anonymousiam a day ago

The S-band uplinks are not typically used during operations. They're mostly used during transfer orbit operations and initial testing, and in emergencies when something goes wrong with the normal comms (safe mode). The S-band antennas on the satellite are typically omnidirectional, so they'll hear anything strong enough to overcome the noise floor. Those comms can be encrypted or in the clear, depending upon the situation. The military satellites that I'm familiar with stop listening to the S-band uplink when their normal uplink is operational, so interference shouldn't be an issue during normal operations.

I'm not involved in this stuff anymore (now retired), but it's possible that the Starshield constellation supports transmitting on S-band (or L-Band) as a means to relay SGLS communications to satellites that are out-of-view. Having this capability would greatly benefit the workflow of transfer orbit operations and initial testing, by eliminating the constraint that the satellite must be in-view to communicate with it. It would also benefit anomaly resolution by allowing instant access to a malfunctioning spacecraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Control_Network

https://www.orbitalfocus.uk/Frequencies/FrequenciesSGLS.php

https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/473264/af-sp...

  • stinkbeetle a day ago

    > I'm not involved in this stuff anymore (now retired), but it's possible that the Starshield constellation supports transmitting on S-band (or L-Band) as a means to relay SGLS communications to satellites that are out-of-view. Having this capability would greatly benefit the workflow of transfer orbit operations and initial testing, by eliminating the constraint that the satellite must be in-view to communicate with it. It would also benefit anomaly resolution by allowing instant access to a malfunctioning spacecraft.

    That's interesting, thank you for the great comment. Would that kind of usage then not be counter to the standards, as suggested in the article?

    • anonymousiam a day ago

      Any sort of innovation may counter "standards", but without knowing the specific ITU terms for S-band, I can't say whether or not any regulation has been violated.

      The fact that somebody saw something pointed at Earth on a frequency generally reserved for uplinks doesn't necessarily mean that it would interfere with other spacecraft receiving the signals from the ground. Starlink (and presumably Starshield) operates in LEO, below most other LEO spacecraft. Maybe they're using a dish or even a phased array antenna, and pointing down instead of up. If so, the probability of interference is low.

bob1029 a day ago

The mass of the starlink satellites has doubled twice since V1.

It is not hard to assume that there is a significant DoD rideshare payload involved on the existing commercial satellites. Having a sensor platform on every single one would be incredible. The satellites that have been officially branded as Starshield (~183 we know of) could be part of cover or a more "kinetic" mission profile.

If I was in charge at the Pentagon, I would want every one of those 10k birds to have my sensor package on it. I also don't think I would permit a commercial spaceflight vendor to perform as many launches as SpaceX has performed without some kind of arrangement like this in place.

  • QuiEgo a day ago

    > would permit a commercial spaceflight vendor to perform as many launches as SpaceX has performed without some kind of arrangement like this in place.

    I’m sure SpaceX is happy to take the DoD’s money, doubt there’s any strong arming needed.

  • stinkbeetle a day ago

    If you were in charge at the Pentagon, would you have the authority to prohibit civilian access to space on that basis?

  • brookst a day ago

    It's an interesting theory, but I'm not sure it works. Do you design in these sensors and build in the normal starlink factory, where most people don't have security clearances? Or do you make thousands of people get security clearances, making it pretty obvious?

    And as soon as any data from a specific sensor leaks, adversaries would likely be able to pinpoint what satellite produced it.

    And then the contractual terms mandating commercial spaceflight vendors do this work.

    It all gets really complicated, with many thousands of people who are not part of traditional intelligence services all having to keep a massive secret.

    • krisoft a day ago

      > where most people don't have security clearances

      Are we sure about that? Because i see plenty of clearance required job listings to their redmond facility.

      > And as soon as any data from a specific sensor leaks, adversaries would likely be able to pinpoint what satellite produced it.

      Yeah. Thats why usually data from any satelite would be very closely held. Even with old satelites it was a big deal when the president just posted an image publicly.

