I bet Eloon is spitting satellites

[MizLibby]

A starlink Rival from CANADA!!

Telesat now has all financing sources in place to fund its global Lightspeed Ka-band Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. Management tells Runway Girl Network that the Canadian satellite operator aims to begin satellite launches in “mid-2026” in support of a 2027 go-live date for global services, including for inflight connectivity.

Funding agreements with the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec have been completed to cover the Lightspeed network — including the LEO satellites and launch vehicles needed to deploy them; an integrated terrestrial network of landing stations and worldwide points of presence; and the business and operational support systems for the network.

https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2024/09/telesat-fully-funds-lightspeed-eyes-2027-for-global-service/

[SheltieLover]

1. Ty, Canada!!!!!

[John1956PA]

2. Hey, Elone. Stay away from government and keep your hands to yourself!

[lark]

19. Wow, didn't expect the GA Satellites to show up here!! Love them so much!! nt

[Mblaze]

3. I like it

Trump will probably spring the Space Force into action.

[Linda ladeewolf]

4. If Eloon had kept his nose out of our

Government, bad things would not continue to happen to him.

[SunSeeker]

7. Yup. Trump would not have won without Elon's money and GOTV campaign in swing states.

Elon showered Trump with about $300M that we know of. Plus he spent untold millions on an aggressive door to door campaign in swing states getting out Republicans to the polls. And then there was all the money Elon spent on PAC ads saturating swing states lying about Harris, saying she will let schools perform sex changes on your kid, and ads saying Ruth Bader Ginsberg agreed with Trump’s position on Roe v. Wade. It was disgusting. And effective. Lies work in America.

[James48]

5. Can I buy service in Michigan?

I need a satellite service that isn’t Eloon too.

[JoseBalow]

6. More space pollution

[WestMichRad]

8. My thought too

How many thousands of small satellites will this bring the total to? Becoming even more dangerous to be an astronaut.

But then, it has become much more dangerous to be an American, too…

[paleotn]

16. Kessler Effect - 1978

In 2009, modeling by Kessler and collaborators showed the debris environment in LEO had become unstable. We'd reached a point where fragments from future collisions accumulate faster than atmospheric drag can pull them down. That was 16 years ago, long before Elmo, i.e. "12 year old in mom's basement saying...wouldn't it be cool if (fill in - you probably shouldn't do that - idea)" started throwing shit all over the sky. So many things to hate about that bastard, I'm torn as to which is worst.

[BComplex]

9. Knowing musk, he'll use the American military to blow the new satellites out of the orbit.

He's a fucking asshole.

[erronis]

11. I'll bet he's outfitting some of his own satellite with space-to-space warfare capabilities.

I *knew* someone who worked in thes area and other similar technologies. The Chinese have already demonstrated this and I'm sure the russkis are there also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_warfare

[Tribetime]

10. Excellent and I bought Candian tomatoes today nt

[Shipwack]

12. The most interesting fact is between the lines...

Funding agreements...have been completed to cover the Lightspeed network — including the LEO satellites and launch vehicles needed to deploy them

Emphasis mine.

I don't think there would be any reason for these new launch vehicles to be limited to only these satellites. Does this mean that SpaceX also will have a competitor?

There are technical hurdles in the way, amoung which is that it is harder to put an object in orbit from Canada than Florida/Texas (for reasons I don't remember off hand). These can be surmounted with money or tech. One advantage they do have, though, is that a micromanaging narcissistic ketamine addict won't be in charge.

[paleotn]

17. ESA's launch site in Guiana. They wouldn't mind the additional business.

[Emrys]

22. The technicalities include what orbit paths they want to aim for

There's a satellite launching development under way in Scotland that wants to make a virtue of its relatively far north location (Scotland's also a not insignificant player in satellite development and construction). No idea how or whether that applies to the proposals in the OP.

[GoCubsGo]

13. There will be others coming later this year, too.

Including Amazon's "Kuyper," which will not be available to Russia and various others. And, if Ukraine wants to use their service, they won't turn it off on them because Putin wants it. All of these systems will be FAR better and faster than Starlink, too.

[ToxMarz]

14. Sign me up!

I don't need it (I don't think) but definitely would like to find a need for it.

[Dave Bowman]

15. Hey, Looney, never saw that comming, huh?

🖕

[paleotn]

18. Glad to here it. Hopefully, they're doing this responsibly.

Low earth orbit (LEO) is actually crowded. One collisional cascade, i.e. Kessler syndrome, from simple error or a belligerent act, and we might be back to pre-sat communications for a long while. There's debate as to whether a Kessler event might cut off access to higher orbits beyond LEO, but it certainly would preclude putting anything else in LEO since inevitable collisions would make the debris problem even worse. It would certainly make traveling into and out of space a whole lot more dangerous.

It's hypothesized that for any space faring species, a Kessler effect might be inevitable. A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox, where instead of blowing themselves up with nukes, they trap themselves on their home planet by putting too much crap in orbit X the probability of collisions no matter how careful you are. Interesting school of thought.

[yobrault1]

20. yuppers

[4catsmom]

21. well done Canada!

put him out of business