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Earlier quoted context omitted.
The speed of light in a vacuum is roughly 50% higher than the speed of light in fiber.
The area between a starlink receiver on the ground and a satellite isn’t a vacuum
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tracking is an issue, but doppler can also be a thing. At orbital speed (actually up to 2x orbital speeds) the doppler effect between two satellites can change the frequency enough to cause interference. Moving a scope to track a moving target is one problem, allowing the algorithms to adapt at the frequency shifts on the fly another.
Indeed Iridium had to deal with the same thing (or I guess, didn’t): “ Cross-seam inter-satellite link hand-offs would have to happen very rapidly and cope with large Doppler shifts; therefore, Iridium supports inter-satellite links only between satellites orbiting in the same direction.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellat...
I sit in my hot tub at night and see 1-2+ satellites go over every single time I'm out there. Which also makes me wonder how many of the shooting stars I've seen recently are just old starlinks burning up.
I sit in my hot tub at night and see 1-2+ satellites go over every single time I'm out there. Which also makes me wonder how many of the shooting stars I've seen recently are just old starlinks burning up.
Probably close to none. The lifetime of the satellites is about 5 years give or take. According to this page [1], a total of 355 satellites have deorbited over the past roughly 5 years. That's an average of about 71 per year or about one every 5 days.
Since planned disposals are done over uninhabited areas (e.g. the pacific ocean), the likelihood of spotting one is very low.
Hope that helps answer your question, even it wasn't necessarily meant seriously :)
[1] https://starlinkinsider.com/starlink-launch-statistics/Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed Iridium had to deal with the same thing (or I guess, didn’t): “ Cross-seam inter-satellite link hand-offs would have to happen very rapidly and cope with large Doppler shifts; therefore, Iridium supports inter-satellite links only between satellites orbiting in the same direction.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellat...
Don't all satellites orbit in the same direction? Launching retrograde is just throwing away free velocity.
There's an animation on linked article that explains this pretty well: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Ir...
I sit in my hot tub at night and see 1-2+ satellites go over every single time I'm out there. Which also makes me wonder how many of the shooting stars I've seen recently are just old starlinks burning up.
How do you spot a satellite? I've never seen one.
I sit in my hot tub at night and see 1-2+ satellites go over every single time I'm out there. Which also makes me wonder how many of the shooting stars I've seen recently are just old starlinks burning up.
How do you spot a satellite? I've never seen one.
So which points are getting “faster than fibre” latency because of this? Extra distance up and down, but make up for it on the long-haul. Won’t beat HF radio though.
I sit in my hot tub at night and see 1-2+ satellites go over every single time I'm out there. Which also makes me wonder how many of the shooting stars I've seen recently are just old starlinks burning up.
How do you spot a satellite? I've never seen one.
I sit in my hot tub at night and see 1-2+ satellites go over every single time I'm out there. Which also makes me wonder how many of the shooting stars I've seen recently are just old starlinks burning up.
How do you spot a satellite? I've never seen one.
Planes are similar, but tend to have flashing or colored lights and obviously aren't as far away.
I'm in a big city, but close to the ocean so I have a bit less light pollution. The city is also heavy military, so that could be part of the frequency.
Update: if you're near any of the spacex launches, you can watch the rocket too. I'm house sitting in Irvine, CA and saw the Monday launch go right near the house. Amazing to watch the plume from the rocket!
