The changes in space exploration and satellite communications

In the context of its role in the Ukraine war in supporting Ukrainian fighters, The Economist has this about Starlink,

The company is SpaceX. Founded by Elon Musk to enable the colonisation of Mars, it makes very cheap, reusable rockets, whose first stages return from the upper atmosphere, landing gracefully on their tails. They have made the firm a space superpower: SpaceX now flies more things into orbit than all other companies and countries combined. Since 2019 it has put that capacity to use building Starlink, a “mega-constellation” of satellites designed to beam the internet to places unreached by conventional broadband. In three years SpaceX has launched around 3,500 Starlink satellites, roughly half the total number of active satellites now in orbit. It plans to launch as many as 40,000... The firm averaged around a launch a week in 2022, and expects to go even faster this year.

And this about Space X itself

SpaceX has the world’s best satellite-launch system, the partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket. That allows it to launch satellites at an unmatchable rate. There were 61 Falcon-9 launches in 2022. The company is talking of getting its Falcon-9 launch rate up to two rockets a week this year, with one a week devoted to Starlink. Each such launch will add another 50 or so satellites. The company is working on a much larger, fully reusable spacecraft called Starship which would be capable of launching some 400 Starlinks at a time, and thus taking the constellation from thousands of satellites to tens of thousands.

This means that Elon Musk has an overwhelmingly dominant position in both satellite launch and satellite internet operations market.

And this on Starlink's crucial role in the Ukrainian defence during the ongoing Russian invasion,

The government quickly grew to rely on it for various communication needs, including, on occasion, the transmission of the nightly broadcast by Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president. Because the dishes (some of which are round and some rectangular) and their associated terminals are easily portable and can be rigged to run off a car battery, they are ideal for use in a country where the electricity and communication networks are regularly pounded by Russian missiles. When Kherson was liberated in November Starlink allowed phone and internet services to resume within days...

Ukrainian soldiers upload images of potential targets via a mobile network enabled by Starlink. These are sent to an encrypted group chat full of artillery-battery commanders. Those commanders then decide whether to shell the target and, if so, from where. It is much quicker than the means used to co-ordinate fire used up until now. The system also makes drone warfare much easier... “Ukrainian military operations are hugely dependent on having access to the internet,” says Mr Gady, “so Starlink is a most critical capability.” A Ukrainian soldier puts it more starkly. “Starlink is our oxygen,” he says. Were it to disappear “Our army would collapse into chaos.”

Its military implications are enormous,

Starlink has become the linchpin of what military types call C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance). Armies have long relied on satellite links for such things... Starlink does not just provide Ukraine’s military leaders with a modicum of connectivity. The rank and file are swimming in it. This is because of the singular capacities of the Starlink system. Most satellite communications make use of big satellites which orbit up at 36,000km. Perched at such a height a satellite seems to sit still in the sky, and that vantage allows it to serve users spread across very large areas. But even if such a satellite is big, the amount of bandwidth it can allocate to each user is often quite limited.

The orbits used by Starlink’s much smaller satellites are far lower: around 550km. This means that the time between a given satellite rising above the horizon and setting again is just minutes. To make sure coverage is continuous thus requires a great many satellites, which is a hassle. But because each satellite is serving only a small area the bandwidth per user can be high. And the system’s latency—the time taken for signals to get up to a satellite and back down to Earth—is much lower than for high-flying satellites. High latencies can prevent software from working as it should, says Ian Muirhead, a space researcher at the University of Manchester. With software, rather than just voice links, increasingly used for tasks like controlling artillery fire, avoiding glitches caused by high latency is a big advantage...

Russia’s armed forces have lots of electronic-warfare equipment that can locate, jam or spoof radio emissions. But the Starlink signals are strong compared with those from higher flying satellites, which makes jamming them harder. And the way that the dishes use sophisticated electronics to create narrow, tightly focused beams that follow satellites through the sky like invisible searchlights provides further resistance to interference. “Unless you can get a really good bead on where that beam is coming from, it’s very hard to get a jamming signal into the receiver,” says Mr Withington.

Read also this HBR article which describes Space X as adopting a platform approach to space exploration.

