#elon musk satellites

[amelia55]

भारत के कई ऐसे इलाके हैं, जहां पारंपरिक इंटरनेट सेवाएं उपलब्ध नहीं हैं या फिर कनेक्टिविटी बहुत कमजोर है। सैटेलाइट इंटरनेट इन क्षेत्रों में हाई-स्पीड इंटरनेट की सुविधा प्रदान कर सकता है, जिससे देश के अधिकतर हिस्सों में डिजिटल पहुंच संभव हो सकेगी।

[destielmemenews]

Musk was afraid that Russia could respond to the drone attack with a nuclear strike against Ukraine. This fear was reinforced by Musk's discussions with Russian government officials. Musk called the horror scenario “Mini Pearl Harbor."

source 1

source 2

source 3 (in German)

[yinyuedijun]

fjords are so very beautiful but so very traitorous because they have killed nearly all my connection to the outside world except for IG (evil) and tumblr (where I can post things into the void but literally not view anything on the app including interactions for the posts I just threw into the void). fare thee well sweet dash I will try to return with omegaverse fic by the end of the week

[justacynicalromantic]

Russians presented the marine kamikaze drone "Murena-300s".

The new Russian UAV is about the same size as our Magura V5 marine drone.

According to the data, the maximum speed of "Murena-300s" is 83 km, the mass of the payload is 500 kg.

According to preliminary intelligence, this drone is equipped with a Starlink antenna. Naval News drew attention to this. The footage shows that the Starlink antenna on the Murena-300s was hidden with a camouflage net.

Also has a Suzuki motor.

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

Starlink satellites consist of more than 7,000 small satellites in low Earth orbit. SpaceX has plans for 12,000 satellites over the coming years. Should we be worried?

Read More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/government-surveillance/elon-musk-spacex-are-helping-us-intelligence-build-the-worlds-largest-spy-satellite-network

#TheFreeThoughtProject

[nando161mando]

Now with a brain chip you can be tracked via satellite by a federally bankrolled chauvinistic billionaire fascist.

Enjoy.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/neuralink-implants-brain-chip-first-human-musk-says-2024-01-29/

[affairsmastery]

Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, lacks the highest-level security clearance required to access sensitive details about U.S. government programs involving his company, according to the Wall Street Journal. These programs, including payloads for the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, are classified as top government secrets, accessible only to select SpaceX employees with special clearances.

The report suggests Musk’s clearance is unlikely due to his alleged drug use and connections with foreign nationals. In 2018, Musk sparked controversy by smoking marijuana on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Additionally, in October, he was reportedly in secret contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

[lots-of-ramblings]

Quick question

How do you feel about Starlink and Space-X?

[informationatlas]

Starlink Satellites via astronycsc

Starlink refers to a satellite internet constellation project developed by SpaceX, the private aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company founded by Elon Musk. The goal of the Starlink project is to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband internet service to underserved and remote areas around the world.

Starlink, as a satellite internet constellation, has raised concerns about its potential to cause visible optical interference or "satellite trails" in the night sky. This interference occurs when sunlight reflects off the satellites, making them visible as bright points of light moving across the sky.

The individual satellites in the Starlink constellation are equipped with solar panels and reflective surfaces, which can catch and reflect sunlight when they are in the dark part of the Earth but are still illuminated by the Sun. This can result in visible trails of light moving across the night sky.

Astronomers and astrophotographers have expressed concerns about the impact of these satellite trails on astronomical observations. The bright streaks created by the reflections can interfere with observations of celestial objects and may be particularly disruptive for long-exposure astrophotography.

SpaceX, the company behind Starlink, has acknowledged these concerns and has been actively working on mitigating the impact of satellite reflections on astronomical observations. They have been testing various solutions, including adjustments to the satellites' orientation, changes in the satellite design, and coatings to reduce reflectivity.

One attempt to address this issue involved the launch of a prototype satellite called "DarkSat" or "VisorSat." This satellite had experimental coatings to reduce its reflectivity and make it less visible from the Earth. However, the effectiveness of such measures is still under evaluation.