      But i don’t understand your argument. Even if it leaks that wouldn’t make the sensor network worthless. Like this argument is true for any spy satelite. If the data from any sensor leaks it is bad. Not a reason to not make the satelite.

      • brookst 14 hours ago

        You’re saying that thousands of starlink satellites are actualky spy satellites, but it’s scret because spacex hires some people with security clearances, but it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t have to be secret to be useful, but it is secret despite involving 100x times more volume than any previous spy satellites, and the only evidence is… vibes?

        • krisoft 11 hours ago

          > You’re saying that thousands of starlink satellites are actualky spy satellites

          No. I didn’t say that and wouldn’t say that. Read carefully because i write carefully what i mean.

          You are saying that the theory as presented by bob1029 could not work. I’m saying that your argument why it couldn’t work is not persuasive.

          You present two arguments in your comment. (As best as i can understand it.)

          One is about the secrecy around the design and manufacturing of the satelites. You claim, without support, that most people don’t have a security clearance in the redmond starlink factory.

          Satelite design and manufacturing is already very secretive. Because of ITAR and regular commercial confidentiality you won’t hear a peep about what is on the satelites. The people who design and develop the satelites would of course know the full capabilities of them, but the people manufacturing them need not know. All they need to know is that they are installing optical assemblies. Whoever asks can be told that they are for laser communication.

          So the amount of people who need to know is smaller than the full work force. That workforce is already trained on secrecy, and they are practicing it. They already risk prison if they leak anything. (Without any spy satelite business, just because what they work on is ITAR controlled.) On top of that spacex is quite openly hiring for a number of positions requiring top secret clearance.

          Your other argument is that if data from these hypothetical sensors would leak that would compromise the hypothetical secrecy around them. Which is true, but is a general property of all inteligence gathering. If it was not an argument against any of the other systems why would it be an argument against this one?

          Secrets like this hypothetical one have a finite lifetime. You do it because you hope to gain from doing it. You keep it secret because you hope to gain more than if you didn’t keep it secret. Even if the capability becomes known to your adversaries you won’t loose all the benefits, just some.

          > and the only evidence is… vibes?

          Because i’m not claiming that they are spy sattelites. All i’m claiming is that your argument claiming that they are not, or couldn’t be is not persuasive. The negation of the statement “they couldn’t be spy satelites” is not “they are spy satelites”, but “they could be spy satelites”.

          I hope that helps clarifying what i wrote. Happy to answer any further questions.

ACCount37 a day ago

This reeks of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar), and we know Starshield sats carry custom sensor payloads that normal Starlinks don't have.

  • Zigurd a day ago

    I've been a pretty harsh critic of Starlink. I don't think it's going to compete well against terrestrial wireless links, specifically 5G FWA. But if they can actually do something interesting with distributed SAR in a large constellation, that's one of those national security breakthroughs that's worth every penny.

    • ACCount37 a day ago

      The issue with terrestrial wireless links is that you just aren't going to cover every inch of Earth's surface with terrestrial wireless links.

      At the same time: coverage comes cheap to Starlink. Which makes it perfect for serving areas no one wants to serve. Such as rural areas, anything outside the largest cities in underdeveloped countries, the open ocean, and so it goes.

      • Zigurd a day ago

        Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient and shrinking TAM. The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.

        • stinkbeetle a day ago

          > Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient [TAM]

          Insufficient for what?

          > and shrinking TAM.

          Starlink has made quite an impact on planning around servicing commercially non-viable or marginal customers in government and telcos where I am from. It is IMO quite likely that some existing cell towers in remote areas that are very expensive to operate and maintain will eventually be shut down. So that could actually expand the "TAM".

          > The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.

          No, they also don't want to serve places where it costs more.

          • Zigurd 7 hours ago

            Satellites that last 5 years and have un-transparent launch economics are very unlikely to win on cost in any land-based market. If the market is too small or too poor to support FWA, it's not going to contribute significant revenue to Starlink.

            Starlink needs tens of millions of subscribers to be valued like a telco.

