things to understand is that raving loony level conspiracy theorists are not bothered by holding clearly contradictory opinions at the same time. An essential component of their personalities is that SpaceX and Starlink must be making a huge loss. Quite why a greedy arsehole should choose to give away internet connections at well below cost is not clear to me. They will claim the money is coming from duped investors and government contracts.

      Tesla is publicly traded. Any fool can financially support Tesla by buying shares. SpaceX is privately traded. To give SpaceX money you have to buy out an existing investor because the number of investors is limited. You must also qualify as being both rich and financially competent. SpaceX has no problem raising money when they need it but they can only do so from people with the time, money, experience and information to do far better due diligence than any of us.

      The deep state funding theory is rarely supported with numbers but when it is they are hilarious.

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: Cost to launch a Starlink satellite

        I don't think they're making a huge loss, but part of the reason I think the situation may be different than you describe is related to statements you've made that have been contradicted before. For example:

        "The cost of terminals is covered by the up-front fees.": I've heard, from Musk and from users, that these are sold below cost to be made up later, at least for individuals. I don't know which is true. That they would be is quite logical, because there are many people who would balk at an even higher up front cost who might be willing to pay more per month.

        "To give SpaceX money you have to buy out an existing investor because the number of investors is limited. You must also qualify as being both rich and financially competent.": I'm not sure why you would have to be financially competent. I think rich would probably suffice. Few investors would have a problem selling me their shares if I came to them and said "I have no clue whether this is a good investment, but your stake is valued at $100 million and I am willing to give you $1 billion for it"*. Many investors who were rich and supposedly competent have regretted choosing to invest in Twitter, but that hasn't stopped Musk from doing what he likes with it.

        This doesn't mean I think they're making a loss, but that without more complete information, I am not certain that they are making a profit. There are many reasons why they might not, for example trying to strengthen their position in the satellite and rural internet market, thereby limiting their competitors. That's a popular tactic for a startup business, with the next step being increasing the prices when people are considered likely to continue paying for a service they have become used to and don't have a good replacement for. See also basically every delivery app that got popular in the last decade. I don't know how much of the true business model is shared with investors, and I'm pretty sure most of that is not shared with the public.

        * Okay, there are tax reasons or if they think a > 1000% growth is likely, but you get the idea.

        1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

          Re: Cost to launch a Starlink satellite

          The Starlink terminals were initially sold below cost. The costs fell below price from improvements in components, manufacturing and economies of scale. This has been reported on repeatedly. The technique can be used maliciously to clear out competition but only makes sense if you can get costs below price at some point. The other way to profit is to under charge the set up cost and make the money back on the subscription - and maintain the high subscription long after the set-up costs have been recovered. For that plan to work there must be a minimum contract length or a cancellation fee. Starlink service can be cancelled at any time without a fee (but the subscriber is left with a useless terminal).

          When Starlink started the competition in rural areas was dire. There were complaints that their prices were huge - compared to what people in competitive city markets pay. MachDIamond mentioned that there is now real competition. I found that so surprising that I checked Hughesnet prices and feasibility with Netflix. It took some digging but Hughesnet do offer service that works well enough for many customers. (Unlimited means 100GB/month followed by harsh throttling. Time of day matters but it is possible to schedule Netflix downloads for low demand time periods.) Hughesnet has two geostationary satellites covering North (and some central) America. Each provides 100Gb/s. Starlink has about 5000 satellites, about 100 over the USA at any given time, bandwidth 20-80Gb/s depending on model. That gives Starlink a 10x to 40x advantage in scale compared to Hughesnet for the USA alone plus 4900 satellites earning money over the rest of the world (OK: including thousands over the sea). Starlink gets much lower launch costs to a cheaper orbit and economies of scale (plus vertical integration) on the satellites and ground stations. If Starlink is making a loss WTF is Hughesnet doing? (OK, not getting their bank accounts frozen in Brazil.)

          Starlink could bump up their prices leaving customers with the choice of paying up or scrapping their investment in the terminal. Other ISPs can and have done the same - even when routers are not as provider specific as satellite terminals. Tesla efficiently manufactures hype and that is what their investors buy into. I can see why people who do not look at the numbers expect the same from SpaceX. Try finding some numbers yourself because I think you will not trust what I say I found.

