Last month, OffcomUK telecommunications regulator, Kuper A Amazon A To provide a broad -orbit on the country’s low -headquarters. This step places Kuiper systems in a competitive location with the leader of the industry, the company of Spacex, Starlink Services. Although more specialized online interests in the emerging wide range – in the public and private sectors – are offcom The decision indicates an important shift in consumer Internet service providers. The game, in other words, turned from one player to one multi -player.
However, this does not mean that the game today is equally compatible. As one of the Copenhagen -based Copend, consulting Recently put it In the publication of industry Broad breakfast breakfastKuper is now just a “burger bar, while [Starlink Services] It runs the interstellar McDonald’s. “
In fact, “Burger Bar” is charitable.
According to satellite industry clearing PLANET4589.orgAs of the publication of this story, Starlink was 7,050 active satellites In low -Earth orbit (Liu). While Kuper’s systems only have Two satellites the initial model Now in the sky. The first launch of the company is currently It is determined For an unspecified date after this year. In addition, as the company Kuper AmazonDeclare On social media in late January, it was an “other batch” of satellite at that time heading to Cape Capeeral to be ready to fall into space as well. Assuming that both Kuper’s launch can happen soon and without an obstacle, this will leave a large gap between the number of published Kuper satellites and 1663 kuiper systems. FCC license Delegations in orbit and operation by July 2026.
Cuper satellite to catch up with knees
To be fair, Kuper Systems was not completely sitting. Scott PaloMr Space engineering At Colorado University, Bulder says, the creation of a visual communication network between tapes is one of the biggest challenges in wireless networks and broadcast satellite. This technology depends on free space optical links-LASER Kuper has already showed the orbits system The ability to conduct visually At the end of 2023.
This means that Keper has at least showed the ability to do some Starlink Services He was doing day after day since 2021, when SPACEX sub-company launched for the first time Laser Laser As part of the emerging internet constellation.
“The challenge of the signal signal is a multi -faceted.” “The first challenge is just trying to find the other station. Consider standing on the opposite ends of a football field with a friend. You and your friend have every laser indicator and look at each other through straw.”
But of course, he adds, to an internet constellation via satellite such as Starlink or Kuper, friends who are looking for straw on both ends of the football field move quickly and after tracks it can be a challenge to track and predict.
To get an accurate solution as much as possible in the orbit of each satellite, he says Kerry KahiProfessor of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Air navigation and spaceIt requires a completely different constellation rotating is still higher. GPS satellites are In the middle orbit of the Earth (Mio) About 20,200 km above the ground. In comparison, satellite -based broadband systems are much lower than GPS orbits, at rises between them 340 km and 630 kmStarlink and Kuiper satellites – and In the course of 1200 kmFor the competing bold constellation constellation Oneweb.
In October 2023, Amazon has launched a pair of satellite to test the company’s broadcast technologies. Amazon
“You need to have good orbits on both satellites-whatever it needs to know where the signal is,” says Kahi. “In the low orbit, they use both GPS receivers as well as high-resolution parking and control systems-interactive infection tracking devices.”
However, Cahoy and Palo take a different point of view, about the extent of the basic optical bonding connections to the bold LEO functional.
“Optical interconnection,” it is crucial for the ecosystem of the connected space, “Palo says. Long domains.
On the other hand, Cahoy notes that although a good visual delivery system can be very effective, “you can have a successful service without light,” she says. Delivery of the wide satellite network together via radio frequency connections – such as Spacex I did first In 2019 and 2020 when the Starlink system was first tested – it is still implementing, in its opinion.
In addition, although the bonding between the laser is essential to Starlink today, it says: “We will learn more about the extent to which visual systems are formulated in terms of age and aging in the space environment.”
Leo Starlink’s hegemony
Starlink satellites are more than half of the active satellites now in orbit around the Earth, Jonathan McDestoelAstronomical physicist in Harvard Smithson Center for Astronomical Physics In Cambridge, Massachusetts, “especially in the low Earth’s orbit, it dominates,” says McDelwell, the founder and data guard also in Planet4589.org. “In terms of large satellites in the lower orbits, they dominate greatly.”
However, even with the huge tropical imprint of Starlink today, the Leo Internet Coxs still face bottlenecks in the total number of subscribers they can serve. In 2021, and New York -based consulting company Movit Natathon Publish a White paper With an estimate that even with aggressive launch schedules and high demand for consumers on a frequency range, Starlink may not be able to provide online connection, no more than one percent of families in the United States. To comment on his company’s expectations for today’s numbers, the analyst Craig Movit Movit Nathanson says that although some factors in the original company’s accounts have changed in the four overlapping years (such as more satellites in orbit, but with low -speed connections than expected),,,,,,, “Starlink market is still tightly bound.”
Daniel Woodboss Space -capable research collection At MIT’s Media Lab, Starlink and Kuper say optimally the world’s densely populated areas. “I am in Boston,” she says. “You do not need a satellite -based internet. I got fiber and various other options. People who need this in rural areas have low population densities.”
Who still leaves a lot of the planet was not connected to a widely reliable range – or even a reliable cell service. In this world, Kuper and Starlink are the great competitors today. But they are not the only players in the field, or potential players looking to enter the game.
London -based Eutelsat OneWebFor example, a constellation works for more than one 650 active satellites For government and naval broad and wireless domain. According to McCdueel, China is expected to start offering the Internet and wireless constellation – in a specific manner about 20,000 satellites or more. (Which is already more than 14,000 expected satellites range China will be launched last August.) “Then, after using Starlink in Ukraine,” McDowell adds, many armies began all over the world, Huh, we want this. We will not use Elon. We want them under our control. “
Add all these Leo BroadBand’s ambitions – commercial, military and national – on the next decade, says MCDOWELL, and the number of active satellites in the sky will jump from today Nearly 10,000 number For something closer to 100,000.
This can be a problem.
Nearly 50 years ago, NASA scientists have imagined a future in which the amount of things wandering in Liu to a threshold, after which some Earth orbits can eventually produce successive clashes with satellites, space square, and debris from previous collisions. The phenomenon is called Kisler syndrome After one of the scholars, Donald KislerIt represents a warning story that has been explored – together Dramatic decorations– in 2013 film attractiveness And in 2015, Nil Stephenson a novel Sevensat.
McDawell says that Kisler’s syndrome is expected to emerge as a real concern in Liu somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 a number of satellites. “Maybe we will discover the difficult way,” he says.
What does not guess is the amount of avoiding collision that the Liu satellite needs at the present time to performance all the time. According to files with the Federal Communications Committee (FCC More than 50,000 maneuvers avoid collision Between June and November last year.
“Before Starlink, most people were their active moraine maneuver, usually,” says McDowell. “Maybe a hundred times on a very maneuvering mission. Thus, this number of maneuvers is much more than that we have seen in the past.”
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Help develop digital models As for the Leo collision maneuvers, it agrees that the rate of collision threats in LEO today is growing at an amazing rate. In fact, her group is stampede Space sustainability classification The system that encourages the open dialogue between the Leo satellite operators and the space industry. It says so far, OneWEB is the only Leo Satellite provider that gets the highest level of sustainability for the classification system.
To maintain the prosperity of the broader broadcasting industry in Leo, and ultimately the Kisler syndrome, you say, more cooperation and communication between companies and governments is needed. “We cannot maintain the same pace as adding new satellites in a way that guarantees safety,” she says. “We all want to have a great sword and satellite for science in NASA and other satellites for weather, for example, you will all work together safely in space. We are not on a way to do this well.”
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