          • robocat a day ago

            The US military wants to have option to deploy anywhere in the world, so they also want to have comms everywhere.

            The starlink network surely has special features to support US military needs (resiliance, encryption, blocking enemy countries from access, robustness against countermeasures, yaddayadda).

            • Zigurd 7 hours ago

              The military has interoperating and compatible comms everywhere. People have solved many problems before Elon invented a thing.

        • robotresearcher a day ago

          Also where terrestrial access is denied by the local government or infra has been disabled or destroyed.

          I hope Starlink can maintain enough regular non-crisis subscribers to subsidize this incredibly helpful use case.

          Perhaps governments could/do pay a retainer to keep this option alive.

          • jdonaldson a day ago

            I'm quite sure that's what's already going on. LEO is big and empty and pretty boring, but it's also resilient to increasing trends of natural disaster, war, and civil unrest. Having a foothold there matters more and more every day.

        • ggreer a day ago

          5G fixed wireless makes sense in urban and suburban areas because a single tower can serve many customers. But in rural areas, the number of customers per tower is much lower. To be profitable, the cost to build & maintain the tower must be covered by the customers in the area. Google says a 5G tower can cost anywhere from $150k-$300k, with maintenance costs being around 10% of that per year. In rural areas, the cost is likely on the high end because power and fiber lines will be longer. Each 5G tower has a range of 5ish miles, meaning it can serve an area of 75-80 square miles. A rural county like Ferry County, Washington has 2 households per square mile. So in that county, a tower can serve 150-160 households. Assuming 100% of households are customers, that means each must pay $200-400 per year for the tower to break even after a decade. The actual numbers are fuzzier. Obviously you won't have 100% adoption, but cell towers also serve cell phones.

          In comparison, each Starlink satellite costs around $1 million to manufacture and launch, and each satellite lasts at least 5 years. So cost per satellite per year is $200k. They currently have 7,600 satellites serving 7 million customers, meaning on average, each satellite serves almost 1,000 customers. At $200k per satellite per year, each customer needs to pay $200 per year for them to break even. It seems likely that launch costs will go down in the future, meaning this number will decrease.

          There's also the complication that each new Starlink satellite improves coverage & bandwidth for the entire globe, while each new 5G tower improves coverage & bandwidth in a specific area. A county may have a population density of 2-4 households per square mile, but many of those households are clustered together. The less dense areas are not likely to be covered by cell towers any time soon, as it's less economically viable. Another disadvantage of cell towers is service failures. A single Starlink satellite failure means a slight degradation of service, while a single cell tower failure means everyone in the region is taken offline. In areas where both services are available, people would be likely to prefer the more reliable option.

        • JumpCrisscross a day ago

          > Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient and shrinking TAM

          Planes; yachts; cruise ships; naval vessels; sea-based drilling, mining and research platforms; mines in the middle of nowhere are a shrinking TAM?

          You may also be underestimating how many large rural landowners don't want to give telcos (and the relevant authorities) access to any of their land.

        • oceanplexian a day ago

          Once you cross a certain threshold Starlink is superior to fiber optics. That's because it has the potential to be both lower latency and more direct than terrestrial fiber as the speed of light is faster in the vacuum of space.

          At a certain scale you're going to have to make the argument that laying a 10,000KM glass fiber across the ocean for 10-20% more latency is a better value than beaming it around in LEO.

        • pavel_lishin a day ago

          > Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient and shrinking TAM.

          And yet, people live in those places, and you telling them that they're not economically worth serving isn't really solving their problem.

          • lokar a day ago

            Pretending that they are worth economically serving with current tech or even tech that could be available soon does not help them either.

            • pavel_lishin a day ago

              Who's pretending? If they're getting internet through Starlink, it sure sounds like they're being served.

        • hylaride a day ago

          For Starlink, maybe. However, I'm sure nuclear submarines operating in the arctic (and the US Navy in general) as well as forward operating US bases, would love and be willing to pay for Starshield to cover everywhere.

