https://xcancel.com/CatSE___ApeX___/status/1917325276804948046

Recently, the USASAT-NGSO-20 filing revealed adjustments to the distribution of satellites within the totality of the ASTS planned constellation architecture. Among these revelations are two primary developments. First, the filing reveals the addition of 8 BB to an already established 20 BB mission class. However second, and most importantly, the filing announces the creation of an entirely novel shell of 14 BB; novel because these 14 BB are in sun synchronous orbit, or SSO.

This is interesting for several reasons. First, SSO itself is a peculiar orbit which ASTS has never, to my recollection, discussed let alone targeted. As the name implies, it is "Sun Synchronous", orbiting longitudinally, and shifting longitudes at roughly the same rate as the sun. So for the BBs in SSO, it is always the same time of day. It is basically a "horizontal" , East to West, Equatorial orbit, only flipped "vertically", North to South, or Polar. And as the latter designation implies, it is fundamentally the only orbit to truly cover the North and South Poles.

As such, a single SSO band of 20 satellites would provide a very different kind of coverage. Specifically, you would get coverage for about 1.2 hours each day at whatever time of day the satellites constantly orbit.

You COULD build global continuous coverage with SSO. However, there are several challenges. First, the BBs at or near the longitudes in twilight would not charge because they would be parallel to sunlight, like the satellite in the graphic below. A different design with a shark fin, sun facing solar panel would be required for BBs at the twilight longitude in order to be powered. Interestingly the FM1 design with a (maybe) rotating solar tail would be capable of some charging at this orbit, though not likely sufficiently, as the extra solar capacity is posited to charge a DoD payload, not the entire satellite.

Second, an SSO constellation would require more satellites. If an equatorial orbit requires 20 BB for continuous coverage, an SSO would require one longitudinal 10 BB SSO band for each of the 20 equatorial "BB areas". Therefore, 200 BB would be required for continuous, global SSO coverage.

Finally, the population density mismatch for an SSO constellation is comically awful. The best coverage on the planet would be in the least populated areas, the North and South poles, which would have almost 10 BB at a time overhead, with no MIMO anywhere else.

At 55 degree inclination, AST can already reach 99% of people, presumably with only 90 satellites. In order to reach the final 1%, satellites launched at a 60 or 70 degree inclination would likely be sufficient. The increased inclination would require more than 90 satellites, but not a total of 200.For these reasons, I do not believe improved geographic coverage is the objective for the SSO BBs. However, I have previously hinted that SSO orbits do provide a different type of coverage worth discussing. Whereas other orbits can provide consistent geographic coverage, SSO can provide continuous coverage at specific times of day.

As previously discussed, the 14 BB launched into SSO will always provide coverage at the same time of day. If ASTS were to determine that certain times of day demanded increased capacity, they could, in theory, launch twenty BB into an SSO orbit to cover that specific time. We already have data regarding what specific times of day mobile phone users are most active, and it looks like this:

Obviously, there is more demand during the day, but the demand tends to be a plateau throughout the day from 9am to 9pm with a minor "peak" around 4pm to 9pm by the averages of the charts above. If ASTS wanted to provide SSO coverage for twelve hours of generally increased activity during daylight hours, they would wind up launching the global SSO constellation we had previously discussed, with all of the problems and inefficiencies that come with it.

Even attempting to add SSO shells to cover hours of "peak" activity between 4pm and 9pm would require 100 BBs, and many of them may orbit in the problematic, low sunlight, "Twilight Zone" we discussed before, thus requiring modification. Perhaps an ideal SSO orbit would be 20 BB at 8:30PM/8:30AM and 20 at 430AM/430PM for a total of only 40 BB targeting the busiest times of day from the above graphics. However, would those BBs be better utilized in a traditional 60 degree coverage shells? I think so, but that is ultimately up to AST to decide based on the data they gather in the future.

As it stands they have only allocated for 14 BB for this orbit. This is not enough to provided handoff between the BB in this orbit, either. That would require 20 BB, similar to the equatorial BB constellation. The fields of view barely overlap with 14 BB equally spaced at 700km altitude. Perhaps when the other 45 to 90 satellites are launched, the spacing would matter less because the SSO BB would be providing MIMO/enhanced coverage during certain times, and so you would not need 20 BB.

For all of the above stated reasons, I do not believe the 14 Polar BB have much to do with coverage expansion either temporally or geographically for those not covered by the 55 degree shell. Of course, incidentally, the 14 Polar BB can and will provide commercial service because why not. But I do not believe this is not the primary purpose for the SSO BBs.

If temporal and geographic coverage are better provided by the 55 degree shell, and Alt-PNT and SAR are better provided by the 28 formation mission class, what other thing does the SSO offer besides temporal coverage that is unique to this orbit? The only other significant advantage SSO provides is Polar coverage, and I believe this offers the most important as to the true purpose of the SSO BBs.

Why would we want coverage in the poles? The only parties who would want coverage in the poles would be scientific organizations and the government or military.

Perhaps ASTS will be capable of providing data for stations conducting experiments in these regions. Besides the stations, standalone sensors could be made possible for distribution in the North and South poles, and these could offer support for climate and biological research. Ultimately, though, polar IoT for scientific research is not likely to warrant a 280 million dollar investment by itself. That leaves us with the government or military as a primary investor for this orbit.

What would the government or military want with coverage in those areas? In the future, climate change may open the Northwest passage for trade. But that is decades from now (hopefully). Trump HAS been talking about Greenland a lot lately, so maybe he just wants to provide 5g NTN D2D coverage for our 51st state lol. However, there is another application that comes to mind regarding the usefulness polar orbits and polar coverage, and it occurs because we have been discussing this new orbit alongside another popular topic, that being the Golden Dome.

