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Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

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Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#71

Post by vlovich123 »

tenpies wrote: post #67
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 satellite…

That and our current ability to detect and do anything about a civilization ending asteroid is pretty nonexistent at the moment.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#72

Post by Veedrac »

godelski wrote: post #68
Veedrac wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not considering such concerns at all; my comment holds even considering perfect orbits followed by frictionless point objects of zero mass. You can of course pack into the height-dimension trivially when using circular orbits; the issue then is how many orbits you can pack into an orbital plane. I contend it scales with radius, not radius squared.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#73

Post by skrowl »

Aeolun wrote: post #21
NelsonMinar wrote: post #5

There's a bunch of Starlink coverage maps like this; the most useful one (IMHO) is Mike Puchol's at https://starlink.sx/ The nice thing about that Mike's is you can see exactly where you are in relation to nearby satellites and base stations. And get a pretty good guess as to where your packets are going to go. It is all guesswork - SpaceX only shares what they are required to by the FCC. But it's been pretty accurat…

The big problem with this one appears to be that it doesn’t load.

[dead]

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#74

Post by crispinb »

tenpies wrote: post #67
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 satellite…

> a civilisation that decides that serving internet is more important than its ability to observe the universe

It's slightly worse than that. Starlink is only viable because of huge gaps in planned provision of what is now a basic utility (even government services in many parts of the world are hard to access without the internet).

We're actually giving up our inalienable and multimillenial rights to a real night sky in order to leave gaps in utility provision for greedy wanker billionaires to make money and gain power filling.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#76

Post by kortilla »

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

Bad news, it’s already over “your sky” because it’s how LEO works.

> Fibre should be rolled out for internet access, not another unsensible Musk dream

You want to roll fiber through national forests and parks to serve a few rural people? How do you prefer the ocean faring population to get access?

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#77

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

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

it's probably economically viable without selling to consumers at all. if they get planes boats and military, that on it's own would be plenty to sustain it

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#78

Post by sudhirj »

tenpies wrote: post #67
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 satellite…

This sounds backwards. Inside the atmosphere is a shitty place to observe from, and the cheap launch capacity here can throw up hundreds of Hubbles and James Webbs. We could also fit optics and radar on the Starlink constellations.

The idea this cheap satellites will somehow restrict our ability to observe anything seems odd.

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#79

Post by botanical »

SECProto wrote: post #44
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

That really isn't how orbits work... At any given time, there are as many starlink satellites overhead at Meerkat National Park as there are at any other point in the world around 30* north or south.

There's currently one in the vicinity. It would get worse as demand rises

Re: Live Starlink Satellite and Coverage Map

#80

Post by botanical »

kortilla wrote: post #76
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

Bad news, it’s already over “your sky” because it’s how LEO works. > Fibre should be rolled out for internet access, not another unsensible Musk dream You want to roll fiber through national forests and parks to serve a few rural people? How do you prefer the ocean faring population to get access?

Why does it have to go through the parks? And radio towers work just as well, it doesn't have to be a satellite hundreds of kilometres up in the sky. Ships already have access to internet through satellites already, there doesn't have to be even more

EDIT. I meant why does the fibre have to through parks as a reason for having starlink

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