Re: [Starlink] Starlink filings for D-Band via Tonga

[Alexandre Petrescu <alexandre.petrescu@gmail.com>]

Le 19/11/2023 à 02:18, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink a écrit :
> On 19/11/2023 6:43 am, Alexandre Petrescu via Starlink wrote:
>>
>> For me, the filing has a syntax error in the name (a superfluous
>> preceding quote in "'ESIAFI II").  It is an English error.  It should be
>> corrected.  See that quote in the field 'Satellite Name' at
>> https://www.itu.int/ITU-R/space/asreceived/Publication/DisplayPublication/53068
>>
> It's not English, it's Tongan, and it's not a syntax error (nor a 
> typing error) either. It's what linguists call a "glottal stop" and 
> Tongan (like some other Polynesian languages) is awash with it.
>
Ah!  Thanks for the clarification and sorry for having said that.

So we should probably talk about the 'ESIAFI II sats indeed. (in English 
there is sometimes talk of year '78 short for 1978; I think a quote is 
also a prefix of a variable in some particular programming language).

> It is quite common in front of vowels at the start of a word, and 
> indicates that the vowel that follows is short. Examples (wink, wink): 
> 'Etuate (transliteration of "Edward" or 'Etuini (transliteration of 
> "Edwin").
>
> They also occur inside words - such as "Ha'apai".
>
> The first example is the first name of the (to the best of my 
> knowledge) first PhD graduate in Computer Science ever from Tonga, 
> 'Etuate Cocker. I was his supervisor, so am fairly familiar with the 
> complaint from referees moaning that "these guys can't spell so their 
> paper must have been written in a haste". Which makes me a little 
> sympathetic to SpaceX's near complete avoidance of the publishing circus.
>
> I've lost count of the number of times where some online form wouldn't 
> accept it, or where we got challenged because of some mismatch. 
> 'Etuate like many Tongan often leaves it out to make it easier for 
> everyone, however I've always used it as I'd like to respect Tongan 
> culture and pronunciation. BTW 'Esiafi is pronounced E-si-ah-fi with E 
> as in "Edward", si as in the Spanish "yes" and fi as in "fee".
>
>> The frequencies: hopefully there is no syntax error there too. If there
>> is a superfluous zero, then the filing might actually be around 13GHz
>> and not 130GHz.  This should be asked whether they are sure about it 
>> or not.
> I'm sure they are sure.
>>
>> The D-band: I am not an expert at that high freqs.  The wikipedia page
>> tells D-band is "110 GHz to 170 GHz".  But the ITU filinggoes up to
>> 174.5GHz (if there is no syntax error in the freqs) , which is above the
>> limit.  This should be clarified.
> Band labeling up there is a bit approximate.

YEt they represent large bands.  They could fit a lot of Gbit/s.


>>
>> The orbits: not sure how to see precisely the orbit altitudes, planes,
>> etc. in a table manner.  The reddit poster shown a table, claimed
>> similarity to FCC orbits, but he did not say how he built that table.
>> He should clarify.
> If you look at the FCC filings by SpaceX over time, you'll notice that 
> the orbital parameters more than anything have changed wildly. I 
> wouldn't put much weight on them.

I will look closer at the FCC filings over time, of spacex.  I tend to 
agree they might have changed, not least because FCC also imposed change.

The issue here is how the person on reddit knows the orbit scheme 
proposed in the ITU filing, such as to qualify it to be similar to that 
of FCC.  The FCC filings have tables of orbit schemes (number of orbit 
planes per altitudes, sats per orbit, etc).  But the ITU filing does not 
show such, or I cant see it.

>>
>> I think there could be a way to request clarifications about this filing
>> at ITU; I will look at that maybe later, everyone can.  The Tonga gov't
>> should accept request for clarifications as well.
>
> I'm sure they will.
>
I wonder whether Tonga government frequency regulator features a website 
or an email address where I could ask what is the proposed orbit scheme 
of the 'ESIAFI II satellite constellation?

Alex

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> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
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>
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