          1. doublelayer Silver badge

            Re: Cost to launch a Starlink satellite

            I don't have any reason to distrust your numbers. Nor do I really care enough to do the complete analysis. I did look up a few of them, though. For instance, your 100 Gb/s figure for Hughesnet satellites appears to be correct, but North America is also served by Viasat, which has Viasat 1 (130 Gb/s), Viasat 2 (260 Gb/s) and Viasat 3 (1 Tbps). The bandwidth difference is lower than you describe. Most of this is irrelevant to me, and not just because I'm not a customer. The capacity is not the largest issue, and much of the capacity that we're comparing it with would include wired and fixed wireless network capacity which varies based on the user's location.

            As for the equipment prices, I've now done some searches and still don't have an answer. The latest information on production prices I found was from 2021 when SpaceX claimed they cost $1500 US to make, having saved some money by mass production and some more by removing the automatic position adjustment. Meanwhile, I see that they can be bought in the US for $300 or $500 depending on location. In order to think that they're not selling these below cost, I have to assume that they've made another 80% manufacturing saving in the past three years, or two if we're considering time between those two news articles. I can't prove either way whether they have.

            The business model of selling something below cost and making it up on the subscription works better with a contract but it does not require one, especially when you have a large sunk cost to keep people wanting to spend. A business model of using Starlink availability to discourage the availability of competitive wired service is also a plausible way to make good profits in the long term. From a business perspective, it's actually quite a smart plan. Again, I can't prove whether it's actually their plan, but it would make sense if it were. That wouldn't require running a big loss. I expect that, even if they are selling the terminals below cost, almost all the people who buy it do continue to make monthly payments long enough to pay it off. I wouldn't guess what their accounting looks like, but a small profit or a small loss seems like the most likely result of Starlink service, and I have reason to think the profit will grow in the future.

            1. MachDiamond Silver badge

              Re: Cost to launch a Starlink satellite

              "ut a small profit or a small loss seems like the most likely result of Starlink service, and I have reason to think the profit will grow in the future."

              Why? Elon has stated that the full build-out of the constellation is 42,000 satellites. Gwen Shotwell is on record as stating that the expected lifetime of the sats is 5 years. Some simple arithmetic later and you can come up with the need to launch 70 replacement satellites every 3 days forever. This is why Elon is so focused on Starship. They need a reusable launch vehicle that can dispense loads of satellites at a time. They'll also need a way to splash sats that have gone dead which they don't seem to have sorted yet. Maybe in a year, or a year and 3 months. If they can't clear out a string, they will eventually wind up with holes in coverage that are clogged with dead birds.

              1. imanidiot Silver badge

                Re: Cost to launch a Starlink satellite

                On orbit time for a starlink sat is about 5 years. If we assume it'll remain operational until well after it's hall effect thruster fuel has run out, by the time a replacement needs to be done, the replacement can be inserted into the original 550km orbit (at the current shell) while the old one is already decayed far enough it's not a problem. Only for the planned "outer shell" at roughly 1100 km would active deorbiting be a necessity. There's also plans for a 320km orbit "inner shell" that definitely wouldn't need active deorbiting, with unaided orbital lifetime probably measured in months, rather than years.

      2. Irongut Silver badge

        Re: Cost to launch a Starlink satellite

        > To give SpaceX money you have to buy out an existing investor because the number of investors is limited. You must also qualify as being both rich and financially competent.

        Financially competant enough to overpay for a social media company for a dope joke, sack everyone who knows how the company works and then run it into the ground?

        That's top notch financial competance I'm sure.

  2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Childcatcher

    Brilliant

    Mush cost cutting at work. Reduce the cost to build by reducing the RF shielding. Brilliant and typical Musk.

    1. munnoch Bronze badge

      Re: Brilliant

      Sounds more like regulators asleep at the wheel as usual.

      And really Starlink should be required to get approval from every country that they fly over to ensure they meet the local regulations for unintentional spurting.

      1. Tim J

        Re: Brilliant

        "Sounds more like regulators asleep at the wheel as usual."

        As the article states...

        "As we noted alongside the previous study, there aren't any international regulations that control the emissions of UEMR from satellites."

