Lifeboat Foundation

My Chapter Titled ‘’, has been published in ‘Handbook of Real-Time Computing’ in Springer Nature. The chapter provides information on satellite communication networks for different orbits, use-cases, scenarios, link budget analyses, history, and future developments.

Software-defined radio (SDR) is one of many new technologies being adopted by satellite communication to lower the costs both operational and capital by reducing the amount of radio equipment involved in the communication chain and by giving the advantage of remote configuration and regular firmware updates. SDR basically replaces most of the radio equipment by a single computing device with software capable of performing functions of the replaced hardware equipment. SDRs are introduced not only in terrestrial gateways and ground stations, but next generations of LEO and GEO satellites are already adopting the technology. Previously, satellite radio links were limited to the configuration of radio equipment that was installed during the manufacturing of the satellite, which couldn’t be modified throughout the lifespan of the satellite.

Figure 15 displays a generic digital communication transmit and receive RF chain at the physical layer for binary, sampled, and analogue data streams. Data in binary that is collected from data source at transmit end is coming from the higher layers, which is then coded in binary, modulated to sampled, converted to analogue waveform through digital to analogue converter before sending it to the antenna end for transmission over-the-air interface with required transmit power. At the receive end, the wireless signal is received as analogue, converted to sampled for demodulation, decoded to binary, and sent to data sink for integrating with upper layers. The coding/decoding and modulation/demodulation, commonly referred to as MOD/COD, are programmable functions and can be replaced by SDR using a processing device. This can be done at the ground stations, at the gateway, user terminals, and at the satellite using on-board processing.

This is interesting. It looks like SpaceX is abandoning their backup plan to launch V2.0 Starlink satellites with the Falcon 9 and instead they are going to launch them with Starship instead. They are also saying they will be ready to launch them as soon as 2 months from now. This confirms the rumors that I’ve been hearing that the Raptor 2 engine for Starship is much more stable than the Raptor 1 engines were.

Note that this means they are planning on launching satellites before they have perfected landing but this makes sense since they did the same with the Falcon 9, crashing and burning 19 rockets in a row until they were able to land part of one. It should take 5 or less orbital attempts to land the Starship booster stage. (They will lose a ton of engines with the booster stage so this will be a high priority to get working.)

TAMPA, Fla. — SpaceX has dropped a plan to use Falcon 9 to launch the 30,000 satellites in its proposed second-generation Starlink broadband constellation, and is instead focusing on a configuration leveraging its upcoming Starship vehicle.

Continue reading “SpaceX goes all-in on Starship configuration for second-gen Starlink” »

SpaceX launched another batch of Starlink satellites to the fourth shell of the constellation for the first global orbital launch attempt of the year.

Lifting off from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), the Starlink Group 4–5 mission lifted 49 Starlink v1.5 satellites southeastward from Kennedy into a 210 × 339 km low Earth orbit with an inclination of 53.22 degrees.

Continue reading “SpaceX conducts first orbital launch of 2022 with Starlink Group 4-5” »

SpaceX kicked off 2022 with a bang. CEO ELon Musk’s spaceflight firm launched a Falcon 9 rocket packed with Starlink satellites for its internet constellation.

The deal will involve SpaceX installing ground stations inside google’s data centers to link with Starlink satellites. This synergy will provide ultra-fast internet services to enterprise clients. We could start seeing the outcome of the partnership as early as this year, especially since Musk has promised Starlink would exit beta mode despite the size of googling this deal is enormous because it is giving an edge in its competition the software behemoth Microsoft and online retail king Amazon in the cloud computing market.

Google needs to diversify as quickly as possible because its advert business is no longer growing at the usual rate. The cloud is a way for Google to shore up its revenue to sustain its growth, so landing a client like SpaceX is a big deal for Google because its cloud computing service will be delivered to clients at high speed the first at Google data center to host a starling the base station is in New Albany Ohio followed by other data centers in the US. Still, ultimately most of google’s data centers worldwide would be connected.

Google and SpaceX had a bit of history back in 2015; the search giant invested 900 million dollars into SpaceX, which was meant to cover various technologies, including making the satellites themselves. Hence, it is natural that the two companies would do business together. The deal benefits all the parties involved, and Google brings its cloud services to more customers through a secure and fast internet network.

The transiting exoplanet survey satellite, TESS

Launched on April 18, 2018, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a mission to search nearby stars for undiscovered worlds with a gold of discovering thousands of exoplanets around nearby bright stars.

Between tens of thousands of new satellites and the increasing weaponization of space, a chain reaction may soon reach a tipping point.

From the Terminator to Spiderman’s suit, self-repairing robots and devices abound in sci-fi movies. In reality, though, wear and tear reduce the effectiveness of electronic devices until they need to be replaced. What is the cracked screen of your mobile phone healing itself overnight, or the solar panels providing energy to satellites continually repairing the damage caused by micro-meteorites?

SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) departed Port Canaveral on January 1st, heading to sea on the first day of the year for SpaceX’s first launch of 2022.

With a launch manifest that’s never been more jam-packed and seemingly achievable, it’s no surprise that SpaceX is wasting no time kicking off what could be its third record-breaking year in a row. Barring delays, drone ship ASOG will arrive about 640 km (400 mi) downrange at its recovery site – just northeast of the Bahamas – a day or two before Falcon 9’s first launch and landing attempt of the year. Known as Starlink 4–5 (Group 4 Launch 5) and scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) 4:49 pm EST (21:49 UTC), Thursday, January 6th, it will be SpaceX’s 34th dedicated Starlink launch since May 2019.

Perhaps more importantly, if the mission goes to plan and doesn’t have rideshare payloads, SpaceX will start 2022 having just launched its 1997th Starlink satellite, including two prototypes that came to be known as Tintin A and B and kicked off the constellation’s in-space hardware testing phase in February 2018. Excluding all prototypes, Starlink 4–5 will mark the launch of more than 1900 (1922) nominally operational Starlink satellites.