Starlink terminals deployed in Ukraine
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/ukraine-updates-starlink-satellite-dishes.ht... -- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
On 2/28/22 2:55 PM, Jay Hennigan wrote:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/ukraine-updates-starlink-satellite-dishes.ht...
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. Could tables on the satellites explode? Mike
On Mon, 2022-02-28 at 16:17 -0800, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right?
Anyone with a dish and power can connect to the Internet. That's it. If a dish owner chooses to allow too many people to share their uplink, then they will run into capacity problems - the Starlink systems are designed more for households than towns. There are beefy uplinks, but they are Starlink's, not consumer-owned. Without them, Starlink would be an isolated network. Here in rural Oz I know quite a few people who are early adopters of Starlink and they have been very happy with it. Of course, as the network starts supporting millions instead of thousands, that may change. And I'm guessing the number of beefy uplinks will increase, though they would I imagine be placed in stable geopolitical areas. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer GPG fingerprint: 61A0 99A9 8823 3A75 871E 5D90 BADB B237 260C 9C58 Old fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170
On 2/28/22 4:29 PM, Karl Auer wrote:
On Mon, 2022-02-28 at 16:17 -0800, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Anyone with a dish and power can connect to the Internet. That's it.
If a dish owner chooses to allow too many people to share their uplink, then they will run into capacity problems - the Starlink systems are designed more for households than towns.
There are beefy uplinks, but they are Starlink's, not consumer-owned. Without them, Starlink would be an isolated network.
Here in rural Oz I know quite a few people who are early adopters of Starlink and they have been very happy with it. Of course, as the network starts supporting millions instead of thousands, that may change. And I'm guessing the number of beefy uplinks will increase, though they would I imagine be placed in stable geopolitical areas.
That was my intuition. It might help strategic locations but won't be a panacea. And of course this could be the mother of all success disasters were there to be enough dishes. Mike
On 2/28/22 16:17, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. Could tables on the satellites explode?
If there aren't fixed Internet-connected earth stations line-of-sight to the satellite that's serving the remote terminal, Starlink will relay satellite-to-satellite until a path to an Internet-connected earth station is in reach. From the linked article: "Musk has previously stressed Starlink’s flexibility of Starlink in providing internet service. In September, Musk talked about how the company would use links between the satellites to create a network that could provide service even in countries that prohibit SpaceX from installing ground infrastructure for distribution. As for government regulators who want to block Starlink from using that capability, Musk had a simple answer. “They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said." -- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
As of right now >90% of the starlink satellites in orbit function in what we would call a bent pipe topology, where a moving LEO satellite at any given moment in time needs to be simultaneously in view of a starlink-run earth station and the CPE. They have been launching satellites with sat-to-sat laser links but such architecture is by no means fully operational yet. It does appear to be the intended architecture in the long term, to enable several hops of satellite in between a CPE and a starlink-run earth station. My best theory would be that this is using existing starlink earth stations in Slovakia or Poland. They may have accelerated the commissioning of some of the newest ones. On Mon, 28 Feb 2022 at 16:36, Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
On 2/28/22 16:17, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. Could tables on the satellites explode?
If there aren't fixed Internet-connected earth stations line-of-sight to the satellite that's serving the remote terminal, Starlink will relay satellite-to-satellite until a path to an Internet-connected earth station is in reach.
From the linked article:
"Musk has previously stressed Starlink’s flexibility of Starlink in providing internet service. In September, Musk talked about how the company would use links between the satellites to create a network that could provide service even in countries that prohibit SpaceX from installing ground infrastructure for distribution.
As for government regulators who want to block Starlink from using that capability, Musk had a simple answer.
“They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said."
-- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country? On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 4:39 PM Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
On 2/28/22 16:17, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. Could tables on the satellites explode?
If there aren't fixed Internet-connected earth stations line-of-sight to the satellite that's serving the remote terminal, Starlink will relay satellite-to-satellite until a path to an Internet-connected earth station is in reach.
From the linked article:
"Musk has previously stressed Starlink’s flexibility of Starlink in providing internet service. In September, Musk talked about how the company would use links between the satellites to create a network that could provide service even in countries that prohibit SpaceX from installing ground infrastructure for distribution.
As for government regulators who want to block Starlink from using that capability, Musk had a simple answer.
“They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said."
-- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
This is more of a brand image / marketing stunt for Starlink. A pretty ingenious way to market which will heavily pay off long term. To them, this is cheap for how much attention it’s getting them. Phin On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 6:36 PM Crist Clark <cjc+nanog@pumpky.net> wrote:
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country?
On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 4:39 PM Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
On 2/28/22 16:17, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. Could tables on the satellites explode?
If there aren't fixed Internet-connected earth stations line-of-sight to the satellite that's serving the remote terminal, Starlink will relay satellite-to-satellite until a path to an Internet-connected earth station is in reach.
