I thought with a phased-array antenna you don't need to track because the antenna can receive the signal across a wide enough arc. Anyone know for sure?
Their home antenna would work on a boat without all the stabilization and tracking needed for geostationary satellites used by KVH for TV.
The lower the earth's orbit, the faster the satellite has to move to stay in orbit, since it has higher gravity. So, any motion of the boat would be insignificant compared to the velocity of the satellites going by overhead. They may have some orientation requirements so the antenna knows which way is north, but I would suspect, to make it customer friendly, they probably have built that into the antenna to dumb down installation. That way, all you have to do is provide power to the antenna, and it finds the orientation, location and satellites. From there, it simply beam forms for highest gain, switching satellites as they go overhead.
I have not seen an antenna first-hand, so an environmental dome may be needed to protect the antenna from salt spray and other weather issues but that's a no-brainer, since the antenna is quite small, compared to a tracking dish antenna. The down-side is that it is fairly power hungry and the higher the bit rate, the more power it will take to deliver the desired bit rate.
From what I can find on the internet, the antenna is a disk like flying saucer shaped antenna, and includes internal heating elements to keep it ice-free in cold climates. This too will require power since it has resistance heating strips to melt ice off the face of the antenna. ice or water vapor will cause "rain fade" a common problem with satellites, especially those with smaller antennas.
The antenna performance may degrade in the tropics due to rain, but it won't have as high a look angle as many stationary satellite systems. If it loses the link, it should be able to acquire a secondary satellite in the constellation with less rain fade. I'm sure some features will arrive over time, since they are getting it to market quickly and adding features later. One example is the current satellites are not using their laser interconnections that lets each satellite have an optical link with its neighbors and not use RF, so it would have faster bit rate and no jamming issues, like what could happen with RF. I don't know if the hardware is on the early satellites but disabled, or they are expecting the early satellites to be de-orbited and replaced as time goes on.
Unlike most other satellite companies, SpaceX plans for these satellites to be brought down after 5 years or so, and replaced with new satellites. So the spiral updates plan works, getting them to market faster than anyone else and boosting capabilities over time.
