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Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

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Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#61

Post by Veedrac »

teruakohatu wrote: post #17
modeless wrote: post #7

Frequently Commented Questions: Yes, space looks crowded in these visualizations. But the size of the satellites is exaggerated here by thousands of times. Space is huge and the collision risk is extremely low. If displayed at their true size the satellites would not be visible, and indeed the vast majority are not visible in the real life night sky. The exception is recently launched satellites that are still in tra…

I took a screenshot of the default view on my web browser. The satellites appear to be around 100km in diameter, but they are in reality 7m wide, so they are 14,000x larger on the map than in reality. The entire constellation would fit within 0.2% of one of the white dots as they appear in the map. Then you need to remember that the space is 3D, unlike road surfaces (ignoring bridges etc.)

Space is not really 3d in the intuitive sense from a packing perspective, because satellites take up orbits rather than stationary points and orbits don't pack densely. It's more like an embedded 2d space, the intuition for that being that a ring, think Saturn's, is 2d and intersects any orbit.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#62

Post by kortilla »

noncoml wrote: post #59
fooker wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a service meant for SoCal, but I'm sure they see it as a valuable stress test.

Every time Starlink comes up it’s the same argument. “It’s not meant for high population density areas” Without the “high population density areas” it is simply not economically viable

Based on what? What user count do you think Starlink needs to be economically viable?

Napkin math time because the economics for satellites are not intuitive compared to stuff where density is better.

10% of the surface of the earth is inhabited by people. 510 million square kilometers * .1 is 51 million square kilometers. At a service density of only one user per square kilometer, that’s 51 million users for regular service.

Setting that aside, do you care to guess how much an oil rig in the North Sea will pay for Internet? And that user will put roughly the same load as Ted in SoCal will on the network.

Satellite Internet is not for people in cities, period. Starlink, viasat, whatever.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#63

Post by hnau »

botanical wrote: post #42

In South Africa we have the Square Kilometre Array in the Meerkat National Park; I sincerely hope it doesn't come here. We don't need it polluting our skies. Fibre should be rolled out for internet access, not another unsensible Musk dream

Starlink is already wreaking havoc on the night sky for every part of the planet inhabited by humans and it is only going to get worse. Unfortunately this is not getting much attention from anywhere besides the astronomy community and they are largely ignored because their funding is dwarfed by venture capital funds.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#64

Post by ck2 »

modeless wrote: post #7

Frequently Commented Questions: Yes, space looks crowded in these visualizations. But the size of the satellites is exaggerated here by thousands of times. Space is huge and the collision risk is extremely low. If displayed at their true size the satellites would not be visible, and indeed the vast majority are not visible in the real life night sky. The exception is recently launched satellites that are still in tra…

There's several more startups filing to launch their own 10,000+ satellites.

The sky is going to be trashed like the scooters littered across every major city's sidewalks, seemed like an acceptable idea on paper by the eager governments beforehand but in reality it just makes an absolute mess that no-one seems to take responsibility for or ever fixes.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#65

Post by RedCondor »

ck2 wrote: post #64
modeless wrote: post #7

Frequently Commented Questions: Yes, space looks crowded in these visualizations. But the size of the satellites is exaggerated here by thousands of times. Space is huge and the collision risk is extremely low. If displayed at their true size the satellites would not be visible, and indeed the vast majority are not visible in the real life night sky. The exception is recently launched satellites that are still in tra…

There's several more startups filing to launch their own 10,000+ satellites. The sky is going to be trashed like the scooters littered across every major city's sidewalks, seemed like an acceptable idea on paper by the eager governments beforehand but in reality it just makes an absolute mess that no-one seems to take responsibility for or ever fixes.

100%.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#66

Post by jessriedel »

wmf wrote: post #28
praveen9920 wrote: post #15

I’m curious about how can they ensure connectivity for a particular area. Is it just that they place a bunch of satellites in orbits and hope that they have enough density? Or is there a method to the madness? I am assuming a single satellite covers very small area, in this case a single hexagonal area

The orbits are designed to maximize coverage; it's clearer if you look at the orbital parameters instead of a globe, where you can see that satellites are evenly spaced: https://imgur.com/a/aReh0EQ The details are complicated, but each satellite can see quite a large area and any given spot on the ground is within range of 3-4 satellites.

That's not what that chart shows. The satellites are not evenly spaced over the globe. Most of the satellites are in 53 degree inclination orbits: those orbits have zero coverage at greater than 53 degrees latitude, and they have non-uniform coverage of smaller latitudes. (To see this, consider a constellation of 90 degree inclination polar orbits: the poles clearly have a higher density of satellites than the equator. Similar is true for lower-inclination orbits, albeit to a less extreme degree.)

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#67

Post by tenpies »

modeless wrote: post #7

Frequently Commented Questions: Yes, space looks crowded in these visualizations. But the size of the satellites is exaggerated here by thousands of times. Space is huge and the collision risk is extremely low. If displayed at their true size the satellites would not be visible, and indeed the vast majority are not visible in the real life night sky. The exception is recently launched satellites that are still in tra…

It does seem like we need a term for a civilisation that decides that serving internet is more important than its ability to observe the universe.

Then, in that pursuit, they completely miss an otherwise easily detectable near earth object and become extinct, but the satellites will continue happily beaming internet to a user base that no longer exists.

Then again, it's probably a non-issue. Not because the satellites impede our ability to observe, but because we observe so little to begin with.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#68

Post by godelski »

Veedrac wrote: post #61
teruakohatu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a screenshot of the default view on my web browser. The satellites appear to be around 100km in diameter, but they are in reality 7m wide, so they are 14,000x larger on the map than in reality. The entire constellation would fit within 0.2% of one of the white dots as they appear in the map. Then you need to remember that the space is 3D, unlike road surfaces (ignoring bridges etc.)

Space is not really 3d in the intuitive sense from a packing perspective, because satellites take up orbits rather than stationary points and orbits don't pack densely. It's more like an embedded 2d space, the intuition for that being that a ring, think Saturn's, is 2d and intersects any orbit.

Bullshit. Space is definitely 3D and has 3D packing. Starlink is at about 550km. That has an orbital period of 1.5917hrs. Satellites are 7m (as suggested above, but this sounds large). So let's space the next group by 10km. Now the orbital period is 1.5952hrs. We have to go to 580km (+30km) to get to 1.6hrs, which is a difference of 37 seconds. So you got 60km (520km-580km) where you have an error rate of under 1% (0.65%). That drift per day is easily accounted for and you're not going to have a destructive resonance event during the lifetime of the satellites.

For comparison, the ISS (~420km orbit) has a natural decay of 2km per year. It's safe to say that you can pack these satellites <1km in orbital height without realistic risk of them running into one another. The real problem is tracking everything and we often have large margins of safety. Sure, you won't pack them like you would oranges, but even several kms apart that can create a pretty dense coverage map. Gravitational orbits aren't electron orbits and don't need to be quantized (at least on the tens of km level).

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#69

Post by jessriedel »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #54

Would polar coverage require satellites that move north to south from pole to pole?

Yes it does. Most of the Starlink satellites are in 53-degree inclination orbits, but there is a shell of satellites in polar orbits to ensure polar coverage. (The commercial market for polar internet access is minimal, but the military is willing to pay a lot for it.)
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