From the linked article:
"Musk has previously stressed Starlink’s flexibility of Starlink in providing internet service. In September, Musk talked about how the company would use links between the satellites to create a network that could provide service even in countries that prohibit SpaceX from installing ground infrastructure for distribution.
As for government regulators who want to block Starlink from using that capability, Musk had a simple answer.
“They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said."
-- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
Starlink however forgets that Russia does have anti satellite weapons and they probably will not hesitate to use them which will make low earth orbit a very dangerous place when Russia starts blowing up the Starlink birds. I applaud the humanitarian aspect of providing Starlink service, unfortunately there are geopolitical realities like access to space which is likely to be negatively impacted if and when Russia starts shooting down these birds. Fortunately if they start shooting down the birds the debris will burn up in a year or so unlike geosync orbit where it would stay forever. On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 1:44 PM Phineas Walton <phin@phineas.io> wrote:
This is more of a brand image / marketing stunt for Starlink. A pretty ingenious way to market which will heavily pay off long term. To them, this is cheap for how much attention it’s getting them.
Phin
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 6:36 PM Crist Clark <cjc+nanog@pumpky.net> wrote:
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country?
On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 4:39 PM Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
On 2/28/22 16:17, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. Could tables on the satellites explode?
If there aren't fixed Internet-connected earth stations line-of-sight to the satellite that's serving the remote terminal, Starlink will relay satellite-to-satellite until a path to an Internet-connected earth station is in reach.
From the linked article:
"Musk has previously stressed Starlink’s flexibility of Starlink in providing internet service. In September, Musk talked about how the company would use links between the satellites to create a network that could provide service even in countries that prohibit SpaceX from installing ground infrastructure for distribution.
As for government regulators who want to block Starlink from using that capability, Musk had a simple answer.
“They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said."
-- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
Starlink however forgets that Russia does have anti satellite weapons and they probably will not hesitate to use them which will make low earth orbit a very dangerous place when Russia starts blowing up the Starlink birds. I applaud the humanitarian aspect of providing Starlink service, unfortunately there are geopolitical realities like access to space which is likely to be negatively impacted if and when Russia starts shooting down these birds. Fortunately if they start shooting down the birds the debris will burn up in a year or so unlike geosync orbit where it would stay forever.
Russia is not going to be using up it's anti-sat weapons to take down commercial internet birds. Let's use a little common sense here. On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 2:57 PM Scott McGrath <smcgrath@starry.com> wrote:
Starlink however forgets that Russia does have anti satellite weapons and they probably will not hesitate to use them which will make low earth orbit a very dangerous place when Russia starts blowing up the Starlink birds. I applaud the humanitarian aspect of providing Starlink service, unfortunately there are geopolitical realities like access to space which is likely to be negatively impacted if and when Russia starts shooting down these birds. Fortunately if they start shooting down the birds the debris will burn up in a year or so unlike geosync orbit where it would stay forever.
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 1:44 PM Phineas Walton <phin@phineas.io> wrote:
This is more of a brand image / marketing stunt for Starlink. A pretty ingenious way to market which will heavily pay off long term. To them, this is cheap for how much attention it’s getting them.
Phin
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 6:36 PM Crist Clark <cjc+nanog@pumpky.net> wrote:
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country?
On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 4:39 PM Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
On 2/28/22 16:17, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. Could tables on the satellites explode?
If there aren't fixed Internet-connected earth stations line-of-sight to the satellite that's serving the remote terminal, Starlink will relay satellite-to-satellite until a path to an Internet-connected earth station is in reach.
From the linked article:
"Musk has previously stressed Starlink’s flexibility of Starlink in providing internet service. In September, Musk talked about how the company would use links between the satellites to create a network that could provide service even in countries that prohibit SpaceX from installing ground infrastructure for distribution.
As for government regulators who want to block Starlink from using that capability, Musk had a simple answer.
“They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said."
-- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
On Tue, 2022-03-01 at 15:18 -0500, Tom Beecher wrote:
Starlink however forgets that Russia does have anti satellite weapons and they probably will not hesitate to use them which will make low earth orbit a very dangerous place when Russia starts blowing up the Starlink birds. I applaud the humanitarian aspect of providing Starlink service, unfortunately there are geopolitical realities like access to space which is likely to be negatively impacted if and when Russia starts shooting down these birds. Fortunately if they start shooting down the birds the debris will burn up in a year or so unlike geosync orbit where it would stay forever.
Russia is not going to be using up it's anti-sat weapons to take down commercial internet birds. Let's use a little common sense here.
+1 There are a lot of birds which translates to a number of weapons that are likely an unnecessary expense at a time where the greatest expense is focused on the ground.