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Brilliant

          So it's OK to spread electronic diarrhea over the entire neighborhood, just because there isn't a law against it?

          1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
            Trollface

            Yup. It's called free enterprise. Anything that is not specifically forbidden is allowed by default.

          2. EricB123 Silver badge

            Re: Brilliant

            Didn't French farmers spray cow shit all over government buildings? Sometimes the only to get noticed...

            1. collinsl Silver badge

              Re: Brilliant

              Happens all the time - happened in the UK and US before, not just to govt. buildings too. There's some great clips on YouTube if you're into schadenfreude. There's several in the UK of farmers spraying illegally parked cars and an unauthorised rave in one of their fields.

        2. munnoch Bronze badge

          Re: Brilliant

          He had to get approval to use the band for his *planned* emissions. You'd think there would be an implicit requirement to not spaff all over every other band at the same time. If not then regulators are asleep.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Brilliant

            The leakage is in milli- and micro-watt ranges of power, so not an issue with interfering with anything on Earth (other radio astronomy!) and certainly not covered by terrestrial licences as there are no detectable transmission of any note into the countries providing the licences. From the point of view of earthbound regulators, there is nothing to regulate even if they did try to claim orbital jurisdiction. It's not nice and neighbourly, but it's currently legal.

      2. EricB123 Silver badge

        Re: Brilliant

        Wow, this sounds like some consistency is needed here between countries. I mean, could you imagine safe air travel if the pilot communications to control on the ground wasn't standardized to be English?

        1. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: Brilliant

          Yes - they could have standardised on any language... English just happened to be the one they chose.

          1. collinsl Silver badge

            Re: Brilliant

            A Pan Am 727 flight, waiting for start clearance in Munich, overheard the following:

            Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

            Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

            Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German aeroplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"

            Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war!"

            1. John Robson Silver badge

              Re: Brilliant

              And another almost certainly apocryphal exchange:

              BA206: "Frankfurt, BA206 clear of active runway."

              Ground: "BA206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."

              The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

              Ground: "BA206, do you not know where you are going?"

              BA206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

              Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "BA206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"

              BA206 (coolly): "Twice, in 1944, but it was dark -- and I didn't land."

      3. Mike007 Bronze badge
        Mushroom

        Re: Brilliant

        Isn't it standard to have laws permitting the government to destroy equipment that violates emissions regulations?

        I am sure Amazon have some Chinese missiles in stock and would be willing to help.

        Sure we might have some issues with space travel and satellite services in general for a few years, but that will clear up by itself eventually. When the dust has re-entered, the next generation of satellite operators will be a bit more motivated to behave themselves.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Brilliant

      "Mush cost cutting at work. Reduce the cost to build by reducing the RF shielding. Brilliant and typical Musk."

      If I build a product that is capable of emitting RF, I have to get it certified before I can sell/use it. At least once past the initial development. Somehow I expect that Starlink sats aren't getting re-certified as they are modified. It's expensive and takes time.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How come there's no regulation?

    I'd have thought that SpaceX had to satisfy whatever US authorities about their payloads as well as their rockets. No? And I'd have expected a grown-up (?) nation like the US to test for things like radio emissions. Maybe it's all a plot to allow the Ukrainians to sense Russian missiles passively? Or the Israeli's to blow up somthing/somebody else?

    1. Khaptain Silver badge
    2. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: How come there's no regulation?

      The FCC doesn't test satellites or other hardware themselves, they rely on the applicant to do proper testing and present results in their FCC filings showing they meet the regulations. If they do not meet the regulatory limits, the FCC can pull their license to operate. Whether that would mean shutting down some functionality of the Gen 2 satellites, reducing their power output, or shutting them down entirely, who knows.

      Rest assured, if that happens Musk will pull a Trump and claim it is a political hit job by Biden and Harris, and lie "I reviewed the testing done personally and it is fine, the FCC is just incompetent".

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: How come there's no regulation?

        "Rest assured, if that happens Musk will pull a Trump and claim it is a political hit job by Biden and Harris, and lie "I reviewed the testing done personally and it is fine, the FCC is just incompetent"."

        Pull out the politician naming and you've written what Elon is doing already in many places. Anything that gets in his way is totally unfair and he's being picked on.

      2. wimton@yahoo.com

        Re: How come there's no regulation?

