History, Politics And Current Affairs

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https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/05/s ... e-thought/

The biggest difference is in the launch costs. If it takes $400 million to get a satellite to orbit, it better work the first time, every time, and it's worth building it for half a billion to make sure. If it costs $50 million to get to orbit, save some money, skip some of the redundancy, and spend maybe $100 million on the satellite. When Starship is operational and it costs $10 million or $20 million for the launch, built a bunch of $50 million satellites and if one fails, there's always another one in the queue.

On a slightly related note, I'm wondering how many Starlink satellites have a national security addon.

jemhouston wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 11:55 pm On a slightly related note, I'm wondering how many Starlink satellites have a national security addon.

As I recall there's a separate version that's being used to make a different constellation.

jemhouston wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 11:55 pm On a slightly related note, I'm wondering how many Starlink satellites have a national security addon.

There was a report that SpaceX was developing a recon satellite that looked like a normal Starlink one. You could insert them with a regular deployment and it would communicate via the standard protocols. In short, you wouldn't be able to tell which of the Starlinks are normal and which are recons.

Rocket J Squrriel wrote: ↑Wed May 21, 2025 11:19 pm

jemhouston wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 11:55 pm On a slightly related note, I'm wondering how many Starlink satellites have a national security addon.

There was a report that SpaceX was developing a recon satellite that looked like a normal Starlink one. You could insert them with a regular deployment and it would communicate via the standard protocols. In short, you wouldn't be able to tell which of the Starlinks are normal and which are recons.

That's one thing I was thinking about.

jemhouston wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 12:00 am

Rocket J Squrriel wrote: ↑Wed May 21, 2025 11:19 pm

jemhouston wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 11:55 pm On a slightly related note, I'm wondering how many Starlink satellites have a national security addon.

There was a report that SpaceX was developing a recon satellite that looked like a normal Starlink one. You could insert them with a regular deployment and it would communicate via the standard protocols. In short, you wouldn't be able to tell which of the Starlinks are normal and which are recons.

That's one thing I was thinking about.

Puts the entire constellation at risk, though.

Poohbah wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 1:34 am

jemhouston wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 12:00 am

Rocket J Squrriel wrote: ↑Wed May 21, 2025 11:19 pm

There was a report that SpaceX was developing a recon satellite that looked like a normal Starlink one. You could insert them with a regular deployment and it would communicate via the standard protocols. In short, you wouldn't be able to tell which of the Starlinks are normal and which are recons.

That's one thing I was thinking about.

Puts the entire constellation at risk, though.

it does, but that's a thousand targets and every commercial satellite is ALREADY at risk.

I don't think they'd go after the satellites themselves, but more likely a cyber attack or a kinetic attack on the ground stations

jemhouston wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 10:51 am I don't think they'd go after the satellites themselves, but more likely a cyber attack or a kinetic attack on the ground stations

Yep. That’s our strategy too