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 2:57 PM Scott McGrath <smcgrath@starry.com> wrote:
Starlink however forgets that Russia does have anti satellite weapons and they probably will not hesitate to use them which will make low earth orbit a very dangerous place when Russia starts blowing up the Starlink birds. I applaud the humanitarian aspect of providing Starlink service, unfortunately there are geopolitical realities like access to space which is likely to be negatively impacted if and when Russia starts shooting down these birds. Fortunately if they start shooting down the birds the debris will burn up in a year or so unlike geosync orbit where it would stay forever.
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 1:44 PM Phineas Walton <phin@phineas.io> wrote:
This is more of a brand image / marketing stunt for Starlink. A pretty ingenious way to market which will heavily pay off long term. To them, this is cheap for how much attention it’s getting them.
Phin
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 6:36 PM Crist Clark <cjc+nanog@pumpky.net> wrote:
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country?
On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 4:39 PM Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
On 2/28/22 16:17, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. Could tables on the satellites explode?
If there aren't fixed Internet-connected earth stations line- of-sight to the satellite that's serving the remote terminal, Starlink will relay satellite-to-satellite until a path to an Internet-connected earth station is in reach.
From the linked article:
"Musk has previously stressed Starlink’s flexibility of Starlink in providing internet service. In September, Musk talked about how the company would use links between the satellites to create a network that could provide service even in countries that prohibit SpaceX from installing ground infrastructure for distribution.
As for government regulators who want to block Starlink from using that capability, Musk had a simple answer.
“They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said."
-- Dennis Glatting Numbers Skeptic
I think you are significantly overestimating the quality, quantity and will of the Russians to do such a thing as shoot down another countries satellites. In case it wasn’t clear from the preceding week there is a significant difference between the image of conventional weapon strength the Russian military has been portraying over the last 20 years and the reality of the situation. Swatting down hundreds of satellites just isn’t a thing, even the US military who have access to hundreds of SM3/SM6/THAAD vehicles would struggle to do such a thing. The Russian military would struggle to knock down a dozen I would suggest and the retaliation would be significant for such a blatant attack on a NATO countries assets. From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+tony=wicks.co.nz@nanog.org> On Behalf Of Scott McGrath Sent: Wednesday, 2 March 2022 8:57 am To: Phineas Walton <phin@phineas.io> Cc: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Re: Starlink terminals deployed in Ukraine Starlink however forgets that Russia does have anti satellite weapons and they probably will not hesitate to use them which will make low earth orbit a very dangerous place when Russia starts blowing up the Starlink birds. I applaud the humanitarian aspect of providing Starlink service, unfortunately there are geopolitical realities like access to space which is likely to be negatively impacted if and when Russia starts shooting down these birds. Fortunately if they start shooting down the birds the debris will burn up in a year or so unlike geosync orbit where it would stay forever. - WB6RDV
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 11:59 AM Scott McGrath <smcgrath@starry.com> wrote:
Starlink however forgets that Russia does have anti satellite weapons and they probably will not hesitate to use them which will make low earth orbit a very dangerous place when Russia starts blowing up the Starlink birds. I applaud the humanitarian aspect of providing Starlink service, unfortunately there are geopolitical realities like access to space which is likely to be negatively impacted if and when Russia starts shooting down these birds. Fortunately if they start shooting down the birds the debris will burn up in a year or so unlike geosync orbit where it would stay forever.
Anti-satellite weapons hearken from the NASA-era of satellite launches, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, were planned years if not decades in advance, and would take an equivalent amount of time and money to replace if shot down. Note SpaceX's response when 40 out of 49 satellites were fried shortly after launch due to recent solar activity: https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-lost-geomagnetic-storm Pretty much just a "ho hum, s**t happens, we'll make sure they burn up safely and don't hit anything on the way down." And then they launched another 46 birds three weeks later: https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches-and-events/events-calendar/2022/... and a week after that, launched another 50 birds: https://www.space.com/spacex-50-starlink-satellites-launch-february-2022 Sure, Russia could start shooting them down. But at the rate SpaceX can build and launch them, in that war of attrition, I'd put my money on SpaceX, not Russia--and it would let everyone in the world get a very detailed map of exactly what the capabilities and limitations of Russia's anti-satelite weaponry are as they fired it off dozens if not hundreds of times in a relatively short time period. I think people are just now waking up to how radically SpaceX has changed access to space. ^_^; Matt
Yeah, if Russia needs one 1st stage booster for every bird they kill, and SpaceX needs one 1st stage booster for every 50 they put up.... Yes, Russia is bigger than SpaceX, but that's a tremendous ratio. On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 6:03 PM Matthew Petach <mpetach@netflight.com> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 11:59 AM Scott McGrath <smcgrath@starry.com> wrote:
Starlink however forgets that Russia does have anti satellite weapons and they probably will not hesitate to use them which will make low earth orbit a very dangerous place when Russia starts blowing up the Starlink birds. I applaud the humanitarian aspect of providing Starlink service, unfortunately there are geopolitical realities like access to space which is likely to be negatively impacted if and when Russia starts shooting down these birds. Fortunately if they start shooting down the birds the debris will burn up in a year or so unlike geosync orbit where it would stay forever.