          • boringg a day ago

            Pretty sure they don't have any comms signals and wouldn't connect to that unless absolutely necessary emergent situation. I thought they operate in the dark.

            • dylan604 a day ago

              Subs do pop up to make status reports or check-ins. They do operate independently in that command knows what area they patrolling but not exact locations at any given time.

              • anonymousiam 19 hours ago

                Subs (at least the US ones) also use "strategic" LPI/LPD milsat comms instead of commercial satcom. You don't want your enemy to geolocate your sub fleet whenever they phone home.

        • Incipient a day ago

          Starlink has plenty of good use cases: - camper van coverage across whole countries/continents - rural farms/communities - global coverage for convenience (eg business travellers) - huge military use

          ...just depends if it's economically viable

        • fragmede a day ago

          The two places that I'm fairly confident will never get covered by terrestrial wireless are the Pacific ocean and Atlantic ocean. Whether yacht owners, cruise ships, and airplanes are enough to sustain the business by some future time when terrestrial customers churn, who knows, but those customers aren't going to go away any time soon.

    • stuff4ben a day ago

      > national security breakthroughs

      Can you explain what you mean by this? Still not sure how SAR would fit in here...

      • robszumski a day ago

        If a giant chunk of the constellation can act as a truly huge antenna, what can you get from that? Super high resolution? Seek/dwell time on a target that is effectively infinite?

        • mdhb a day ago

          And we are going to put that in the hands of Elon musk? Are you fucking kidding me?

          • krisoft a day ago

            Nobody is discussing putting anything in Elon's hand. We are discussing what he already has in his hand, or can grab for himself if he chooses to.

          • marcellus23 a day ago

            You're more worried about that than having it in the hands of the US government?

            • epolanski a day ago

              How could you even think the opposite to be a better option?

              The US does suffer from a serious amount of issues politically (I'm 100% convinced that presidential republics are flawed) but it's still an organization with plenty of checks requiring popular mandate.

              No single private individual should ever hold this kind of influence imho, not even if it is Gandhi or a saint and Musk is quite the other end of the spectrum.

          • next_xibalba a day ago

            Is there a viable alternative?

            SpaceX is the only launch provider and satellite operator that is progressing at a rapid pace and driving costs down.

            • notahacker a day ago

              No need for the satellite manufacturer to be the same as the launch provider, and there's nothing at all special about short-lived commodity satellites for LEO constellations. SpaceX is going to be cost-effective at building them given their experience with Starlink, but cost isn't typically a major concern of the US govt, and certainly not a higher priority than concerns about the satellite operator frequently suggesting that access to his satellites might be contigent upon his views on a particular conflict.

              • dylan604 a day ago

                > but cost isn't typically a major concern of the US govt

                tell that to any project that has had their budget slashed or out right canceled because somebody thought their project was a waste of money. every contractor is bidding unless your name is Halliburton. what's the famous astronaut quote about sitting on top of a rocket built by the lowest bidding contractor?

                • notahacker a day ago

                  > tell that to any project that has had their budget slashed or out right canceled because somebody thought their project was a waste of money.

                  Their contracts aren't in defense...

            • m4rtink a day ago

              Chinese companies seem to be in process of cloning Falcon 9 and even Starlink (Thousand Sails and other constellations).

              In the west the Rocketlab Neutron partial RLV and planned Stokes Space full RLV stand out.

              And maybe in a few decades even Arianespace will end up with a Falcon 9 class vehicle! ;-)

            • JKCalhoun a day ago

              > Is there a viable alternative?

              Always a good answer. ;-)

            • Zigurd a day ago

              2/3 of Falcon 9 launches are for Starlink. No outside revenue. SpaceX continues to require new investment rounds. So the whole "driving costs down" thing might only work until investors expect some actual free cash flow.

              There have been 11 test launches of starship. You might've missed the last one because it didn't do anything new, except shedding parts and exploding less. There's a pretty good chance that program will never beat the cost of Falcon Heavy, or that the technology, like multiple refueling flights to get beyond low Earth orbit, is ever made workable.

