Does this mean we’ll start seeing more Antarctic TikTokers? Exciting!
A new ice bucket challenge.
Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
31–40 of 209 posts
Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
You think the USG that funded SpaceX/Starlink isn't going to have control over it...? While Starlink was marketed as a boon to rural democratic internet access, those promises have been walked back and its pretty clear that it the limited bandwidth is primarily intended to increase the Pentagon/ICs communications capabilities in the field, much like the Internet itself. The USG did not fund a swarm of satellites so t…
Why wouldn't the Pentagon want to blanket China with US propaganda?
Sure, but how do you propose to "blanket" China with Starlink modems?
Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
#33[Deleted]
You're definitely right, but one mitigating factor is that Starlink satellites are in a pretty low orbit. They'll naturally decay relatively quickly and drop out of orbit at end of life.
Edit: a link that goes over some of this https://www.spacex.com/updates/#sustainability
Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
#34How about providing free internet to China and Russia, to give the people there proper information without government oversight?
No post body was provided.
Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
#35One step closer to Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.
It's now the Space Development Agency's (SDA) National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA). But yes, Starlink looks a hell of a lot like the Transport Layer of the NDSA, which is meant to be a mesh network comprising of thousands of satellites in LEO.
Either Starlink is the Transport Layer of NDSA, or it proves that SpaceX has the technical ability to create the Transport Layer (no other company does.)
Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
#36[Deleted]
I agree that the debris problem is one of those commons-type issues that’ll cost way more to fix than if we’d prevented it in the first place.
However, for starlink specifically aren’t the satellites all low enough to deorbit and burn up automatically within 5 years? This should eliminate the orbital debris problem for this constellation specifically.
A different problem is what happens with all the burnt up aluminum and other metals in the high atmosphere. I saw a post mentioning this once recently but also don’t know much about the scale or effects of this problem.
Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
#37[Deleted]
I think this comes from a misunderstanding of orbital dynamics. Without *active* effort by the engines, these sort of satellites are low enough they drop out of orbit within a year or two because of friction against the atmosphere. Basically, these solve their own junk problem
Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
#38[Deleted]
They are in a very low earth orbit designed to naturally decay and deorbit in years instead of decades. Yes, there are a lot of them but they did design for this. Not nearly as big a problem as satellites in higher orbits which keep being destroyed into thousands of pieces intentionally with no care for their consequences.
Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
#39[Deleted]
This isn't a serious problem in LEO. Absolute worst case scenario from starlink is we decide there's too much space crap and we wait 5 years for LEO to clear out.
Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the first mention of it working that I've seen. I wonder if it's a limited deployment for Antarctica or the beginning of a large rollout.
That's basically what I'm wondering about. Is this an unfortunate headline, or are we really there already?
It's taken straight from the Twitter account https://mobile.twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1570073223005622274 I just don't see any other info about it.