[fuenffingerfaultier]

SpaceX unveils new StarScreen Constellation

Consisting of 64 satellites flying in an eight-by-eight square formation, the new constellation by SpaceX can display simple images or flash sequences of letters.

Each pixes is a single satellite in low earth orbit that reflects sunlight to the surface using an adjustable reflector. The controls are precise enough to change the image in a split second and to target areas only 100 km wide to display messages.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has so far declined to answer press questions. "Please wait for the final 32 by 32 constellation upgrade. That will be enough to display a poop emoji".

[whatthehelloh]

Billionaire Elon Musk reportedly restricted his Starlink internet access multiple times in Ukraine, which has affected Kyiv’s battlefield strategy.

The world’s richest man denied the Ukrainian military’s request to turn on Starlink near Crimea, the Russian-controlled territory, during the ongoing war with Russia, the New York Times reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

The Tesla CEO has been providing Starlink service to Ukraine since late February 2022, just days after Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked invasion and a cyberattack took down the country’s internet.

SpaceX’s Starlink makes up the majority of satellites orbiting Earth with more than 4,000 of them in the low-Earth orbit.

Mr Musk’s unilateral hold over his satellite internet technology, which has been an essential part of Ukraine’s communications since the war, has raised concerns among officials, according to the report.

In February this year, SpaceX announced it had taken steps to prevent Ukraine’s military from using the Starlink satellite internet service for controlling drones in the region.

Following the announcement, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said SpaceX needed to pick a side in the war against Russia.

Ukrainian authorities worried about over-dependence on a single source technology held talks with other satellite internet providers. But they acknowledged none rival Starlink’s reach.

“Starlink is indeed the blood of our entire communication infrastructure now,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital minister, told NYT.

The technology, he said, enabled artillery teams, commanders and pilots to watch drone footage simultaneously while chatting online. According to soldiers, the response times from finding a target to hitting it have been cut to about a minute from nearly 20 minutes.

“The huge number of lives that Starlink has helped save can be measured in the thousands,” Mr Fedorov added. “This is one of the fundamental components of our success.”

Mr Musk also asked the US last year to fund for their internet services to Ukraine because they could not continue the arrangement. The company estimated the cost at nearly $400m over 12 months, according to a SpaceX letter reported by CNN.

About 1,300 Starlink terminals purchased through a British supplier stopped working last year after the Ukrainian government could not pay the $2,500 monthly fee for each, according to the report.

Meanwhile, defence secretary Lloyd Austin in June approved a Pentagon deal to buy 400 to 500 new Starlink terminals and services, that would provide the Pentagon control of the setting where the internet signal worked inside Ukraine for new devices to carry out “key capabilities and certain missions”.

[blueiscoool]

SpaceX Falcon 9 Delivers 5-Ton Communications Satellite to Orbit

The company continues to launch rockets at a breakneck pace, with 16 flights of Falcon 9 in the past nine weeks alone.

A Falcon 9 lit up the Florida skies Monday night in what is now a very familiar scene. The rocket successfully deployed Hispasat’s Amazonas Nexus communications satellite into a trajectory that will take it to a geostationary orbit, from where it will expand the Spanish company’s coverage across the Americas, the Atlantic Ocean, and Greenland.

The rocket took flight at 8:32 p.m. ET from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Some eight minutes later, the main stage booster, B1073-6, performed a successful vertical landing atop the Just Read the Instructions droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the booster’s sixth flight, having previously delivered the SES-22 satellite, ispace’s HAKUTO-R lunar lander, and three batches of the company’s Starlink satellites.

[2ndtide]

Falcon 9 launches 22 Starlink satellites to orbit from Florida

[kilowogcore]

He's just bad at everything, poozers. Absolutely everything. No billionaire's good fer th' world, but Musk ain't good fer anything even on th' tiniest micro-level. Let's just overthrow capitalism so we never have ta think about him ever again.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The idea that public investment in infrastructure serves democratic goals fell out of favor in the U.S. in the 1980s. Leaders insisted that private investment reacted more efficiently to market forces whereas government investment both distorted markets and tied up money that private investment could use more effectively. In fact, the dramatic scaling back of public investment since then has not led to more efficient development so much as it has led to crumbling infrastructure and its exploitation by private individuals. 