              • wongarsu a day ago

                The last Starship launch was indeed unspectacular because it didn't try pushing the envelope particularly hard. The previous launches were much more precarious, with many fire balls. But I'm a strong believer in iterative development. It's bad PR when everyone can see every failed prototype, but the "design it once, simulate, and make sure the first prototype flies without issues" boxes you in to conservative design decisions.

                • ACCount37 a day ago

                  They did push Starship hard enough on reentry that, reportedly, it ended up with multiple holes burned through the metal hull and into the tanks.

                  It survived that - did that entire "simulated landing" burn and all.

              • mrDmrTmrJ a day ago

                Well, if 2/3 of SpaceX's current launches are for Starlink (which deploys satellites in LEO), isn't a two-stage, fully reusable vehicle optimized for LEO deployment the thing SpaceX would want to build?

                In terms of "free cash flow" expectations, are you aware that approximately 90% of "space" revenue and profit comes from satellite telecom services, with launch services accounting for about 10% of the mix? SpaceX's development of a telecommunications constellation (Starlink) is highly consistent with historical industry patterns of what makes profit in space.

                https://brycetech.com/reports/report-documents/global_satell...

              • wildzzz a day ago

                If SpaceX only had contract money as revenue, they'd be fine but they probably would not be innovating as fast. The investment rounds are to pay for Starlink build-out and Starship.

    • JumpCrisscross a day ago

      > if they can actually do something interesting with distributed SAR in a large constellation, that's one of those national security breakthroughs that's worth every penny

      ...could comprehensive SAR over the Earth's oceans uncloak submerged submarines when they're under power?

    • mensetmanusman a day ago

      I’m surprised there are technologists that are harsh critics of low earth orbit satellites.

  • ls612 a day ago

    Starshield with SAR that could support a missile lock would be a completely transformative capability in any pacific war scenario.

  • martinky24 a day ago

    What suggests SAR over downlink...?

    • ACCount37 a day ago

      Weird band for a downlink, and runs continuously and indiscriminately? It being detectable over Canada suggesting the latter. If downlink - what receives it?

  • cameldrv a day ago

    Yeah and the E-7 was recently cancelled. This is what Hegseth said to Congress a few months ago: “The answer is yes. I would. I would file this entire discussion under difficult choices that we have to make. But you know, the E-7, in particular, is sort of late, more expensive and ‘gold plated,’ and so filling the gap, and then shifting to space-based ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] is a portion of how we think we can do it best, considering all the challenges"

    I wonder if Starshield is the platform that is supposed to replace the E-3.

  • dzhiurgis 18 hours ago

    The fact we speak about it already sometimes suggests it has been already deployed, sometimes for many decades.

    Can it (a SAR sat doing a flyover) somehow be detected from ground?

    • ACCount37 9 hours ago

      Yes, as long as it's active. Like with any other active radar - you can detect the radio waves and narrow down on their source.

timmmmmmay a day ago

The relevant ITU recommendation specifically allows for space-to-space radio links. You can read it here: https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/sa/R-REC-SA.1154-0-...

Why didn't the article author bother to read this?

  • JumpCrisscross a day ago

    > relevant ITU recommendation specifically allows for space-to-space radio links...Why didn't the article author bother to read this?

    How do you know they didn't?

    Scott Tilley isn't in space. He detected these signals. The material question is if those signals are propagating upwards.

Weeenion a day ago

I'm curious if you could destroy a SpaceX Satelite with a basic laser pointers. Easily enough for normal state actors and some university or engineering lab.

You need only to track it and shoot your laser up there (its only 500km) and if it can't dissipate the energy fast enough, it would overheat.

  • aerostable_slug a day ago

    The Russians have laser dazzlers designed to degrade/"jam" electro-optical imaging satellites. These are currently mounted to trucks and at least one airborne testbed. They are significantly more powerful than laser pointers and they have a prayer of accurately pointing the beam to hit the targeted satellites.

