Awww poor Musk. Maybe stop helping Russia by giving them access while denying Ukraine. Also fuck you for ruining Twitter .
Edit - apparently coverage on the Crimean coast was never activated. Still dickish for helping Russia. They're sanctioned up the wazoo and this might come back to bite him. Starlink is a recipient of US Federal Assistance and that can easily be leveraged.
It was by no means perfect, but it did become the defacto town square. The Arab Spring was facilitated in part through Twitter and George Floyd related protests were arranged, amplified and shared through Twitter.
There's plenty of incompetence in Musk, but a significant part of this "effort" was deliberate, as a favor to other like minded billionaires upset and frightened that the people had a working, maturing megaphone. They needed that to be broken, if not fully silenced, and musk was the pathetic piece of shit with daddy issues that the other old money billionaires could convince to do the work here as an attempt to gain their favor.
Please try reading the article before commenting. This is the very first paragraph.
The FCC has once again rejected a Starlink plan to deploy thousands of internet satellites in very low earth orbits (VLEO) ranging from 340 to 360 kilometers. In an order published last week, the FCC wrote: “SpaceX may not deploy any satellites designed for operational altitudes below the International Space Station,” whose orbit can range as low as 370 kilometers.
"The FCC has once again rejected a Starlink plan to deploy thousands of internet satellites in very low earth orbits (VLEO) ranging from 340 to 360 kilometers. In an order published last week, the FCC wrote: “SpaceX may not deploy any satellites designed for operational altitudes below the International Space Station,” whose orbit can range as low as 370 kilometers. Starlink currently has nearly 6000 satellites orbiting at around 550 kilometers"
Fun fact: Tiāngōng, the Chinese Space Station currently in orbit, operates as high as 450km up (its currently at 360km). So its even closer to the Starlink constellation that the ISS is.
Wonder if the FCC ruling will change after it comes down?
That's still a lot of satellites floating around that can get in the way. And it doesn't even include the other LEO providers like Project Kuiper spooling up.
It's already a bit of a mess to manage, especially if you include the debris. Back in 2007 China blew up a satellite, and as of a few years ago that represented almost a third of all tracked space debris.. (it has its own wikipedia page) If these jokers ever start deliberately blowing up each others' satellites, we could end up in a situation where space becomes inaccessible.
Ok FCC, then how do you plan on getting internet to me? Choppy terrestrial with 20% packet loss wasn’t working, Verizon lte with 2mbps upload wasn’t working, hughesnet…do we need to even mention it? Verizon dsl with 1.5/.25 isn’t even internet.
So please tell me how you’re going to do something about it other than deny me solutions? Starlink has been the best thing to happen to rural US in a long time.
Has Starlink considered just using really tall antennas? Should be a lot easier than all the risks associated with putting equipment into low Earth orbit.