Anti-satellite weapons hearken from the NASA-era of satellite launches, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, were planned years if not decades in advance, and would take an equivalent amount of time and money to replace if shot down.
Note SpaceX's response when 40 out of 49 satellites were fried shortly after launch due to recent solar activity:
https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-lost-geomagnetic-storm
Pretty much just a "ho hum, s**t happens, we'll make sure they burn up safely and don't hit anything on the way down."
And then they launched another 46 birds three weeks later:
https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches-and-events/events-calendar/2022/...
and a week after that, launched another 50 birds: https://www.space.com/spacex-50-starlink-satellites-launch-february-2022
Sure, Russia could start shooting them down. But at the rate SpaceX can build and launch them, in that war of attrition, I'd put my money on SpaceX, not Russia--and it would let everyone in the world get a very detailed map of exactly what the capabilities and limitations of Russia's anti-satelite weaponry are as they fired it off dozens if not hundreds of times in a relatively short time period.
I think people are just now waking up to how radically SpaceX has changed access to space. ^_^;
Matt
On Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:51:05 -0500, Dorn Hetzel said:
Yeah, if Russia needs one 1st stage booster for every bird they kill, and SpaceX needs one 1st stage booster for every 50 they put up.... Yes, Russia is bigger than SpaceX, but that's a tremendous ratio.
Plus the asymmetry is even worse than that.... Elon can use that *same* first stage booster to launch *another* 50 next week, while the Russians need to get a *new* booster for shooting down the next bird. That's the *real* game changer in what SpaceX is doing....
On 3/2/22 9:32 AM, Valdis Klētnieks wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:51:05 -0500, Dorn Hetzel said:
Yeah, if Russia needs one 1st stage booster for every bird they kill, and SpaceX needs one 1st stage booster for every 50 they put up.... Yes, Russia is bigger than SpaceX, but that's a tremendous ratio. Plus the asymmetry is even worse than that....
Elon can use that *same* first stage booster to launch *another* 50 next week, while the Russians need to get a *new* booster for shooting down the next bird.
That's the *real* game changer in what SpaceX is doing....
I read this article on the upcoming Starship and it's really interesting. They are not only going to reuse the primary stage, but also the second stage. They're also going to use methane rather kerosene which burns much, much cleaner so they can basically just fill it all up again, and blast off for another. For Starlink, they could probably put 500 a week up, maybe more. https://everydayastronaut.com/definitive-guide-to-starship/ Mike
The Russians have several ASAT systems not all of them are ground based. Remember they also have that grappler which locks onto satellites and destroys them. I think this conflict will be the first one where some of the battles will be fought in orbit ie the ultimate ‘high ground’ the NATO countries have kept to the UN treaties on not militarizing space. Other countries well not so much On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 12:35 PM Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:51:05 -0500, Dorn Hetzel said:
Yeah, if Russia needs one 1st stage booster for every bird they kill, and SpaceX needs one 1st stage booster for every 50 they put up.... Yes, Russia is bigger than SpaceX, but that's a tremendous ratio.
Plus the asymmetry is even worse than that....
Elon can use that *same* first stage booster to launch *another* 50 next week, while the Russians need to get a *new* booster for shooting down the next bird.
That's the *real* game changer in what SpaceX is doing....
As I'm reading this - I'm reminded that you don't need to destroy a satellite to render it ineffective - just fill up the frequencies it's Tx/Rx on with so much RFI that the pipe no longer bends. It's not as if the frequencies and sat positions aren't public knowledge... - Thomas Scott | mr.thomas.scott@gmail.com On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 4:32 PM Scott McGrath <smcgrath@starry.com> wrote:
The Russians have several ASAT systems not all of them are ground based. Remember they also have that grappler which locks onto satellites and destroys them. I think this conflict will be the first one where some of the battles will be fought in orbit ie the ultimate ‘high ground’ the NATO countries have kept to the UN treaties on not militarizing space. Other countries well not so much
On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 12:35 PM Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:51:05 -0500, Dorn Hetzel said:
Yeah, if Russia needs one 1st stage booster for every bird they kill, and SpaceX needs one 1st stage booster for every 50 they put up.... Yes, Russia is bigger than SpaceX, but that's a tremendous ratio.
Plus the asymmetry is even worse than that....
Elon can use that *same* first stage booster to launch *another* 50 next week, while the Russians need to get a *new* booster for shooting down the next bird.
That's the *real* game changer in what SpaceX is doing....
