Why China reacted so strongly to its Tiangong space station’s near-misses with Elon Musk’s satellites

[SaadH]

All you said just proves starlink has a low quality/cost ratio. It's just a compromise for those who don't have access to traditional web service. It doesn't work for all newest applications that need 5G fast information transfer service. It's a product of 4G.

China doesn't need starlink service because China built too many 4G and 5G base stations all over the country. If China some day builds Chinese version starlink, it will be mainly used for military usage. or to compete with starlink to weaken its dominance.

Starlink is akin to when Musk reinvented the subway, except he made it infinitely more inefficient with his yet another dumbass idea of using tesla cars traveling no faster than 30 mph and carrying only a handful of passengers at a time.

 

[Apollon]

SpaceX has the Falcon Heavy which is twice its mass at 1,420 tons compared to 777 tons and can deliver 63.8 tons to low earth orbit compared to Ariane V's 20 tons.
All that with reusable, self landing boosters and generally more advanced technology.

And soon it will have the Starship (Already has working prototypes) which will absolutely trash any spaceship that's going to be developed for the next 20 years by anyone that's not SpaceX

We will see.

Falcon heavy has a heavy failure risk.

So far only Ariane V is almost 100 sucess rate.

In general SpaceX has very low sucess rate

 

[Beny Karachun]

Falcon heavy has a heavy failure risk.

So far only Ariane V is almost 100 sucess rate.

In general SpaceX has very low sucess rate

Ariane V is more comparable to Falcon 9 in weight than it is to Falcon Heavy, also has a similar number of launches, so I will compare Falcon 9 and Ariane V.

Since 1996, Ariane V had 111 flights, 106 of which were successful. That's 95.5 percent success ratio.

Since 2010, 137 Falcon 9 launches were made, 135 of the successful. That's 98.5% success ratio.

Also, Falcon 9 is 4-5 times cheaper to launch at 40-50 million dollars.

 

[Viet]

So starlink is designed for small part of people. Which means very high fee for consumers. Most people in rural areas can not afford its service. Traditional web service suppliers don't use fibers either. They use base stations.

You seem confused. People speak of base stations when referring to wireless such as Wifi or 4g/5g or Xg mobile services.
Fibers and copper are widely used in wired connections.
Web service has nothing to do with underlying technology be wired or wireless.
Don’t mix up bananas and oranges

 

[StraightEdge]

We will see.

There's nothing to see, unless you lack brain cells. I will give you 3 clear cut points.
1. China won't allow starlinks, political reasons. Their internet penetration is already extremely good. On top massive urbanization.
2. Nobody will a half a brain cell will touch Starlink in India. There are many Indian posters here, let them comment as well on the price. 1.5Lac just for buying equipment, then 1.15Lac from 2nd year. One has to be a proper idiot to think anyone will bother with those prices. I have a 300Mbps connection at 1/5th of price and zero upfront cost. Many people in rural India earn that much in entire year.
3. Africa - read above. And on top China will be building infrastructure in Africa. I don't see China allowing Starlink to take over.

So, please explain where on earth Starlink will get 3 billion users? Some people live in lala land.

 

[Beny Karachun]

There's nothing to see, unless you lack brain cells. I will give you 3 clear cut points.
1. China won't allow starlinks, political reasons. Their internet penetration is already extremely good. On top massive urbanization.
2. Nobody will a half a brain cell will touch Starlink in India. There are many Indian posters here, let them comment as well on the price. 1.5Lac just for buying equipment, then 1.15Lac from 2nd year. One has to be a proper idiot to think anyone will bother with those prices. I have a 300Mbps connection at 1/5th of price and zero upfront cost. Many people in rural India earn that much in entire year.
3. Africa - read above. And on top China will be building infrastructure in Africa. I don't see China allowing Starlink to take over.

So, please explain where on earth Starlink will get 3 billion users? Some people live in lala land.

