SpaceX asks FCC for permission to launch 4,425 satellites

[CommandMan7]

Most people associate satellite based internet with expensive, slow service and high ping. SpaceX is planning to change that, having just asked the FCC for permission to launch 4,425 satellites for the purpose of offering a truly worldwide high speed internet service. The ambitious project will quadruple the amount of satellites currently in operation from 1,419 to 5844. 

 

Quote

Musk said during a SpaceX event: "We're really talking about something which is, in the long term, like rebuilding the Internet in space."

 

That's a lot of satellites, but that's not the only impressive part of this plan. The satellites will be in low-earth orbit, meaning that they'll be closer to the earth's surface than current internet providing satellites, allowing for a ping in the range of 25-35ms. Current satellite internet solutions are in the range of 400 to 900 ms ping. 

 

The most interesting aspect of the whole plan is likely the planned service speed of up to 1 gb/s. Before you get too excited, realize that this number seems extremely high given that each satellite can only handle up to 23 gb/s. Apparently SpaceX thinks having one satellite provide service to 23 people is profitable? If you take the 119,930 lb low earth orbit capacity of a Falcon Heavy divided by 870 lb (the weight of each satellite) then a launch could theoretically carry 141 satellites at a time, although the number will likely be far lower due to the volume of each craft. The cost of a single Falcon Heavy launch being 130 Million (32 launches necessary), plus a very low and rough estimate of 20 million per satellite (4,425 launched), and that would make the whole fleet cost 92.66 Billion dollars to launch. The 4,425 satellites could service a maximum of 101,775 people at 1 gb/s, but assuming a more realistic 10 mb/s speed, it could service 10,177,500 people. 92.66 Billion divided by 10,177,500 would make the per-person cost $9,104. The satellites would last about 6 years, so that means to break even offering 10 mb/s speeds (100 times slower than max), it would cost $1517 a year, or $126 a month. For rural areas in first world countries that's a reasonable price, but it would be absolutely non-competitive in urban areas or developing countries. This estimate also doesn't factor in the cost of beaming the internet to the spacecraft, maintenance, staffing, technical considerations, and is all-around a best case scenario. The actual cost per customer would probably be double my estimate. That means that if SpaceX truly wants to provide 1 gb/s speeds, they'll have to charge something like $25,200 a month to break even. 

 

If you would like to calculate costs for yourself, you can use the formula

 

Cost per customer per Month = ((130000000(4425/P) + 4425S)/L)/((4425*23)/B)

 

where P is the number of satellites carried per launch, S is the cost per satellite, L is the average lifespan of each satellite in months, and B is the bandwidth per customer in gb/s.

 

 

As I see it, this plan will fail unless SpaceX can either:

 

A. Cut the cost of building satellites significantly (economies of scale would kick in for an order of 4,425 satellites)

B. Increase the service life of satellites significantly

C. Cut the offered speeds significantly

 

They will likely use a combination of all three. Musk has a tendency to be overly ambitious, so much so that the basic economics are clearly against this, but my bet is that the cost common offered speed will be 10 mb/s as well as construction costs per satellite falling to something like 5 million each. This would make service cost $35 per month, more like $45 per month with other costs and profit margins added in. That would also make 1 mb/s service cost $4.50 per month and 100 mb/s service cost $450 per month.

 

As far as the project as a whole, i think most will agree it's pretty amazing. What I'm wondering is if anyone can figure out how the economics will work for this? 

 

Source: 

http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satellite-constellation-2016-11

 

[Liltrekkie]

In actual fairness, I don't think they will have a one speed approach, they will probably have multiple tiers of speeds. 

 

Meaning that if they offer a 100 mb speed plan, that's 10 people per gb, you said they can handle 27 gb/s per satellite so that would be 270 people. Which if I felt like doing the math, would come out a lot better than 27 people per at 1 GB/s

[alexyy]

Ping isn't too important unless we're gaming right?

 

If they can offer a service at a good & fair price I say go for it, curious to see what regions they will operate in or stay US only. 

[batatas]

That is a lot of money and 1GB  speed hum i dont think that will happen unless they found a way without spending more money to make one satellite be able to handle way more that 27gb but 100 mb speed or even 50 mb speed that would be awesome i pay 60 bucks for a 10 mb connection if i could have 50 mb for the same price or a little more that would be great.

[mariushm]

23 gbps per satellite is OK.

 

The math about speeds is all wrong... it's not like they're going to sell 1gbps plans and only have 23 people using one satellite, it's going to be "up to 1 gbps"

I can see them offering plans where they reserve 10gbps of the satellite's capacity for something like "guaranteed at least 5 mbps with potential to go up to 100mbps", in which case those 10gbps would basically be sold to 2000 subscribers. Since not all of them would use the full 100mbps, on average all of them will have at least 10-20 mbps.

 

They could also offer - I imagine - plans with something like 512kbps guaranteed, up to 10 mbps max... someone using 1mbps dsl or even dial up in remote locations would jump to that.

 

They could also sell a tiny portion of the bandwidth of those satellites for sms like services, ex a company with fleet of trucks or something like that could have this satellite connection as backup to cellphone connection for their in-truck communication/gps/whatever, gps companies could use it to push tiny updates (patches, road closed, accident on road, change to other highway due to oversized transport on some highway slowing things down). A 16-32kbps connection for something like 3-5$ a month for such a service would bring additional money.

 

35-50ms would also make it quite ok for skype calls, voip...