    That said, they are dazzlers and not destroyers — they're designed to prevent American recce satellites from cuing American strategic bombers to the location of mobile missile launchers, so just dazzling the satellite's primary sensor accomplishes their task. Of course, that won't work against space-based SAR, but they have RF jammers (and decoys) for that.

  • cantor_S_drug a day ago

    A simple way would be to send up a satellite filled with "bullets" in the orbit. At the opportune moment, the satellite will fire these bullets and they will place themselves in the paths of these satellites (no need to track and target the satellites, the satellites will fly towards the bullets as their paths are fixed), boom space debris and subsequent chain reaction.

    • IT4MD a day ago

      A. This leaves a semi-permanent hazard in orbit for all other satellites. (Semi, because it can be cleaned up, but it's difficult, expensive and no laws require the idiots that do this to clean it up)

      B. The Russians already have this tech and have "practiced" with it a few times, so have already added untold hazards in orbit.

      C. The people that cause these problems, ignore the hazards left behind and let others simply die.

      This is a horrific idea and not new. Let's not do more of it.

    • HelloNurse a day ago

      Are you kidding? Are you comparing a hobby project like shooting a laser from the ground, using a precise servo mount to track the target, vs. flying to space a large payload and then shoot bullets with enough precision to hit the target and enough speed to damage it? It would be vastly larger (including the necessary rocket) and more expensive.

  • RobotToaster a day ago

    If your laser pointer is a few megawatts sure.

  • dotnet00 a day ago

    Seems like a pretty bad idea to be pointing a laser at the sky unless you're a government and can do the stuff necessary to not inadvertently blind pilots.

  • BobbyTables2 a day ago

    Try destroying a can of soda with a laser pointer first…

    • Weeenion a day ago

      Does your laser pointer has a hard upper Watt limit?

      Consumer grade / privat buyable laser can easily be bought.

      And would i destroy a soda can by overheating it slowly and steadily because the can has no easy way of dissipating heat and has electronics in it which are not heat resistent?

      • dylan604 a day ago

        I think "destroy" gets misconstrued in people's mind as exploding as a default. Rendering useless would be another way of describing it.

        Edit: what kind of laser would you be using to pull this off though? the amount of time the satellite would be visible and in range of your beam would be limited. they roughly have the same orbital period as the ISS which I've personally seen many times which is my point of reference. it's only visible for a very short time, so you'd need a very hot beam to work in that time frame. would it be effective as an additive heating. as in, would it cool off before the next time it came within range?

      • JKCalhoun a day ago

        Delivering that kind of power through all of the atmosphere between you and satellite is going to be a problem. And it's not sticking around overhead waiting for you to heat it up slowly.

        • dylan604 a day ago

          The through the atmosphere bit is what brought us DLP TVs/projectors!

      • ACCount37 a day ago

        A Starlink V2 Mini sat (what they're currently launching with Falcon 9) has a total solar panel area of about 10.5 * 2.5 *2 = 105 m^2.

        Solar irradiance in LEO is about 1350 W/m^2 when unobstructed. A space-grade solar panel reflects 5%-10% of that back as light, with the rest absorbed as either heat or electricity.

        This should give you an idea of what kind of thermal flux the satellite is designed to be dealing with.

        • tatjam a day ago

          Also you have to consider that even top-notch lasers have a divergence (out of memory, I may be wrong by an order of magnitude) of 10mrad or so, and you are physically limited to not much better than that, so you need pretty insane powers to damage, let alone destroy, a satellite at LEO altitude.

    • Razengan a day ago

      Can I drink the soda first?

      Oh come on you guys I thought this would be my ticket to 6000 ;—;

ajross a day ago

I'm all for a good spy story, but this seems like a big shrug to me. Interference-sensitive satellite communication is done with directional dishes, who cares what some other satellite is transmitting? That's the kind of nonsense you already engineered around.

And of course all communication managed by modern ICs is done with some kind of spread spectrum protocol with the property that "interference" is a routine/expected thing that doesn't degrade service. You can't break a modern satellite with an accidental transmission, you have to deliberately "jam" it.