I never said Starlink will get 3 billion users, I said it could potentially provide internet access to every one on earth. Ever growing potential market cap.

I also compared it with satellite TV which has similar prices and probably less demand, satellite TV generated 88 billion dollars in 2020. If Starlink could tap into 33% of that it would break even in a year.

But Starlink is alone at this game.

I won't lie to you, Starlink isn't a giveaway. Poor people won't enjoy it. Many people without internet access don't have any electricity either. However it will give internet access possibility to around one billion people that simply couldn't get internet even if they wanted to.

It would let many people that live in rural areas in the western world improve their internet speed.

I doubt China would be able to build sufficient infrastructure. The problem in Africa isn't the capital cities, it's the smaller cities and villages, scattered throughout Africa.

 

[Kai Liu]

Then China is wrong, because Starlink is in itself designed to not carelessly crash into other satellites. Even without avoidance, the probability of it happening unintentionally is basically 0 because of the characteristics of 3D space. Even if China didn't move its space station (Which it regularly does to avoid debris) the satellite eventually would have.

Starlink is already being used for US military communications purposes.

Maybe you didn't hear it but almost every nation with a space program uses SpaceX to deliver their payloads into orbit.

Who cares those countries with essentially no orbit launch ability to use SpaceX? What do you want to say? dogs fed by their master?

Except the very base of your argument is wrong.
Almost covers the whole populated planet? You're wrong, there are billions without internet access/with very slow internet access. Not all cellular networks are equal, most of the undeveloped world either has 2G or 3G networks at best, or no networks at all.

"At the end of 2017, 3.3 billion people were connected to the mobile internet, representing an increase of almost 300 million compared to the previous year.1 However, more than 4 billion people still remain offline and 1 billion of these are not covered by mobile broadband networks (the ‘coverage gap’). Some 3 billion people live within the footprint of a network but are not accessing mobile internet services (the ‘usage gap’), highlighting the importance of demand-side factors in connecting the unconnected."
And the situation isn't much better today.

There are also many places with no network connection in forests, deserts etc even in developed countries. SpaceX strives to fix that.

The second thing you're wrong about is Starlink being slow.
View attachment 804586
You can clearly see that there are billions of people with 0-10Mbps internet speed.
Starlink gets 150Mbps, and it's going to get faster.

A large number of satellites in orbit is not a constant danger as long as they're visible and their orbits are known.
Don't say things you have no idea about.

india's internet faster than China? you are full of B.S. LMAO....

Countries with fast mobile internet have government investments

The Philippines places 110th in the global mobile internet speeds with an average download of 18Mbps, as of November 2020. Also worth noting is that the

www.yugatech.com

South Korea, Denmark, Hong Kong, Switzerland and China lead way in mobile and fixed broadband download speed ranking

Mean download speeds over mobile and broadband this year are nearly 200% faster than in 2017, according to Speedtest.

www.zdnet.com

Ranking the World's Fastest (& Slowest) Internet Speeds

Have you ever wondered which countries have the fastest, and slowest, internet speeds? Before you book your next coworking destination, it may be worth taking a look at the locations with the speediest download and upload times.

www.coworker.com

China rolls out 916,000 5G stations, making up 70% of global total - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

Now you have lost your credibility, so stop your B.S. here. Otherwise, next time you will say China's trains are also slower than india, too, LMAO...

 

[Shotgunner51]

Is the space already crowded? Or potentially could be spammed by a country or a corporation? Only an idiot will either worry or boast about that. The GEO orbits are 42,164 km away from earth center, the MEO orbits are anything between that and 2000 km above sea level, try dominate or spam all that space.

Of course the LEOs are relatively "crowded" in the sense that they are easier to be accessed or used, but even there collision between man-made objects are rarely heard, well the LEO is also a massive three-dimensional space. It only matters when a manned vehicle like CSS faces risk of collision with unmanned objects, human lives at stake and no chance is to be taken. It's even worse if such collision is intentional not accidental. That's why on one hand China develops OSAM (On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing) capability one function of which is countering orbital debris/spams, and on the other hand has right to promote international coordination on safety of manned missions, don't forget anyone including a Chinese private corporation can also spam the LEOs, that's easy.