The traditional approach to space exploration is to treat each project, meaning each rocket launch, as a one-off customized megaproject. NASA... treats each launch as a big, one-off, bespoke investment... The problem with that approach is that the various missions are constructed independently from each other. Components and systems are not updated and transferred from one project to the next — they are instead re-imagined... The new private space tech companies are taking a very different approach, treating rocket systems as platforms. They create components and technologies that can be reused and replicated, enabling them to start small and rapidly scale up...

SpaceX systems and rockets undergo rapid iterative upgrades, which have expanded the overall capability-set Space X offers its customers, just as Apple’s operating upgrades do. This platform approach to rocket-making creates a virtuous circle. Rocket systems made up of modular components are more easily upgradeable and reusable. This results in an increase in volume – in this case of launches. As people upgrade and recombine the components of their platform (the rocket) they can repurpose it, while continuing to scale. The variety creates the conditions for more scale, because it means that the platform has more value to more users.

Update 1 (29.07.2023)

Starlink is having a disproportionate and unhealthy dominance over the unregulated field of satellite internet 

Since 2019, Mr. Musk has sent SpaceX rockets into space nearly every week that deliver dozens of sofa-size satellites into orbit. The satellites communicate with terminals on Earth, so they can beam high-speed internet to nearly every corner of the planet. Today, more than 4,500 Starlink satellites are in the skies, accounting for more than 50 percent of all active satellites. They have already started changing the complexion of the night sky, even before accounting for Mr. Musk’s plans to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit in the coming years... Starlink is often the only way to get internet access in war zones, remote areas and places hit by natural disasters. It is used in Ukraine for coordinating drone strikes and intelligence gathering. Activists in Iran and Turkey have sought to use the service as a hedge against government controls. The U.S. Defense Department is a big Starlink customer, while other militaries, such as in Japan, are testing the technology...

While Mr. Musk is hailed as a genius innovator, he alone can decide to shut down Starlink internet access for a customer or country, and he has the ability to leverage sensitive information that the service gathers. Such concerns have been heightened because no companies or governments have come close to matching what he has built. In Ukraine, some fears have been realized. Mr. Musk has restricted Starlink access multiple times during the war, people familiar with the situation said. At one point, he denied the Ukrainian military’s request to turn on Starlink near Crimea, the Russian-controlled territory, affecting battlefield strategy. Last year, he publicly floated a “peace plan” for the war that seemed aligned with Russian interests. At times, Mr. Musk has openly flaunted Starlink’s capabilities. “Between, Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever,” he tweeted in April...

Starlink satellites operate approximately 300 miles above Earth in what is known as “low-Earth orbit.” That's more than 60 times closer than traditional satellite internet services that operate at higher altitudes in “geosynchronous orbit” and which limit their communication capabilities... Smaller satellites can orbit at a lower altitude, allowing them to link up with terminals on Earth to beam high-speed internet service to far-flung locations. Many small satellites are necessary for this to work. That’s because as one satellite moves above a Starlink terminal on land, it hands the internet signal to another satellite behind it to keep up a single, uninterrupted flow to users below... Starlink satellites orbit at much lower altitudes than traditional satellite internet services. As a result, the area that each Starlink satellite covers is smaller, requiring terminals on the ground to continually connect with the nearest passing satellite... 

Mr. Musk launched his first Starlink satellites into orbit in 2019... But Mr. Musk had an advantage. SpaceX’s rockets return to Earthafter a trip to space and are partially reusable. This effectively gave him control of an express train to constantly deliver satellites to space, sometimes dozens at a time... Each satellite is designed to work for about three and half years... Starlink provides internet download speeds typically around 100 megabits per second, comparable to many landline services. SpaceX generally charges individual customers about $600 for each terminal that receives a connection from space, plus a monthly service fee of about $75, with costs higher for businesses and governments...

The service, which officially debuted in 2021 in a handful of countries, is now available in more than 50 countries and territories, including the United States, Japan, much of Europe and parts of Latin America. In Africa, where internet access lags the rest of the world, Starlink is available in Nigeria, Mozambique and Rwanda, with more than a dozen other countries following by the end of 2024... Militaries, telecom companies, airlines, cruise lines and maritime shippers have flocked to Starlink, which has said it has more than 1.5 million subscribers... More than 42,000 Starlink terminals are now used in Ukraine by the military, hospitals, businesses and aid organizations. During Russian bombing campaigns last year that caused widespread blackouts, Ukraine’s public agencies turned to Starlink to stay online.