Is the ITU rule in question being violated? Probably. Is that actually impactful to real systems? Almost certainly not. Old rules are old. Our goal should be to work together to update them for the benefit of all (to be sure, not to violate them with impunity!), and not to scream about them as part of a proxy war about the CEO's political and conspiracy proclivities.

  • iamnothere a day ago

    (1) Some older satellites are still in use and this may affect them, especially if it becomes more common.

    (2) Defending these norms is important to prevent chaos on the radio bands. If we can do this, why not China? Russia? Europe? Erosion of norms has real consequences when you are dealing with a scarce resource like RF spectrum.

    • ajross a day ago

      I really think point 1 needs an example. Again, older satellites talk to dishes, not random off-axis antennas hundreds of miles away.

      > Erosion of norms has real consequences when you are dealing with a scarce resource like RF spectrum.

      So... no, that's wrong. Like 99% of all wireless data transferred anywhere is squeezed into a paltry 100 MHz in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, with no effective guardrails of any kind about who can use it, or with how many devices.

      Technology fixed this problem, dedicated bands have little to no value anymore[1], haven't for like two decades now, and any discussion like this needs to treat with that as a prior.

      Again, we all know this story isn't about rigorous adherence to international norms. It's about Musk doing shady spy stuff.

      [1] Outside some otherwise important edge cases like radio astronomy which aren't "communication" as generally understood.

      • iamnothere a day ago

        > dedicated bands have little to no value anymore

        Citation needed. Cellular devices are an obvious application that needs dedicated spectrum allocation. Amateur bands (including volunteer civil defense helpers) and private terrestrial radio systems count on their spectrum being clean enough for use. Emergency responders have critical radio systems with dedicated frequencies. Ships and airplanes use dedicated spectrum allocations for navigation and reporting their positions, weather satellites have dedicated bands, safety equipment like avalanche beacons have dedicated frequencies, and so on.

        None of this stuff would work if there were a free-for-all competition for whoever could shout the loudest on each band. To say that these bands are not important (or even critical to life safety) just because more data goes over unlicensed spectrum is frankly ignorant.

        • ajross a day ago

          > Cellular devices are an obvious application that needs dedicated spectrum allocation.

          Not since the death of TDMA, it isn't. Mobile bands are regulated to be exclusive, but nothing about LTE or 5G requires exclusive access or the absence of interference. These devices step on each others toes all the time and (via the magic of OFDMA and other dark trickery) still receive their data just fine.

          You could start up a transmitter right in the middle of Verizon's or TMO's exclusive band (ICE is doing so all the time at protest sites across the country!) and the phones wouldn't bat a proverbial eyelash.

          • iamnothere a day ago

            Without rules around spectrum usage or interference in place, you’re saying I could just set up my own 1 MW transmitter on the cellular bands and the phones would just continue working as if nothing was happening? Fantastic, let’s get rid of the rules then. I have been wanting to build a giant spark gap in my backyard, that would finally make it legal.

            • ajross a day ago

              Now you're moving the goalposts. The subject at hand is a seemingly benign use of ITU-regulated spectrum for a purpose that is not quite what it was supposed to be for (literally the direction of transmission is wrong, not the location or power level of the signals!).

              I don't disagree that people shouldn't be setting up 1MW jammers on mobile bands, but neither did I argue for that, and you know it.

              • iamnothere a day ago

                If you want modification to the rules for experimental purposes, there are processes for that. Obviously spectrum uses change over time, and it’s good to have some trial and error to see what is feasible without breaking essential things. But given the finite spectrum and the sensitivity of some uses, it’s good to have a formal process for it. This is what the various radio spectrum organizations do, they coordinate uses and standards so people don’t flagrantly abuse the spectrum and then just say “oops, just testing” when they are caught.

                If you want a vision of what unregulated long-range spectrum looks like, just look up “Mud Duck” on CB. It’s good that we have a few limited ranges where these people can shit all over the place without causing serious harm.

