Box shifting on the Moon? Lunar payloads on Amazon Prime In a move that will strike fear into the hearts of those poor souls charged with stuffing tat into boxes, the possibility of sticking an Amazon fulfilment centre on the Moon was mooted in a fireside chat with Jeff Bezos. The question emerged during an on-stage conversation as part of the online giant's Las Vegas re:MARS …
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...are going to really clog up nearby space...making it really difficult to launch a space rocket without hitting one of these things on the way up (or coming back down for that matter).
And who will de-orbit them, once they fail or come to the end of their service life.
One would also assume that the Musk, Bezos and OneWeb satellites will all be incompatible with each other...so, it won't be a mesh network, but three proprietary systems, that will either require susbcriptions or might be given away with some other "tie-in".
BTW: Will these become out of date real soon, as 5G networks come online - as the satellite surely cannot do the backhaul for internet connections ?
I'm fairly sure the target of these Internet flinging satellite constellations is to blanket the globe ignoring borders, population density etc.
5G will never (or close enough) arrive in rural areas, as it's not economically viable.
If your infrastructure is in the skies, you no longer depend on local authorities, or local entrenched competitors to provide your service.
Think of it like Cable vs. Sat TV both of them have their place on the market
You just depend on some megacorp which aims at no liability no oversight, and maximizing profits giving access to user profiles to the highest bidder. Do you believe it's better?
Moreover satellite TV requires only a few geostationary satellites - and can be soon replaced by streaming over speedier fibre cables.
"Moreover satellite TV requires only a few geostationary satellites - and can be soon replaced by streaming over speedier fibre cables."
Upvote for first paragraph, but I think we're still far from being able to run fibre out to rural areas - the main reason satellite TV is still a thing, at least in the States.
TV works on Satellites because it's effectively streaming.
Stuff that requires very low latency is shite on satellites, especially geostationary ones that are a long way from earth. Half a second round trip just for the distance traversed.
Space is big. The chance of hitting a satellite by mistake is infinitesimal. Do the maths.
The de-orbiting at end of life is done by the operator. It's a requirement for getting a license to operate. If they fail, the SpaceX ones at 550km will deorbit naturally after 5 years regardless. Higher ones take longer. There has been some discussion about using working satellites to de-orbit non-responding ones. Basically, you aren't the first to think of this problem, and the people involved are working to mitigate it.
Backhaul for internet connections is what they are for. The aerial is the size of a pizza box so they won't be serving mobile phones directly.
"Space is big. The chance of hitting a satellite by mistake is infinitesimal. Do the maths."
Agreed - Space *IS* big - it's just earth orbit which is finite !
This is useful - and so far doesn't include most of the new constellations that will be put up soon
http://stuffin.space/
"The de-orbiting at end of life is done by the operator. "
This assumes that:
1) The operator is still around and in business
2) The operator spent money on ensuring that a de-orbit capability was built into the satellite...and was not removed as a cost-cutting exercise, prior to deployment.
"...:the people involved are working to mitigate it"
Agreed - some people are working on it, as it is an issue...but with so many new entrants keen to jump on the back of now (relatively) cheaper means to get a craft in orbit, there is a good chance that much smaller satellites will be lofted up there that are less easy to spot and even less easy to bring back down. And any small satellite travelling at 20,000 MPH is going to be that much harder to catch or nudge into an ever-decreasing orbit. (and yes I know that to try and catch one, you'd also need to be doing 20,000 MPH ;-) )
I know I'm not the first person to think of this...plenty more have already got their thinking caps on and have been for a while...but the more this is talked about and considered then the more likely it is that a solution will be thought up.
Personally, I'd love to set up a company to clear the EOL satellites and debris that are circling the planet - and then go up in orbit and start catching them, (with a nice second hand Canadarm?) put all the bits I find into a nice payload bay (in a second hand Shuttle).
But I dont have a few (hundred) million $ to get started :-(
We know the companies that send them up won't because profit vs costs. Possibly a new job market of going around up there and picking up the junk for recycling and reuse? There's been a few movies out detailing this. They weren't documentaries though, just very bad films.
Possibly a new job market of going around up there and picking up the junk for recycling and reuse?
India should just put an artificial beach up in LEO, collecting any broken satellite and then sending wrecking crews there once a good number have accumulated.
(the one with the acetylene torch in the pocket, please)
The little ones are in low orbit where it's not a perfect vacuum. They lose altitude with increasing speed then completely burn up.
The problem might be getting into space without hitting a falling satellite. Multiple companies owning large mesh networks of 20K to 100K small satellites each with a 5 to 8 year orbit would mean that there are a lot of erratic, decaying orbits at any given moment.
I'll stay on the ground and watch the fireworks.
I worked on Gen 1 satellite internet in the 90s with Eutelsat, Hughes-Olivetti, Astra, etc and back then technical issues deriving from geostationary orbit latency and backhaul (with Eutelsat it was actually via satellite) made it a (poor & expensive) solution in search of a problem that was rapidly going away. In a few very specialised cases it almost made sense. Even with lower orbit constellations it seems like the markets that could most benefit will be the least likely to afford it. I'm sure Bezos, Musk et al make a very convincing Powerpoint pitch.... but so did Hughes-Olivetti.
Last time I used satellite internet was in some lovely shiny new flats in Edinburgh. West Harbour Drive - look it up. That was all a brownfield site and they slung up these homes. Broadband was just intolerably slow to the whole lot of them.
Satellite connection, and they were suddenly looking at 25Mb/sec (what they paid for) rather than about 0.5Mb/sec on ADSL2+. Latency was a pig though.
That was a specialised case where it definitely did make sense. The guy I was helping to set it up did others in the Western Isles, Highlands and other remote places - those were the obvious options. It was remarkable, though, that in new build homes in a city the broadband was so awful.
Defiler, so right. I have satellite network because the middling defective duopoly in Oz means slow, unreliable service unless one lives in a business district or wealthy area. Big Swamp particularly because their DNS setup is not fit for purpose IMNSHO. Dealing with Floptus is a financial no-go.
8.8.8.8 was, regrettably, sometimes necessary. Landlines are unavailable outside of suburbia. When I went onto the satellite link, performance went up 10 fold. Still 1/8th of what I pay for but at least usable and affordable.
"... remarkable, though, that in new build homes in a city the broadband was so awful."
Even more remarkable, I've been on this crowded industrial estate since 1990 and I STILL can't get better than 5Mbps unless I pay three grand to have fibre hauled five hundred yards through a duct.
I've been on this crowded industrial estate since 1990 and I STILL can't get better than 5Mbps
Ours is a house on a 1950's light industrial estate. Except for the aging copper (1970-ish, by my estimate) which required hunting for the best wire pair out of a bunch of 20, we're getting 100/30 Mbps using VDSL. Occasionally we get an offer for fiber, from the provider licensed to offer that, at industrial prices: four times my monthly bill for just 10/10.
I keep declining.
Dunno why you got the downvote. Chlorinated chicken is one of the hot-button topics regarding a trade deal with the USA without the protections of EU food standards.
Whether we insist on the same standards is worthy of consideration, but if it comes down to "our terms or piss off" from the USA it's pretty clear what will happen.
"It's pretty clear what will happen"
Yep! Britain will be eating chlorinated chicken wrapped in plastic made from fracked crude, it will be prepared and packed by Chrump Enterprises.
I think the deal was made earlier in the week by a lady looking for a new job in the health or consumer sectors.
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