        FCC Spectrum Enforcement Division:

        <qoute>Investigates and resolves unlicensed operation/operating without a license or outside the scope of a license (generally non-broadcast spectrum issues).</quote>

        Other regulators like BAKOM in Germany have the power to seize or shutdown misbehaving equipment (and issue substation fines).

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: How come there's no regulation?

          How far above ground level does jurisdiction reach? What if every nation over which a satellite passes decides to start charge tolls?

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: How come there's no regulation?

            "How far above ground level does jurisdiction reach?"

            By international convention, 100km.

          2. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: How come there's no regulation?

            "How far above ground level does jurisdiction reach? What if every nation over which a satellite passes decides to start charge tolls?"

            By treaty, there's reciprocity on testing standards for many things. If the standard being adhered to is a US standard, a US agency would be required to enforce the standard in the case of a US based company. That can be forced by another nation if the job isn't being done. For consumer items, if they don't meet local standards the product can be refused entry, confiscated, barred from being sold and anything being imported purporting to be certified to a standard that isn't being enforced can cause a whole class of products to be barred unless they also have a certification that will be recognized.

      3. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: How come there's no regulation?

        "The FCC doesn't test satellites or other hardware themselves, they rely on the applicant to do proper testing and present results in their FCC filings showing they meet the regulations."

        For most certifications, there's a requirement of having the work done by a disinterested third party. Self-certification is why Boeing is a mess and every time it has been allowed in the past. A computer power supply (from a reputable manufacturer) is plastered with certs on the label and the one next to me also has a self-cert that it complies with ... blah blah blah. I expect that some certs can be done in-house, but if it turns out to not have been done properly, you'd really want somebody to blame such as UL or CSA to avoid the potential fines.

  4. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    sdr

    My guess -- and it is just a guess -- is the designs are leaning more on software definred radios and less on RF filters (which would directly cut out of band emissions.). If you are going to operate in a fixed band you slap on filters. If you want a flexible system the temptation is to leave the RF filters out as miuch as possible.

    (This was an issue with ground equipment... the modern 3G/4G/5G cell sites don't usujally have 2 through 5G radios, they have general radios communicating with a computer creating and receiving the 2 through 5G signals in software.). There were 1 or 2 bands of the many used in the US where they found they had to run redujced power in those bands because those radios wouldn't stay tightly enough within those couple bands. In hindsight they probably would have built sites with filters built. but these were already deployed cell sites were new 4G. or 5G bands were turned on in some cases years later.

  5. Martin-73 Silver badge

    Don't the chinese have a nice device to shoot down rogue satellites?

    I wonder if it's powerful enough to cook my popcorn.

    Musk needs to GO

    1. Martin-73 Silver badge

      Re: Don't the chinese have a nice device to shoot down rogue satellites?

      to the downvoters. what has musk contributed to society, and space does not count. NASA had that nailed. sans funding

      1. FeepingCreature

        Re: Don't the chinese have a nice device to shoot down rogue satellites?

        "to the downvoters, what has musk contributed to society, and the thing he has contributed does not count. NASA had that nailed, sans the parts they very much did not have nailed"

      2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

        Re: Don't the chinese have a nice device to shoot down rogue satellites?

        Personal opinion: SpaceX would continue fine and probably better without Musk.

        NASA's opinion: Falcon 9 would have cost them $4B to develop themselves. (Falcon 1 cost SpaceX $100M which included the Merlin engine which was used on Falcon 9 which cost a further $400M. Re-use cost at least $1B more but the report pre-dates re-use.)

        Exhibit A: SLS is $26B so far, excluding ground support equipment, Orion and work already done on Constellation and Space Shuttle.

        NASA has a decent budget but congress requires them to spend the bulk of it very badly.

        Your post was half about destroying Starlink satellites which was covered earlier. Some of your down votes may be for wasting everyones' time with ignorance when the opportunity to be better informed was only a little further up the page. Mentioning Musk (positively or negatively) will get you down votes (some people will down vote you either way because they are sick and tired of the number of words wasted on him). Plenty of people will down vote for whining about down votes. The "What have the Romans ever done for us?" does not help either - for many different reasons.

        1. Nematode

          Re: Don't the chinese have a nice device to shoot down rogue satellites?