In late July the New York Times noted that since 2019, billionaire businessman Elon Musk has steadily taken over the field of satellite internet, infrastructure that is hugely important for national security. In just four years Musk has launched into space more than 4,500 satellites—more than 50% of all active satellites. This means that Musk’s Starlink is often the only way for people in places hit by disasters or in war zones to communicate. 

On Thursday, excerpts from a forthcoming biography of Elon Musk by historian Walter Isaacson revealed that Musk “secretly told his engineers to turn off [Starlink] coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast” after learning that the Ukrainian military was sending six small drone submarines packed with explosives at the Russian naval fleet based in Crimea. After talking to Russian leaders, who said they would respond with nuclear weapons—later events suggest this was a bluff—Musk shut off Starlink, the drone submarines lost the connectivity they needed to find their targets, and the weapons simply washed ashore.

According to Isaacson, Ukrainian officials begged Musk to turn the coverage back on, but he refused, saying that Ukraine “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat.” He told U.S. and Russian officials that he wanted Starlink to be used only for defense. Then he offered a “peace plan” that required Ukraine to give up territory to Russia and reject plans to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Later, he again disabled Starlink coverage in the midst of a Ukrainian advance.

Isaacson portrays Musk as frustrated by being dragged into a war. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars,” Musk told Isaacson. “It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.” Since the story broke, Musk has defended his unwillingness to be in the middle of a war. 

But Mykhailo Podolyak, a top advisor to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, pointed out on Musk’s own social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that the same Russian fleet Musk protected went on to fire missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing civilians, including children. Russia is also attacking Ukraine’s infrastructure for exporting grain, which threatens the price and availability of food in Africa.

The privatization of the functions of government in the U.S. has given a single man the power to affect global affairs, working, in this case, against the stated objectives of our own government. Republican leaders eager to push that privatization have made their case by turning voters against taxes, although the tax cuts put in place since 1981 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and corporations, permitting a few individuals to amass fortunes: Forbes, for example, estimates Musk’s net worth at $251.3 billion.

On Friday the Internal Revenue Service announced that increased federal funding under the Inflation Reduction Act and the help of artificial intelligence will enable a new push to go after 1,600 millionaires who owe at least $250,000 and 75 large businesses with assets of about $10 billion apiece that owe hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. 

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said the plan “goes to the heart of Democrats’ effort to ensure the wealthiest are paying their fair share.” It also goes to the heart of the idea that billionaires must not be able to impose their will on the rest of us by virtue of their monopolization of key aspects of our infrastructure. Still, Republicans continue to argue for private investment according to market forces. Opposing taxes and the government programs they fund, they have clawed back as much of the new funding for the IRS as they have been able, and they continue to call for more cuts. 

This week, as a fight over funding the government by the end of the month looms, the implications of the parties’ different visions of government could not be clearer. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Sept 10, 2023

+

[ref :: Musk Shut Down Ukrainian Attack After Chat with Russian Official] ::

Elon Musk got caught with his hand in the national security cookie jar, sabotaging or blocking a major Ukrainian military operation after conversations with a Russian government official.

Now let’s unpack this.

Last month I wrote about the rise of the global oligarchs and I made particular mention of Elon Musk. Even if you set aside the various things you may not like about Musk he has amassed a degree of economic power that is novel and dangerous in itself even if he had the most benign of intentions and the most stable personality. More than half the operating satellites in the sky are owned and controlled by him. Overnight we finally got confirmation of something that has long been suspected or hinted at but which none of the players had an interest in confirming. Last September Musk either cut off or refused to activate his Starlink satellite service near the Crimean coast during a surprise Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian Navy at anchor at its Sevastopol naval port.

Ukraine has made extensive use of naval drones. But it at least sounds like this was supposed to be a massed attack that would have done extensive damage to the Russian Navy and the naval port itself and thus seriously degraded Russia’s ability to launch missile attacks against Ukraine. In other words, it doesn’t sound like this was just any attack, though the details are sketchy.

On its face you might say, they’re Musk’s satellites and he’s in charge of who gets to use them and how. But of course it’s not that simple. It’s a good illustration of how Musk’s economic power has crept into domains that are more like the power of a state.