You guys are missing the obvious. Russia isn't going to attack starlink in space, they are going to take over it's command and control functions and deorbit the entire constellation without firing a shot. Same for China and N. Korea, which both already have ample motivation already to go after starlink because of the existential threat to the iron fisted control they exert over their populace and the free flow of information. So while musk may be able to fly 50 at a time and has his own launch capability, if the command and control facilities are hijacked, musk will run out of money putting it all back together. On 3/2/22 1:28 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:
The Russians have several ASAT systems not all of them are ground based. Remember they also have that grappler which locks onto satellites and destroys them. I think this conflict will be the first one where some of the battles will be fought in orbit ie the ultimate ‘high ground’ the NATO countries have kept to the UN treaties on not militarizing space. Other countries well not so much
On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 12:35 PM Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:51:05 -0500, Dorn Hetzel said:
> Yeah, if Russia needs one 1st stage booster for every bird they kill, and > SpaceX needs one 1st stage booster for every 50 they put up.... Yes, > Russia is bigger than SpaceX, but that's a tremendous ratio.
Plus the asymmetry is even worse than that....
Elon can use that *same* first stage booster to launch *another* 50 next week, while the Russians need to get a *new* booster for shooting down the next bird.
That's the *real* game changer in what SpaceX is doing....
One hopes there is some respectable, perhaps even paranoid, encryption on his control functions. On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 6:41 PM Mike <mike+lists@yourtownonline.com> wrote:
You guys are missing the obvious. Russia isn't going to attack starlink in space, they are going to take over it's command and control functions and deorbit the entire constellation without firing a shot. Same for China and N. Korea, which both already have ample motivation already to go after starlink because of the existential threat to the iron fisted control they exert over their populace and the free flow of information. So while musk may be able to fly 50 at a time and has his own launch capability, if the command and control facilities are hijacked, musk will run out of money putting it all back together.
On 3/2/22 1:28 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:
The Russians have several ASAT systems not all of them are ground based. Remember they also have that grappler which locks onto satellites and destroys them. I think this conflict will be the first one where some of the battles will be fought in orbit ie the ultimate ‘high ground’ the NATO countries have kept to the UN treaties on not militarizing space. Other countries well not so much
On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 12:35 PM Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:51:05 -0500, Dorn Hetzel said:
Yeah, if Russia needs one 1st stage booster for every bird they kill, and SpaceX needs one 1st stage booster for every 50 they put up.... Yes, Russia is bigger than SpaceX, but that's a tremendous ratio.
Plus the asymmetry is even worse than that....
Elon can use that *same* first stage booster to launch *another* 50 next week, while the Russians need to get a *new* booster for shooting down the next bird.
That's the *real* game changer in what SpaceX is doing....
On Thu, Mar 3, 2022, 07:17 Dorn Hetzel <dorn@hetzel.org> wrote:
One hopes there is some respectable, perhaps even paranoid, encryption on his control functions.
Talk about timely! We just had a very nice presentation about this in Austin:
https://storage.googleapis.com/site-media-prod/meetings/NANOG84/2479/2022021... https://youtu.be/fCVs3VKUyJ8 I'd link to the abstract itself if I could, but it looks like the mobile view of the nanog site won't let me do that. ^_^; Matt
Great presentation! On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 11:16 AM Matthew Petach <mpetach@netflight.com> wrote:
On Thu, Mar 3, 2022, 07:17 Dorn Hetzel <dorn@hetzel.org> wrote:
One hopes there is some respectable, perhaps even paranoid, encryption on his control functions.
Talk about timely! We just had a very nice presentation about this in Austin:
https://storage.googleapis.com/site-media-prod/meetings/NANOG84/2479/2022021...
I'd link to the abstract itself if I could, but it looks like the mobile view of the nanog site won't let me do that. ^_^;
Matt
On Wed, 2022-03-02 at 15:39 -0800, Mike wrote:
You guys are missing the obvious. Russia isn't going to attack starlink in space, they are going to take over it's command and control functions and deorbit the entire constellation without firing a shot.
Gee, sure hope the master password (on that computer in the basement at SpaceX with the flickering green CRT monitor displaying inch-high characters and that goes "beep" every time someone presses a key) isn't "Elon"... Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer GPG fingerprint: 61A0 99A9 8823 3A75 871E 5D90 BADB B237 260C 9C58 Old fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170
Invade America?… um, not even close to a thing From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+tony=wicks.co.nz@nanog.org> On Behalf Of Mike Sent: Thursday, 3 March 2022 12:39 pm To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Starlink terminals deployed in Ukraine You guys are missing the obvious. Russia isn't going to attack starlink in space, they are going to take over it's command and control functions and deorbit the entire constellation without firing a shot. Same for China and N. Korea, which both already have ample motivation already to go after starlink because of the existential threat to the iron fisted control they exert over their populace and the free flow of information. So while musk may be able to fly 50 at a time and has his own launch capability, if the command and control facilities are hijacked, musk will run out of money putting it all back together.