  • kragen a day ago

    This is not correct. Low-data-rate satellite communication is generally received on the satellite with omnidirectional antennas, because if you try to do it with directional dishes, any problem with your satellite's attitude control system or position estimation leaves you with a dead satellite, because the directional dish on the satellite is pointed somewhere you don't have a transmitting antenna. Attitude control problems can be serious in any case (for a publicly known example, see Kepler), but if you can't communicate with the satellite you have no chance to fix or work around the problem, or even find out what it was so the next satellite doesn't have it.

    • xyzzyz a day ago

      This is not the case with Starlink (and presumably Starlink) satellites. The ground stations use directional phased arrays. They can do it, because they keep good track of where each satellite is at any given moment, and do trajectory adjustments as needed.

      • kragen a day ago

        Yes, groundstations are virtually always highly directional, except for, like, radio hams sometimes. (Even hams usually use yagis.) Possibly you didn't notice this, but I'm talking about the antennas on the satellites, which are the ones that could suffer interference (since they're the ones receiving the uplink frequencies we're discussing), not the groundstation antennas.

        You always have to keep track of where each satellite is at any given moment.

        What do you mean by "Starlink (and presumably Starlink)"?

        • Jtsummers a day ago

          To add to this, we know what objects interfere with our satellite contacts. We keep their orbital positions (as best as possible) in mind when scheduling satellite operations to avoid communication failures (partial or total) caused by their interference.

          This is often learned after the fact. A contact will fail or go badly and then you can examine what was around it at the time. Over a series of failures the offending satellite will be identified.

        • xyzzyz a day ago

          Ah sorry, I misread you. I meant “presumably Starshield”, I think autocorrect replaced it with Starlink.

          • kragen a day ago

            Oh, that makes sense! Thanks for explaining!

jmclnx a day ago

To me, the main issue is not the signal itself, but the direction:

>The use of those frequencies to "downlink" data runs counter to standards set by the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency

So, just another instance of the current admin violating an international treaty the US is part of.

  • Jtsummers a day ago

    Plenty to criticize the admin for, but these satellites have been going up since last year. Biden was president then, not Trump. This is TLAs being TLAs. They think they are special, and they are because they get little real scrutiny, unfortunately.

  • JKCalhoun a day ago

    > Starshield's unusual transmissions have the potential to interfere with other scientific and commercial satellites, warns Scott Tilley, an amateur satellite tracker in Canada who first spotted the signals.

    Might that be the point? A space-based means of "hacking" satellites? Or is that kind of a dumb thing to do when you could do the same Earth-based?

gchokov a day ago

Good luck looking for answers..

iamnothere a day ago

Another day, another important international agreement violated. I appreciate what SpaceX has done for global communications, but do not under any circumstances flagrantly violate ITU guidelines. This undermines critical agreements that allow us to (for instance) use the ISM and amateur bands without pervasive jamming. The ITU is not a political football like the rest of the UN, it’s a highly technical, competent organization that’s well-regarded among spectrum users.

  • NitpickLawyer a day ago

    > I appreciate what SpaceX has done for global communications, but do not under any circumstances flagrantly violate ITU guidelines.

    These are Starshields, not Starlinks. These are not operated by SpaceX. In the same way Boeing isn't spying on comms by building / launching an NRO satellite.

    • iamnothere a day ago

      Good point, in that case I suppose I should direct my criticism at the NRO. They more than anyone should understand the importance of ITU treaties, as having clear standards for the RF bands probably makes their job easier in many ways.

  • Weeenion a day ago

    7 Million people benefit from it, 8 Billion people don't.

    We should have done that A LOT slower without breaking shit left and right.

    Edit: Because of the one downvote: It affects astronomy and a PRIVATE company has impact on a war like in ukraine. And they are violating shit just because its Musk

    • newsclues a day ago

      "These are Starshields, not Starlinks."

      The number of people that benefits from security provided by the military is not the same as the number of people that subscribe to starlink internet.