          "SpaceX would continue fine and probably better without Musk."

          That's true for anything Musk touches. Busy turning the world into gold, and that went down well in the fable.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Don't the chinese have a nice device to shoot down rogue satellites?

            "Busy turning the world into gold, and that went down well in the fable."

            In Elon's case, it's "glod". Damn autocorrect.

    2. 'arold

      Re: Don't the chinese have a nice device to shoot down rogue satellites?

      I wouldn't worry, I get the impression he's going to do something truly fucking stupid soon..

      1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        Re: Don't the chinese have a nice device to shoot down rogue satellites?

        Again?

        1. 'arold

          Re: Don't the chinese have a nice device to shoot down rogue satellites?

          Lol, yeah, agreed, but something truly fucking stupid that makes his previous shit pale into insignificance.

  6. Marty McFly Silver badge
    Coat

    I've got an idea!

    We should put telescopes in space. Stop relying on ground based celestial observation. Totally bypass all the atmosphere and all the other interference, solve multiple problems at once. I cannot believe no one has thought of this before.

    1. Martin-73 Silver badge

      Re: I've got an idea!

      equip them with weapons to take out musk's ego

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: I've got an idea!

        Equip them with decent, low-cost, properly shielded Internet access for the masses, to help pay for the launch & deployment ... and to take out Musk's ego.

    2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: I've got an idea!

      Launch is getting cheaper but nowhere near cheap enough yet. Spacecraft are getting cheaper but nowhere near cheap enough yet. There will be a transition period. LEO internet is a new concept so any problems with the concept are going to show up with Starlink first and competitors later. There are (partial) solutions astronomers have identified which are far cheaper for SpaceX to implement than putting all telescopes in orbit. Would you believe that others have had this idea before?

    3. call-me-mark

      Re: I've got an idea!

      Yeah great idea because backyard amateur astronomers can easily afford their own space telescopes.

    4. ThatOne Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: I've got an idea!

      > We should put telescopes in space.

      Jeez, so little knowledge, so strong opinions... Much like that manager who wonders why on earth do you need expensive "servers", when you could simply run the company's IT system on cheap desktop PCs... Didn't think of that, did you? That's why he gets the big money!...

      Seriously, terrestrial telescopes are not, I repeat, NOT replaceable with space instruments, much like you can't replace a hammer with a lathe, even if it is a very nice and expensive lathe.

      A telescope isn't just "a telescope", much like a computer isn't just "a computer". What you call a "telescope" is actually a huge number of highly specialized systems for observing the sky in one of a multitude of wavelengths (optical, radio), collecting extremely different information, both in nature and time frame. For instance some observation need to be done 24/7 over a very long period (years), which would obviously be totally impossible with a $500 million space-based instrument. Fortunately here on Earth that kind of observation can be done with older, now uninteresting and thus available telescopes.

      Also, there are thousands of different research projects competing for telescope time all over the world, fortunately they don't all require the same instruments at the same time, something which would happen if there was only a couple extremely expensive, space-based ones.

      Hubble and the James Webb are prestige projects, used for very specific research, and they haven't replaced a single of the existing terrestrial telescopes. They are not better, they are different.

      TL;DR: We simply can't abandon terrestrial instruments, it is technically impossible. Even if one day we build colonies on the Moon, we will still need terrestrial telescopes, if only for cost reasons.

      1. FeepingCreature

        Re: I've got an idea!

        You're looking at this from a pre-Starship paradigm, where launches are rare and expensive. If you can launch a telescope the size of Starship (built into the hull!) for $30 million, say, it doesn't make sense to put a $500 million telescope in there and make it a once-a-decade prestige project.

        1. Oneman2Many Bronze badge

          Re: I've got an idea!

          Its not the launch costs that are the issue, Nancy Grace Roman which was built off a donated NRO spy satellite has a total project cost in excess of $3bn including life time op costs.

        2. ThatOne Silver badge

          Re: I've got an idea!

          As already stated, it's not the launch which costs big money. A telescope is already a very expensive thing. A space telescope doubly so.

          Also a telescope is frequently reconfigured (new equipment, updates, fixes), something which is obviously easy to do somewhere you can drive your car to, but extremely difficult somewhere you depend on a non-existing spaceship going that way once in a blue moon.