I'm aware of the qualifications and level of knowledge in network security/cryptography that they hire for positions in Redmond at Starlink R&D. They are quite picky about who they hire. Highly doubt that anything that a 3rd party can do from outside of SpaceX's network is going to gain admin control over Starlink satellites. Attempt to jam them at the RF level, maybe. On Wed, 2 Mar 2022 at 15:40, Mike <mike+lists@yourtownonline.com> wrote:
You guys are missing the obvious. Russia isn't going to attack starlink in space, they are going to take over it's command and control functions and deorbit the entire constellation without firing a shot. Same for China and N. Korea, which both already have ample motivation already to go after starlink because of the existential threat to the iron fisted control they exert over their populace and the free flow of information. So while musk may be able to fly 50 at a time and has his own launch capability, if the command and control facilities are hijacked, musk will run out of money putting it all back together.
On 3/2/22 1:28 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:
The Russians have several ASAT systems not all of them are ground based. Remember they also have that grappler which locks onto satellites and destroys them. I think this conflict will be the first one where some of the battles will be fought in orbit ie the ultimate ‘high ground’ the NATO countries have kept to the UN treaties on not militarizing space. Other countries well not so much
On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 12:35 PM Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:51:05 -0500, Dorn Hetzel said:
Yeah, if Russia needs one 1st stage booster for every bird they kill, and SpaceX needs one 1st stage booster for every 50 they put up.... Yes, Russia is bigger than SpaceX, but that's a tremendous ratio.
Plus the asymmetry is even worse than that....
Elon can use that *same* first stage booster to launch *another* 50 next week, while the Russians need to get a *new* booster for shooting down the next bird.
That's the *real* game changer in what SpaceX is doing....
.. is that a challenge? ;-) Its a high value target. Even the NSA had it's most critical tools leaked.....someone somewhere is going to get a foot in the door at starlink, it's just a matter of time (money, or both...). On 3/2/22 5:27 PM, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
I'm aware of the qualifications and level of knowledge in network security/cryptography that they hire for positions in Redmond at Starlink R&D. They are quite picky about who they hire.
Highly doubt that anything that a 3rd party can do from outside of SpaceX's network is going to gain admin control over Starlink satellites. Attempt to jam them at the RF level, maybe.
TBH I doubt Putin et al could care less about a handful of starlinks in Ukraine. They're each basically one uplink for one or maybe a few devices in a country of 44M. If they did care the easiest/cheapest thing to do would be for the Russians to sweep neighborhoods for starlink transmission frequencies and just arrest etc any users thus causing others to be afraid to use them but that's more late-game, when/if they begin to establish "police" control. If Ukrainians wanted internet access and to get around blocking it'd probably be more effective to dig out old serial modems and get PPP dial-up accounts outside the country where phone service that will support that still exists. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*
On Thu, 2022-03-03 at 01:12 -0500, bzs@theworld.com wrote:
If Ukrainians wanted internet access and to get around blocking it'd probably be more effective to dig out old serial modems and get PPP dial-up accounts outside the country where phone service that will support that still exists.
How on Earth is that "more effective"? -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer GPG fingerprint: 61A0 99A9 8823 3A75 871E 5D90 BADB B237 260C 9C58 Old fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170
1. They don't have to wait or hope for a starlink terminal to arrive. They just have to dig out an old serial modem or system with one built in (they were common), find a phone line which will support that, and figure out how to get a dial-up account and use it. Like most of the world did ~20 years ago and many still do. I don't know how many starlink terminals were sent to Ukraine but it's probably not millions. Millions might be able to figure out how to dial-up though since that's what everyone used not that long ago and for all I know many might still use there. 2. Unless the Russians have control of the phone systems and whatever it takes to isolate modem transmissions they can't just "sweep the air" like they can for starlink frequencies. This page (October 5, 2019) claims there are over 12M landlines in Ukraine: https://www.sidmartinbio.org/how-many-landline-phones-are-there-in-ukraine/ On March 3, 2022 at 17:45 kauer@biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) wrote:
On Thu, 2022-03-03 at 01:12 -0500, bzs@theworld.com wrote:
If Ukrainians wanted internet access and to get around blocking it'd probably be more effective to dig out old serial modems and get PPP dial-up accounts outside the country where phone service that will support that still exists.
How on Earth is that "more effective"?
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
GPG fingerprint: 61A0 99A9 8823 3A75 871E 5D90 BADB B237 260C 9C58 Old fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170
-- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*
Further! Here's a page with about 25 dial-up ISPs in Ukraine: https://isp.today/en/list-of-all-services/UKRAINE,toic-14,c-1 If I go to www.ua.net, as one try, they list dial-up services and prices: http://www.ua.net/price/ediup.htm Looks current. The point being that dial-up internet is not unknown in Ukraine. And even if these domestic dial-up services get blocked if the phone system is still working those people can open and use a non-Ukrainian dial-up internet account. Obviously anything there involves some risk. On March 3, 2022 at 02:10 bzs@theworld.com (bzs@theworld.com) wrote:
1. They don't have to wait or hope for a starlink terminal to arrive.
They just have to dig out an old serial modem or system with one built in (they were common), find a phone line which will support that, and figure out how to get a dial-up account and use it. Like most of the world did ~20 years ago and many still do.
