News China's rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink has the potential to challenge its reach by 2030, says report

[Admin]

SpaceSail is forging international partnerships to strengthen its presence, emerging as a competitor to Elon Musk's Starlink.

China's rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink has the potential to challenge its reach by 2030, says report : Read more

 

[Elusive Ruse]

I have been a customer for almost a year and I got to say the connection reliability is impressive, don’t remember the last time there was an outage even briefly. On the other hand the connection speed is much lower than what they charge me monthly compared to what I was paying for a 1GB connection in the city. The router that came with the kit is also subpar I think it’s wifi 5 and needs a separate adapter for an ethernet connection.

 

[Notton]

So you're saying we're looking at a potential 45,000 mini satellites in LEO with an approximate life expectancy of 5-7 years?
That's about 700 sent up and 700 that burn up per year, per company,

Each mini satellite weighs around 230 to 600kg.

 

[Blastomonas]

Naturally this supplier won't be trusted in the West and will be banned from government infrastructure.

The biggest concern for me is the waste.. Unless we can solve that problem, we're in big trouble.

 

[GenericUser2001]

Naturally this supplier won't be trusted in the West and will be banned from government infrastructure.

The biggest concern for me is the waste.. Unless we can solve that problem, we're in big trouble.

The waste issue seems pretty manageable to me. Lets say we end up with 100,000 satellites from different groups in LEO; lets also say those sats are 1000 kg each, so that ends up being 100,000 metric tons in orbit. If they last 5 years that means sending up 20,000 metric tons a year & the same mass being burnt up. That is honestly pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things. That's far less than the mass that gets lost to sea every year in ship wrecks. Its also a rounding error compared to say aluminum production (70 million metric tons a year or so).

 

[Inveticus]

Naturally this supplier won't be trusted in the West and will be banned from government infrastructure.

The biggest concern for me is the waste.. Unless we can solve that problem, we're in big trouble.

If you mean the US with the West, you're probably right. Europe will probably prefer a more reliable partner like China. Both the US and China can't be trusted due to their spy programs. But at least China never screwed over it's trade partners.

 

[bit_user]

Kessler Syndrome in 3... 2... 1...


An axonometric view displays various Earth orbits, illustrating space debris and active satellites.

 

[GenericUser2001]

Kessler syndrome is a non-issue for the very low orbits these sorts of internet satellites are going into; without active boosting any debris or non-functional part gets dragged down with a few years at most.

 

[bit_user]

Kessler syndrome is a non-issue for the very low orbits these sorts of internet satellites are going into; without active boosting any debris or non-functional part gets dragged down with a few years at most.

How can we be sure it won't fling some debris into higher orbits, though? And if it gets bad enough, could it jeopardize access to higher orbits?

 

[Blastomonas]

This was my concern. There is already quite a lot of debris up there. We could scupper our access to the solar system before we have even really started exploration of it.

 

[bit_user]

at least China never screwed over it's trade partners.

Without getting political, let's just say not everyone would agree with that statement.

 

[Notton]

How can we be sure it won't fling some debris into higher orbits, though? And if it gets bad enough, could it jeopardize access to higher orbits?

Specifically for starlink, their satellites orbit at a very low altitude with significant atmospheric drag and that's how they end up with only a 5yr life span.
Even if starlink's satellites collide and eject debris in an elliptical orbit, the debris is expected to still have a short lifespan of 5yrs.
I'm not sure at what altitude the competitors are attempting to place their satellites at.

But then there's also the issue of aluminum dust stuck in the atmosphere, of which we have no idea of its effects yet.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/09/1108076/satellite-reentry-atmospheric-pollution/

 

[bit_user]

But then there's also the issue of aluminum dust stuck in the atmosphere, of which we have no idea of its effects yet.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/09/1108076/satellite-reentry-atmospheric-pollution/

The Japanese have an interesting solution to that problem: use wood!

https://www.space.com/japan-september-launch-first-wooden-satellite
​

 

[GenericUser2001]

How can we be sure it won't fling some debris into higher orbits, though? And if it gets bad enough, could it jeopardize access to higher orbits?

Orbital mechanics; any one time impulse event like an explosion or collusion can send stuff into an elliptical orbit where yes the highest part of the orbit could go quite far up, but then the lower part of the ellipses ends up at least as close as the origin point, or lower and closer to the Earth. To get a higher but stable orbit (which would be dangerous for debris) requires a stabilization burn at the highest point of the ellipses.

 

[bit_user]

Orbital mechanics; any one time impulse event like an explosion or collusion can send stuff into an elliptical orbit where yes the highest part of the orbit could go quite far up, but then the lower part of the ellipses ends up at least as close as the origin point, or lower and closer to the Earth. To get a higher but stable orbit (which would be dangerous for debris) requires a stabilization burn at the highest point of the ellipses.

Ah, but the catch is that you're assuming it doesn't hit anything in the high part of that elliptical orbit! That's how Kessler Syndrome (if it were bad enough) could spread from one altitude to another.

 

[_Shatta_AD_]

That’s the thing, these kinds of speculations are highly inaccurate since they do not take into account the fact that SpaceX & Starlink are a moving target and geopolitical contention among other hiccups could derail either company’s progress. Sure China is well known for their dumpling factories and capabilities to mass produce consumer goods, but these are not microwaves and Legos toys. SpaceX has a 10 years foothold lead and their manufacturing base & supply chain is well established. China’s SpaceSail project is merely getting started with only a couple dozens Sats in orbit by end of year. Even if they catch up in #s by 2030, they might not in quality, features or stability. So yea the potential is quite low in 5 years.

 

[evdjj3j]

I read that as SpaceSNail.

 

[evdjj3j]

The waste issue seems pretty manageable to me. Lets say we end up with 100,000 satellites from different groups in LEO; lets also say those sats are 1000 kg each, so that ends up being 100,000 metric tons in orbit. If they last 5 years that means sending up 20,000 metric tons a year & the same mass being burnt up. That is honestly pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things. That's far less than the mass that gets lost to sea every year in ship wrecks. Its also a rounding error compared to say aluminum production (70 million metric tons a year or so).

Instead of making stuff up, lets look and see how much they weigh. 500Kg each.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Satellite_hardware