          This discussion is pointless, there is no progress in rocket technology which will make space telescopes a viable competition for ground-based ones. It's simply impossible. Astronomers already struggle to pay for ground-based instruments, so asking them to henceforth put them in orbit just to please Musk is egotistical nonsense.

          (Didn't downvote you though.)

    5. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: I've got an idea!

      We should put telescopes in space. Stop relying on ground based celestial observation."

      Have you ever done any high level astronomy? Tried to get observation time on a space-based telescope? Good luck and I hope you aren't working on a dissertation for a degree you hope to complete this century.

      Now, if you want to book time on a good 60" telescope or even the 100" Hooker telescope where Edwin Hubble made his mark, it's more than take away for the whole family, but less than the cost of a decent Honda that's a few year old. Some years ago when I visited Mt Wilson, the 60" was $1,900/night and the docent told us that it's big brother was going to be available for public hire in the not too distant future. They supply the operator.

  7. jonfr

    The lower frequencies

    I do think that Starlink should not be emitting anything between 10Mhz to 88Mhz (FM band starts at 87,5Mhz in ITU region 1) and 10Mhz is short wave band for various things. That includes radio transmissions and other things. Starlink should be fined for this radio interference.

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: The lower frequencies

      Every complex electronic device leaks RF energy all over the spectrum. Those emissions are required by law to be under certain values depending on where the device is sold. Starlink's out of assigned bandwidth leakage just stepped up from mostly manageable to severely limiting to astronomers. Stricter limits for satellites would benefit astronomers. It would take a long time for the legislation to pass and it would require international agreements to make it happen for non-US satellites. In the mean time, astronomers are asking politely SpaceX to do better. This has worked in the past. The arsehole in charge is currently all about regulation being unnecessary and a barrier to innovation. Perhaps he will step up and assign some budget towards being a better citizen to show regulation is not needed - yet.

      I hope one day the market will be competitive and on that day there will be strong financial incentives for one provider to cut more corners than the others. We will need stronger regulations to be in place before then and backed by fines SCOTUS will not say are unconstitutional.

      1. Lee D Silver badge

        Re: The lower frequencies

        Let me know when you are certain of which law you think that is that applies to a global constellation in LEO over every territory on Earth.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: The lower frequencies

          Just to add a small cat into the flock of pigeons, everyone is talking about Starlink, one or two have mentioned Amazons planned constellation, but no one as yet has mention Chinas plans for up to three mega-constelations. OneWeb have pretty much got their full constellation up there now too, but it's "only" 634 so far, another batch due this month to complete it)

  8. xyz Silver badge

    Look...

    No mobile Co is going to invest in towers anymore as they are all salivating about direct to cell comms and that will come from Starlink et al.

    The e-"junk" space problem will only get worse as everyone with a satellite plan will be lobbing them up there to cash in.... think NB-IOT, Wi-Fi calling etc.

    To the "give 'em 5G and fibre up the ass" mob, that's city talk. Most people on the planet live in the wilds and will never have access to those things without a satellite service.

    Starlink is not an ISP, it is a private network that connects to local ISPs, which is why the FCC won't give it public money.

    Finally, I pay 45€ a month for Starlink and IMHO they are professional, honest and totally helpful and I doubt E. R. M. esq has anything to do with the day to day.

    1. MJB7
      Stop

      Re: Look...

      "Most people on the planet live in the wilds "

      The UN says 55% of the population live in urban areas, and this is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. OTOH, it is true to say "Quite a lot of people live in the wilds".

      (I'm actually surprised it's as low as that - I would have guessed 75% urban now.)

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: Look...

        And this varies a lot by country. Since they specified euros for the price, some of the countries that could apply to are The Netherlands (93% urban), France (82% urban), Spain (82% urban), Germany (78% urban), Italy (72% urban), Ireland (65% urban). Yes, a lot of people live in the wilds, but probably not where that person lives.

  9. Jim Whitaker
    Thumb Up

    Genies and bottles

    Just how do you think this genie is going to be put back in the bottle? I feel sorry for astronomers but the rest of us are likely to see only benefits.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. ThatOne Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Genies and bottles

      > the rest of us are likely to see only benefits

      But not for very long. Even without some disaster wiping all our satellite communications for a couple years (not only Internet, but also phone, GPS, TV), you don't know how long this will be going on. They can drop it tomorrow because of market or technical reasons, or just lose interest, or even just decide they need more profit and rise the prices beyond what you want to pay.