I don't know how many starlink terminals were sent to Ukraine but it's probably not millions. Millions might be able to figure out how to dial-up though since that's what everyone used not that long ago and for all I know many might still use there.
2. Unless the Russians have control of the phone systems and whatever it takes to isolate modem transmissions they can't just "sweep the air" like they can for starlink frequencies.
This page (October 5, 2019) claims there are over 12M landlines in Ukraine:
https://www.sidmartinbio.org/how-many-landline-phones-are-there-in-ukraine/
On March 3, 2022 at 17:45 kauer@biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) wrote:
On Thu, 2022-03-03 at 01:12 -0500, bzs@theworld.com wrote:
If Ukrainians wanted internet access and to get around blocking it'd probably be more effective to dig out old serial modems and get PPP dial-up accounts outside the country where phone service that will support that still exists.
How on Earth is that "more effective"?
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
GPG fingerprint: 61A0 99A9 8823 3A75 871E 5D90 BADB B237 260C 9C58 Old fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170
-- -Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*
-- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*
Kinda like sending Captain Kirk on a space launch. Amazing marketing! On 3/1/22 11:41, Phineas Walton wrote:
This is more of a brand image / marketing stunt for Starlink. A pretty ingenious way to market which will heavily pay off long term. To them, this is cheap for how much attention it’s getting them.
Phin
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 6:36 PM Crist Clark <cjc+nanog@pumpky.net <mailto:cjc%2Bnanog@pumpky.net>> wrote:
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country?
On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 4:39 PM Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
On 2/28/22 16:17, Michael Thomas wrote:
> As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base > stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out > gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it > need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained > by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if > they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. > Could tables on the satellites explode?
If there aren't fixed Internet-connected earth stations line-of-sight to the satellite that's serving the remote terminal, Starlink will relay satellite-to-satellite until a path to an Internet-connected earth station is in reach.
From the linked article:
"Musk has previously stressed Starlink’s flexibility of Starlink in providing internet service. In September, Musk talked about how the company would use links between the satellites to create a network that could provide service even in countries that prohibit SpaceX from installing ground infrastructure for distribution.
As for government regulators who want to block Starlink from using that capability, Musk had a simple answer.
“They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said."
-- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
On Tue Mar 01, 2022 at 10:35:21AM -0800, Crist Clark wrote:
So they???re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can???t do business in the country?
Who knows but someone got an imported one running - https://twitter.com/lorengrush/status/1498724024729452552 brandon
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 10:38 AM Crist Clark <cjc+nanog@pumpky.net> wrote:
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country?
It's not like Google is billing anyone for using 8.8.8.8 et al. [for those who immediately respond "this is SpaceX, not Google, remember, Google already put a billion dollars into the company to purchase 10% ownership of it; contributing another billion to fund service to Ukraine wouldn't be beyond their means by any stretch.] Besides, it could be a great "free now, but 6 months after an armistice is signed, you can cancel the service and return the dish, or start paying our regular monthly service fee" type situation. I mean, if starlink offered you free service for N months, and then at the end, you had to choose to return the dish or start paying the monthly fee, how likely are you to give it up once you've gotten used to using it every day? If we really want to get creative, there's always the carbon offsets model for industry. We could create incentive structures for global companies to buy "democracy credits" through donations like that, which would offset a similar amount of latitude in doing business within authoritarian regions. That way, if you donate a billion dollars worth of service to support freedom and democracy in Ukraine, we'll collectively look the other way if you use slave Uyghur labour to assemble a billion dollars worth of CPE. In short--there's lots of ways this could work out, beyond a simple "let's just give it away for free forever" model. ^_^ Matt
On 3/1/22 10:35, Crist Clark wrote:
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country?
1. Elon can afford it. 2. Marketing value is huge. -- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country?
There is a difference between a country allowing SpaceX to install a ground station in their territory, and prohibiting anyone in a nation's banking system from sending payments to SpaceX. The former is much simpler than the latter, and also kinda what Musk's comment was all about. Even today, Starlink has no ground stations in the Ukraine. However, sats overflying Ukraine are able to hit ground stations in Lithuania, Poland, and Turkey, so those terminals are able to work. On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 1:36 PM Crist Clark <cjc+nanog@pumpky.net> wrote:
So they’re going to offer the service to anyone in a denied area for free somehow? How do you send someone a bill or how do they pay it if you can’t do business in the country?