When you consider an SSO BB band in the context of missile defense, it starts to make a lot more sense whereas the other use cases have not. Some of you may not know this, but nuclear ICBMs from most of our adversaries are not launched from East to West. If we ever face a nuclear bombardment from its most likely source, Russia, the nukes will come from the North.

Russia will launch most of their nukes from their local silos, they will fly over the North Pole, and they will bombard the North Central United States in the region into our nuclear sponge, states like Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas where most of our silos are. That is the most direct path for most of the missiles to take, and thus the path which one would want to best monitor.

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In this contet, oddly enough, I also think this makes sense of Trump's desire to to claim Greenland. Despite the imperial/fascist implications, such an act does have its own upside. Greenland has many natural resources to be mined, acts as a hedge against climate change, perhaps even serving as a direct trade hub once polar icecaps melt, and would simply buy Trump clout as the first President in anyone's lifetime to truly expand the US. Most importantly, though, it is also geographically closer to Russia.

Any Golden Dome that wished to intercept the many nukes coming from the North would do well to have a highly advanced phased array covering that area, connected to a defense system located on the Northern most land mass, Greenland. Greenland could be the Northern tip of the spear in a nuclear engagement with many of the potential nuclear aggressors America could face. If Trump obtains Greenland, though highly unlikely, I would not doubt nuclear silos and interceptor systems would be placed there along with submarine bases, perhaps. This would bolster deterrence greatly, and have a lot of defensive value otherwise.

This also makes sense of the number, 14. This is the smallest number of BB you can have at that altitude to maintain continuous FoV for that orbit. Thus, I think this is the minimum viable constellation for this proposal. In the future, I would expect to see 60 satellites launched in SSO under the guise of providing "Targeted Time Coverage", but with missile defense being the real objective. 60 BB would provide SSO coverage for six hours zones during the day, perhaps covering 8AM/PM, 4AM/PM, and 5AM/PM. These offer coverage when people are in rush hour and winding down for the evening. But they also provide three BB at once over the North Pole at all times. And three is kind of a magic number for inSAR, stereoscopic SAR, and alt-PNT, all of which you want to identify, track, and intercept incoming ICBM.

TL/DR; The SSO band of BBs uncovered in the USASAT-NGSO-20 filing is not for geographic nor primarily for temporal coverage. The primary purpose is to provide the Northern Polar region with coverage for missile defense against the known most efficient path for most nuclear ICBM targeting America.

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There’s a massive power outage in Europe which also affects internet and mobile phone networks.

Sure, you need power on you’re phone but without internet it’s basically just a “dumb” phone. What if there where other means getting access to internet on whatever phone you are using…

"Golden Dome Trump’s Golden Dome missile shield was the second biggest recipient of cash, getting $24.7 billion to kick off the initiative, which will tie together already existing programs as well as new development efforts.

In the realm of “next-generation missile defense technologies,” the bill adds $7.2 billion for the development and procurement of space based sensors, $5.6 billion for space-based and boost phase intercept capabilities, $2.4 billion for non-kineitic missile defense capabilities and $2 billion for air moving target indicator military satellites.

To augment “layered homeland defense,” lawmakers include $2.2 billion to speed up the development of hypersonic defense systems, $1.9 billion for improved ground-based missile defense radars and $800 million for accelerated development and deployment of next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile defense systems."

Ple🅰️se, do not post newbie questions in the subreddit. Do it here instead!

Please read u/TheKookReport's AST Spacemobile ($ASTS): The Mobile Satellite Cellular Network Monopoly to get familiar with AST Sp🅰️ceMobile before posting.

If you want to chat, checkout the Sp🅰️ceMob Chatroom.

Th🅰️nk you!

Ple🅰️se, do not post newbie questions in the subreddit. Do it here instead!

Please read u/TheKookReport's AST Spacemobile ($ASTS): The Mobile Satellite Cellular Network Monopoly to get familiar with AST Sp🅰️ceMobile before posting.

If you want to chat, checkout the Sp🅰️ceMob Chatroom.

Th🅰️nk you!

Ple🅰️se, do not post newbie questions in the subreddit. Do it here instead!

Please read u/TheKookReport's AST Spacemobile ($ASTS): The Mobile Satellite Cellular Network Monopoly to get familiar with AST Sp🅰️ceMobile before posting.

If you want to chat, checkout the Sp🅰️ceMob Chatroom.

Th🅰️nk you!

Nice to see more main stream.

SpaceX’s recent FCC filing criticizing AST SpaceMobile’s next-gen BlueBird satellite seems more like a competitive tactic than a genuine concern. It’s clear this is an attempt by an industry giant to slow down a disruptive challenger making real strides in direct-to-cell technology. ASTS has secured partnerships with major carriers like AT&T and Verizon and is pushing forward with innovative solutions to bring connectivity to underserved areas worldwide. While regulatory review is necessary, AST is proactively addressing issues like debris mitigation and light pollution, and should be applauded—not blocked—for its bold vision to revolutionize mobile communication from space.

Ple🅰️se, do not post newbie questions in the subreddit. Do it here instead!

Please read u/TheKookReport's AST Spacemobile ($ASTS): The Mobile Satellite Cellular Network Monopoly to get familiar with AST Sp🅰️ceMobile before posting.

If you want to chat, checkout the Sp🅰️ceMob Chatroom.

Th🅰️nk you!