TeraWave Satellite Communications Network

Some info from NASA optical communication page.

"Even Earth’s atmosphere interferes with optical communications. Clouds and mist can interrupt a laser. A solution to this is building multiple ground stations, which are telescopes on Earth that receive infrared waves. If it’s cloudy at one station, the waves can be redirected to a different ground station. With more ground stations, the network can be more flexible during bad weather. SCaN is also investigating multiple approaches, like Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking and satellite arrays to help deal with challenges derived from atmospheric means."

https://www.nasa.gov/technology/space-comms/optical-communic...

Some more info on Optical Communications for Satellites: https://www.kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/optcomm/presentations...

I think customer speeds is 144 and the 6Tb is their ground links to their stations. That is my take on it at least as its not super clear. I'm curious as to how it works as well.

What your describing is called Kessler Syndrome

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

... It is a very real possibility, but less of a problem below 550km altitude because the decay time is much shorter (and why all of these mega constellations tend to stay at lower altitude, even though ~1000km is generally better for a communications satellite).

> how many companies could actually do this before cascading collisions starts becoming a real worry?

Twenty of them at 100,000 birds each to start approaching the density of planes in the sky [1]. Not around an airport. In all of the sky. Oceans and all.

Practically speaking, this is not a pressing concern for our generation.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46711405

Make the US land area ~20% larger.

Randomly place 50,000 shoe boxes up and down the entire eastern seaboard.

Randomly place 50,000 shoe boxes up and down the entire western seaboard.

Send them in straight lines towards the other side of the country.

See if any collide. Almost certainly none of them will.

For reference, if you placed all 50k boxes next to each other on the same beach, it would be about 10 miles wide. The total shoreline on either side would be ~1800 miles wide.

And that's only 2D.

If they put their sats low enough (like Starlink already mostly does) any collision debris should be quickly deorbitted by drag, before a cascade can happen.

AFAIK they're in separate shells so the probability of collision is basically zero.

According to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b66ZZ05wKC0 this might end very badly very soon.

It's not a Leo competitor, it's a different type of service offering.

> What happens if the beam is obstructed for a brief moment (plane, kite, ufo, etc..)?

Same as with any dropped packet.

OK, we've used that link instead and put the submitted URL (https://www.blueorigin.com/terawave) in the toptext. Thanks!

An even better source, imho:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/blue-origin-we-want-to... ("Another Jeff Bezos company has announced plans to develop a megaconstellation")

> They are the real constraining resource and could be used to keep others out of the market for a while

I'd love to see a betting market on a unified, global licensing regime lasting for another ten years.

Given that you're worried about EMFs, the amount of power from nearby WiFi routers and cell towers is orders of magnitude more than from these satellites.

Starlink etc. use directed spotlight-like beams, so if you're not near a receiver (on the road) then no signal will be present. Why would they waste energy directing the signal anywhere other than where their dishes are?

(I personally don't believe in the harms of low power non-ionising radiation sources, but this comment is written in the context of avoiding them.)

> We might be the last generation that is able to watch the stars.

I'm not convinced this is a major issue, but I'd like to hear arguments for why it is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't LEO satellites only going to reflect light from the sun when they're at low angles near sunrise and sunset? For night time stargazing, they're going to be in Earth's shadow, too.

The amount of light they reflect back is also small. They can be seen if you look closely at just the right time, but I don't understand how this is supposed to be so much light that it starts raising the overall background light level considerably. The satellites are small and can only reflect so much.

Is it just annoyance that they're up there and showing up in photos?

"Polluting" is a very charged term. These satellites provide immense value. So far, there is no evidence these will stop us from watching the stars.

(Also, for a frame of reference as to how large these numbers are: the entire gps network operates on 31 satellites.)

Is it a lot? It's a bit like you are telling me there are gonna be 250000 cars on a planet larger than Earth.

I wonder if there's a limit to space junk beyond which leaving the Earth in a space shuttle becomes impossible.

How many causes Kessler syndrome?

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