On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 4:39 PM Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
On 2/28/22 16:17, Michael Thomas wrote:
As a practical matter how does this help? You need to have base stations/dishes, right? Can they be beefy ones that can pump out gigabytes that would be capable of backfilling the load? Or would it need to be multiple in parallel? Wouldn't that bandwidth be constrained by the number of visible satellites in the constellation? I wonder if they've ever even tested it with feeding into an internet facing router. Could tables on the satellites explode?
If there aren't fixed Internet-connected earth stations line-of-sight to the satellite that's serving the remote terminal, Starlink will relay satellite-to-satellite until a path to an Internet-connected earth station is in reach.
From the linked article:
"Musk has previously stressed Starlink’s flexibility of Starlink in providing internet service. In September, Musk talked about how the company would use links between the satellites to create a network that could provide service even in countries that prohibit SpaceX from installing ground infrastructure for distribution.
As for government regulators who want to block Starlink from using that capability, Musk had a simple answer.
“They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said."
-- Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
Curious, will that be with starlink ASN then ? That throw geo detection via IP out right away. On 3/1/2022 6:55 AM, Jay Hennigan wrote:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/ukraine-updates-starlink-satellite-dishes.ht...
From a quick google search it seems to be 14593.
On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 11:48 PM Ong Beng Hui <ongbh@ispworkshop.com> wrote:
Curious, will that be with starlink ASN then ?
That throw geo detection via IP out right away.
On 3/1/2022 6:55 AM, Jay Hennigan wrote:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/ukraine-updates-starlink-satellite-dishes.ht...
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 8:47 AM Dovid Bender <dovid@telecurve.com> wrote:
From a quick google search it seems to be 14593.
On Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 11:48 PM Ong Beng Hui <ongbh@ispworkshop.com> wrote:
Curious, will that be with starlink ASN then ?
That throw geo detection via IP out right away.
One way to avoid geo-detection of course is to run a vpn. Source specific routing can be used to "export" ipv6 blocks from anywhere to anywhere.
On 3/1/2022 6:55 AM, Jay Hennigan wrote:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/ukraine-updates-starlink-satellite-dishes.ht...
-- I tried to build a better future, a few times: https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
Yes, most starlink is via AS36492. They also have AS27277, though I'm not sure if that's in active use for consumer traffic. On Tue, 1 Mar 2022 at 11:58, ic <lists@benappy.com> wrote:
Friends who have Starlink terminals in Europe (cz) go out through AS36492.
On 1 Mar 2022, at 05:48, Ong Beng Hui <ongbh@ispworkshop.com> wrote:
Curious, will that be with starlink ASN then ?
That throw geo detection via IP out right away.
As Google's ASN? https://bgp.he.net/AS36492 On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 11:56 AM ic <lists@benappy.com> wrote:
Friends who have Starlink terminals in Europe (cz) go out through AS36492.
On 1 Mar 2022, at 05:48, Ong Beng Hui <ongbh@ispworkshop.com> wrote:
Curious, will that be with starlink ASN then ?
That throw geo detection via IP out right away.
Starlink uses Google as their ground provider - Google invested $1bn into Starlink so it’s no wonder. Phin On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 5:58 PM Josh Luthman <josh@imaginenetworksllc.com> wrote:
As Google's ASN?
On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 11:56 AM ic <lists@benappy.com> wrote:
Friends who have Starlink terminals in Europe (cz) go out through AS36492.
On 1 Mar 2022, at 05:48, Ong Beng Hui <ongbh@ispworkshop.com> wrote:
Curious, will that be with starlink ASN then ?
That throw geo detection via IP out right away.
I think they were all that way, but I believe traffic is moving over to 14593. https://bgp.he.net/AS14593 I've seen people post on their social media that their routing changed. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions Midwest Internet Exchange The Brothers WISP ----- Original Message ----- From: "ic" <lists@benappy.com> To: "Ong Beng Hui" <ongbh@ispworkshop.com> Cc: "NANOG list" <nanog@nanog.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 1, 2022 10:56:24 AM Subject: Re: Starlink terminals deployed in Ukraine Friends who have Starlink terminals in Europe (cz) go out through AS36492.
On 1 Mar 2022, at 05:48, Ong Beng Hui <ongbh@ispworkshop.com> wrote:
Curious, will that be with starlink ASN then ?
That throw geo detection via IP out right away.
participants (25)
-
Brandon Butterworth -
bzs＠theworld.com -
Crist Clark -
Dave Taht -
Dennis Glatting -
Dorn Hetzel -
Dovid Bender -
Eric Kuhnke -
ic -
Jay Hennigan -
Josh Luthman -
Karl Auer -
Matthew Petach -
Michael Thomas -
Mike -
Mike Hammett -
nanog08＠mulligan.org -
Ong Beng Hui -
Phineas Walton -
Scott McGrath -
Stephen Strowes -
Thomas Scott -
Tom Beecher -
Tony Wicks -
Valdis Klētnieks