 

[TNT]

Except the very base of your argument is wrong.
Almost covers the whole populated planet? You're wrong, there are billions without internet access/with very slow internet access. Not all cellular networks are equal, most of the undeveloped world either has 2G or 3G networks at best, or no networks at all.

"At the end of 2017, 3.3 billion people were connected to the mobile internet, representing an increase of almost 300 million compared to the previous year.1 However, more than 4 billion people still remain offline and 1 billion of these are not covered by mobile broadband networks (the ‘coverage gap’). Some 3 billion people live within the footprint of a network but are not accessing mobile internet services (the ‘usage gap’), highlighting the importance of demand-side factors in connecting the unconnected."
And the situation isn't much better today.

There are also many places with no network connection in forests, deserts etc even in developed countries. SpaceX strives to fix that.

The second thing you're wrong about is Starlink being slow.
View attachment 804586
You can clearly see that there are billions of people with 0-10Mbps internet speed.
Starlink gets 150Mbps, and it's going to get faster.

A large number of satellites in orbit is not a constant danger as long as they're visible and their orbits are known.
Don't say things you have no idea about.

I have no idea? Dude ive worked for satellite companies. The people u mention without internet are mostly the ones that can hardly afford food. Plus expansion and enhancement of cellular network is ongoing and wont be long before most area is covered. Starlink may have higher bandwidth but it also will have higher latency due to the distance involved.
Also u maybe unaware but the biggest danger to objects in orbit are other objects in orbit. They have defined orbits but a fault can create havoc. With a large number of satellites, this probability increases.
I had discussions with researchers regarding the usefulness of starlink during a presentation and we arrived to the conclusion that its too much for "just internet". They may well have other hidden objectives, sensors that help with detection and other reconnaissance and thats the reason they went with it.

 

[MajesticPug]

From which media you guys were told only China and Russia made anti-satellites tests and US was such a responsible country that never did that tests before? Matter of fact, US is the first ever country that started anti-satellites test.

US did the most ASAT and created the most space garbages. But that's okay to Israelis. They are American pawns.

 

[Shotgunner51]

I have no idea? Dude ive worked for satellite companies. The people u mention without internet are mostly the ones that can hardly afford food. Plus expansion and enhancement of cellular network is ongoing and wont be long before most area is covered. Starlink may have higher bandwidth but it also will have higher latency due to the distance involved.
Also u maybe unaware but the biggest danger to objects in orbit are other objects in orbit. They have defined orbits but a fault can create havoc. With a large number of satellites, this probability increases.
I had discussions with researchers regarding the usefulness of starlink during a presentation and we arrived to the conclusion that its too much for "just internet". They may well have other hidden objectives, sensors that help with detection and other reconnaissance and thats the reason they went with it.

Exactly! It's baffling to see idiots boast about "dominating space" or "hi tech" with StarLink/SpaceX. As I've mentioned dominating LEO is super easy, in fact China government has been very careful with its Guowang plan which is a mega-constellation of 13,000 satellites in LEO. Even numerous Chinese private companies have big plans say Commsat (has passed factory review with its 10Gbps, Ka & V band, onboard propulsion, 220kg), Galaxy Space (already launched a 5G sat Yinhe-1 to test Q/V and Ka-band) etc, even automaker Geely is ready to launch their satellite based AI cloud.

China is developing plans for a 13,000-satellite megaconstellation

China is developing plans for a 13,000-satellite megaconstellation

spacenews.com

With all big constellations set to go LEO is destined to be a busy space, naturally Beijing wants to promote coordination on safety rules with US/Russia counterparts. But of course US may refuse to coop, they're only putting safety of their own manned missions at stake.