- cross-posted to:
- wehrhaftedemokratie@feddit.de
- cross-posted to:
- wehrhaftedemokratie@feddit.de
The German tech company KLEO Connect aims to establish its own network of satellites in low Earth orbit that can provide internet to remote locations, hoping to rival Starlink.
Honestly they should stop wasting their time, it’s pointless to compete with Starlink at this point. Who are they going to launch with? Falcon 9? SpaceX will always launch cheaper on that. Someone else? Good luck competing with SpaceX on the cost front.
Not even getting started on the whole space trash issue, which will just get worse with a second constellation.
Starlink has 4500 satellites in orbit and is launching more every week. A LEO constellation only makes sense if you can achieve global coverage (over populated areas).
I would love to see these communications networks owned by some public entity rather than private companies, securing universal and irrevocable access to these networks for all individuals. But for this we needed a trustless and immutable agreement between all global nations. Given the current state of world politics and their governments this isn’t what we can call ‘a realistic scenario’ imho.
@Sigmatics
This is not an economic issue but rather one on human rights and democracy. I don’t think it’s a good idea to become dependent on a single company and/or a single government (Elon Musk has agreed to sell a portion of Starlink assets to the U.S. Department of Defense as you may know)
Space debris is a real issue which threatens humanity even in the short term. And it is another reason for international collaboration as we should not allow a single company “launching more satellites every week” without reaching an irrevocable and immutable agreement that it is for the good of all the people on earth (see my other comment in this thread).
[Edited for a typo.]
That’s how you get space trash like GLONASS and beidou. Their only purpose is being “not GPS”.
So, you see, these projects are primarily for warfare. Civilian applications are often permitted but that’s not the point of those projects.
I get your point, but seeing how not even the Russian military uses GLONASS…
Wait what? Shouldn’t that enable the US to end this war relatively easily? They could instantly break a lot of the advanced weaponry of Russians by disabling GPS for them.
No they couldn’t. GPS works by sending the time stamps and position of the satellite. By measuering the difference between when the signals reach the gps device it can triangulate its position.
There is the civillian coarse and an encrypted fine version for the military. I think the US will not allow the Ukrainians access to the second and their tech is probably not suitable for it.
If they cut GPS it cuts for everyone in that area.
About the space trash issue, that’s a really hard one but low orbit satelites don’t really contribute because they fall and burn down if they ever stop moving. There is a awesome clip online where a bunch of them go down and look like a metrior shower, kind of beatiful and nice to watch Musks money burn!
Are there even unpopulated areas that aren’t covered by one of the orbits required for populated areas? It is not as if you can have geostationary LEO satellites.