 

Also... yeah... if they plan to launch 4425 satellites, they'll probably order 5000 of them, because if they launch 50-100 of them at a time, maybe 1 in 5-10 launches will fail and those satellites will be lost. Sure insurance would pay for them. Then of course, out of those 50-100, maybe a bunch of them would have mechanical problems (like not expanding their solar panels) and basically end up as duds and eventually fall back in the atmosphere.

And, at the end of 6 years (the estimated life time), they'd have to send up more satellites, but most likely they'd replace them with higher bandwidth ones

 

They'd definitely save some money by ordering in volume, it would keep a satellite manufacturer busy for decades , potentially adding lots of jobs...

[SImoHayha]

8 minutes ago, alexyy said:

Ping isn't too important unless we're gaming right?

 

If they can offer a service at a good & fair price I say go for it, curious to see what regions they will operate in or stay US only. 

Ping is highly important to anything. Too high of ping, means extremely long loading times for websites. 

[GoldSolitude]

ill only get it if it makes my ping better to american servers. pls be cheapo and in au/nz

(if it happens and is available here that is)

[That Norwegian Guy]

Would you like fries with that?

[Misanthrope]

35ms ping on a Satellite connection?

 

I might move to the mountains then, Zarathustra style.

[Space Reptile]

9 minutes ago, That Norwegian Guy said:

Would you like fries with that?

yes large and both

[DrMikeNZ]

SpaceX's ideas department is so high right now they don't even need a rocket to put satellites into space. That will certainly keep the costs down.

[raphidy]

Yay, more junk around planet Earth. I wonder how it would look with that much more satellites.

[Spookshow]

Great another 4425 exploding rockets

[mariushm]

56 minutes ago, raphidy said:

Yay, more junk around planet Earth. I wonder how it would look with that much more satellites.

There's not only satellites around the earth but also rocket remains, dead satellites, lots of unusable stuff still moves around our planet. 

 

See http://stuffin.space/ , pretty cool site where you can see everything orbiting our planet that's bigger than a certain size

 

5000 satellites at very low orbit won't do much space debris, because most of them will be de-orbited, pushed towards the earth at the end of their lives, and they'll burn in atmosphere.

[The Benjamins]

4 hours ago, Liltrekkie said:

In actual fairness, I don't think they will have a one speed approach, they will probably have multiple tiers of speeds. 

 

Meaning that if they offer a 100 mb speed plan, that's 10 people per gb, you said they can handle 27 gb/s per satellite so that would be 270 people. Which if I felt like doing the math, would come out a lot better than 27 people per at 1 GB/s

Also no company give straight speed if they have a 50 GB connection for 1Gb services, they can statistically service 100 customers at 1Gb due to not everyone needing 1Gb at the same time.

[Litargirio]

Why do these satellites only last 6 years?

[BuckGup]

Hopefully it will put pressure on ISPs on the ground to upgrade!!

[bcredeur97]

I'm suddenly reminded of all the space junk around earth in that old "wall-e" movie 

[Jamdude]

1 hour ago, Litargirio said:

Why do these satellites only last 6 years?

The hardware will last much longer, I believe it's the orbit they're thrown in to will only last 6 years before re-entry.

[-BirdiE-]

5 hours ago, CommandMan7 said:

The most interesting aspect of the whole plan is likely the planned service speed of up to 1 gb/s. Before you get too excited, realize that this number seems extremely high given that each satellite can only handle up to 23 gb/s. Apparently SpaceX thinks having one satellite provide service to 23 people is profitable?

Not entirely accurate...

1 hour ago, The Benjamins said:

Also no company give straight speed if they have a 50 GB connection for 1Gb services, they can statistically service 100 customers at 1Gb due to not everyone needing 1Gb at the same time.

Exactly. 

To say 4,425 satellites with 23Gbps capacity could serivce 101,775 people would be to assume that all 101,775 people were using all of their 1Gbps bandwidth at the same time. If The Benjamins' statistics are accurate, the number would be more like 200,000 people. I'm surprised it's not more.

[Aytex]

33 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

I'm suddenly reminded of all the space junk around earth in that old "wall-e" movie 

We're all going to be fat people in space  

[Centurius]

5 hours ago, GoldSolitude said:

ill only get it if it makes my ping better to american servers. pls be cheapo and in au/nz

(if it happens and is available here that is)

It won't, satellite internet is one of the worst forms when it comes to latency.

[Devin92]

4000 more in near earth orbit? i dont think they will approve this. the amount of space junk near earth is already start to become a problem let alone give it 5x more traffic. satellite connection is bounded by weather conditions tho, attenuation of the atmosphere make the usable bandwidth very narrow, unless they find a better keying method to modulate more signal, this service even if approved may not be available to majority.

[The Benjamins]

1 hour ago, -BirdiE- said:

Not entirely accurate...

Exactly. 

To say 4,425 satellites with 23Gbps capacity could serivce 101,775 people would be to assume that all 101,775 people were using all of their 1Gbps bandwidth at the same time. If The Benjamins' statistics are accurate, the number would be more like 200,000 people. I'm surprised it's not more.

50% is made up but I know companies do cost analysis to maximize usage and profit, and avreage, peak usages.

[mariushm]

2 hours ago, Litargirio said:

Why do these satellites only last 6 years?

Due to being so close to Earth, the satellites will slowly go down. I think they have some fuel and some way of pushing themselves back to the proper orbit, just like the international space station has to constantly use engines to raise itself back in the proper orbit.

I guess they also have some kind of energy storage (batteries) which are charged during the time the solar panels are exposed to sunlight ... they could die due to too many repeated charge cycles or temperature cycles...