Starlink is a network of satellites providing robust internet connectivity without reliance on any ground infrastructure. This is critical in Ukraine since the ground infrastructure has all been degraded or destroyed. Starlink is owned by and made possible by the launch capacity of SpaceX, Musk’s space launch company, which is currently the sole means the U.S. has to launch satellites into space.

Musk made business and financial decisions that, under our economic system, entitles him to the vast profits of SpaceX. But he didn’t create it on his own. The company was built on the back of U.S. government contracts. In essence the U.S. government fronted the money to build SpaceX by awarding it contracts that made its business viable. Musk and SpaceX are also U.S. military contractors. That comes with a big set of responsibilities and restrictions.

Raytheon isn’t at liberty to sell its high tech weaponry to Russia or China if the price is right. These contractors are legally and financially bound into the U.S. national security apparatus. So is Musk and SpaceX. Or at least they’re supposed to be. A critical part of this story is that Musk took this action after conversations with an unnamed Russian government official which, Musk claimed, led him to worry the attack could escalate into a nuclear conflict.

Of course the threat of escalation has hung over the Ukraine war from the beginning. Countless civilian and military officials in the U.S., Europe and across the globe have been analyzing and trying to manage that risk for 18 months. We should take Musk’s claim about fears of nuclear escalation with a huge, huge grain of salt. There are many other threats and inducements that could have come up in these conversations. But let’s assume for the moment that’s what the Russian official told him. It’s simply not Musk’s judgment to make. That’s not only the case as a matter of basic democratic accountability and national security law. Musk is the last person you’d want making such a decision. He’s a mercurial weirdo whose views visibly change by the day in reaction to whoever is giving him the most comments love on Twitter. His national security thinking is at best juvenile and fatuous. The idea that such a call was Musk’s to make is as absurd as it is terrifying.

Let’s imagine a more generous to Musk scenario.

Maybe that Russian official said to Musk: Turn off your satellites over our naval base or we will start shooting down your satellites. In technical terms that is not an idle threat. You might say, well, war’s hell, Elon. But he might reply, was the U.S. government prepared to reimburse me for the satellites and disrupted service contract fees that I incurred not for any sane business reason but to advance U.S. national security interests?

That’s a good question and I’m not sure I know what the answer is. In fact, I suspect there is no answer. The whole situation is one that mixes and matches private sector and national security in very scrambled ways. And Musk who is someone who pushes every envelope and is more than happy to use his money, domestic celebrity and control of a critical communications hub to wreak havoc with any U.S. government that calls him to account. Let’s not forget that it was just after these events that Musk suddenly started advocating his personal ‘peace plan’ on Twitter — which surprisingly seem to match all of Russia’s demands.

Let me be clear that I don’t think that last scenario is what happened. But we don’t know that it didn’t. My point in discussing that possibility is to illustrate the fact that it’s not just that Elon Musk sucks, which he does. The whole situation sucks. You simply can’t have critical national security infrastructure in the hands of a Twitter troll who’s a soft touch for whichever foreign autocrat blows some smoke up his behind. But that’s what we have here.

As I said above, we’ve known or suspected for a long time that stuff like this had happened. Musk revealed at the time that he’d been talking with Russian officials. Indeed, at one point he said he had spoken to Putin himself on more than one occasion during this period. But we shouldn’t take anything he says at face value. The U.S. hasn’t wanted to get into this publicly because they don’t want a public spat with Musk. (This is the subject of Ronan Farrow’s recent piece in The New Yorker.) This applies even more to Ukraine which still relies on as much Starlink access as it can get. In response to these latest revelations the Ukrainians’ gloves seem to have come off. One of President Zelensky’s top advisors went off on Musk on Twitter last night essentially arguing that Musk personally has blood on his hand for all the subsequent attacks launched from those ships and facilities into Ukraine.

We need to learn more details about just what happened here. A congressional investigation wouldn’t be a bad idea. But we know enough to see that a guy in charge of a lot of critical technology the U.S. relies on is happy to cut deals with the other team.

[dontforgetboo]

Happy Summerween everyone!! Watch out for the Summerween trickster…