      Besides your optimism and some wishful thinking there is never any guarantee that things will get better, or even that they'll stay as they are today. Usually things start eventually going down the drain, because the competition has gotten fierce, investors want more profits, and they want them now.

  10. jpennycook
    Pint

    V2 sats beam 10M times brighter noise, hampering telescopes

    Completely off topic, but reminded me of one of my favourite Art of Noise songs: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=WKfb8cAD92Q (not sure I like the "surround sound" mix)

  11. frankvw

    Deja vu

    I know it's not the same as radio astronomers battling with their observations, but I've known similar problems for decades

    I've been a radio amateur since the 1980s and since then RF reception, especially on shortwave but lately also on higher frequencies, has increasingly been hampered by he deluge of RF interference put out by digital electronics. CF/LED light, flatscreen TVs, computers, PLC devices, ADSL/Cable/Firbre/WiFi routers, pretty much everything that has a power supply (now that iron-core transformers have almost completely been replaced with switched mode power supplies) and what not.

    The similarity lies mainly in the fact that both the manufacturers and the users of modern digital kit are completely oblivious to the problems caused by RFI. By the time that those who are seriously affected by its results start to complain, so much of the RF-polluting hardware has already been deployed that it's far too late to do anything about it. Proper legislation could (hopefully) achieve improvement over time, but any such gradual improvement is more than offset by the exponential deployment of more and more digital and switching electronic equipment.

    Yes, I know, radio and TV are all digital these days, long-distance radio traffic has been replaced with the Internet, and even regular analog broadcast radio on FM won't be around forever. But there are still legit users of the radio spectrum, and I humbly submit that they deserve some consideration.

    1. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Deja vu

      Powerline Ethernet devices and their standards were changed specifically for amateur radio purposes.

      Sure it doesn't solve the problem overnight, but it's far from "too late to do anything about it".

      The problem is space is: Who owns that frequency over the UK, for instance? Or between a satellite in the UK and one in the US that it's linked with?

      There's no one place handling it and some countries (*cough* the US *cough*) have basically had their silence bought by a billionaire and just approve whatever he wants to lob into space - not least an actual car for absolutely no reason beyond self-promotion.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Deja vu

        "The problem is space is: Who owns that frequency over the UK, for instance? Or between a satellite in the UK and one in the US that it's linked with?"

        The bands that are used by satellites have been agreed by treaty at least between the countries that have a care. The problem with direct to mobile devices is there isn't that same level of international cooperation nor work done to create proper standards.

  12. Lee D Silver badge

    That Musk was permitted to trash space like this is unforgiveable and sets a terrible precedent.

    Already I've seen a dozen companies talk about their own constellations of thousands (for everything from greenspace monitoring to Bezos' Starlink competitor).

    We seem to have just ignored everything we know about the problems of space junk and allowed it (not least that dumb car-in-space stunt).

    And nobody seems to care that the US just unilaterally permitted this knowing it would affect every country in the world.

    And he will never clean it up, they'll just let them burn up and launch more to replace them.

    It's time we start charging companies for space access and use it to clean up the other problems up in the skies.

    Do we really want this guy launching and landing anything he likes on Mars (no matter how pie-in-the-sky that is at the moment)?

  13. martinusher Silver badge

    The unexpected weakness

    Starlink is not just a cash cow but its also attracting the attention of the military as a way of enabling their communications.

    Unfortunately it appears to have an unwitting Achilles heel. Some Chinese academics have figured out that its a great passive radar illumination. rendering very small radar cross section objects like stealth aircraft visible. This technology is still in its infancy and there will be all sorts of problems to overcome (like tracking practically every bird on the surface of the globe) but it demonstrates the rule of unintended consequences.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: The unexpected weakness

      "Starlink is not just a cash cow but its also attracting the attention of the military as a way of enabling their communications."

      It does get used so the rank and file can communicate with those at home, but not for military comms. There's no way they're that crazy to let an Elon have an off switch even if they could withhold the antidote from his food.

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