For the record, these satellites are inserted in groups of 60 at half their orbital height. They have onboard thrusters to boost up to the final operational orbit. There is high atmospheric drag at lower altitudes, so they deploy their solar panels horizontally during this boost period, which usually lasts less than a month. These horizontal panels reflect the sun just after sunset and just before dawn. Once they are at their final height they rotate the panels so they are much less reflective. Basically, the constellation's effect on the night sky is proportional to the number of launches in the last month, not the total number in orbit.
Starlink Satellites Tracker
21–30 of 147 posts
Re: Starlink Satellites Tracker
#22For the record, these satellites are inserted in groups of 60 at half their orbital height. They have onboard thrusters to boost up to the final operational orbit. There is high atmospheric drag at lower altitudes, so they deploy their solar panels horizontally during this boost period, which usually lasts less than a month. These horizontal panels reflect the sun just after sunset and just before dawn. Once they are…
Thanks for the info!
Re: Starlink Satellites Tracker
#23I personally like https://www.heavens-above.com/
Give it a location and it will tell you all the bright objects that should be visible
Re: Starlink Satellites Tracker
#24This is my favorite Starlink tracker - also has a nice integration with Google Street View and shows you exactly where to look. https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink EDIT: Removed "past times" parameter as suggested in comments. Also note you can remove also see loads of other satellites with an unadorned URL : https://james.darpinian.com/satellites
Thanks! I suggest removing the showPastTimes parameter from the link: https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink
Re: Starlink Satellites Tracker
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Easy to say when you're probably sitting in a rich city somewhere with a perfectly good internet connection
Starlink is polluting the sky for people who cannot buy its services, and who don't appreciate yet another American corporation invading into their lives, this time taking the very view of the night sky.
Then tax SpaceX for the light-pollution externality until they fix it (which they say they're going to do). I don't think depriving rural communities and poor countries of access to the internet is really the best solution to such a non-problem.
Re: Starlink Satellites Tracker
#26For the record, these satellites are inserted in groups of 60 at half their orbital height. They have onboard thrusters to boost up to the final operational orbit. There is high atmospheric drag at lower altitudes, so they deploy their solar panels horizontally during this boost period, which usually lasts less than a month. These horizontal panels reflect the sun just after sunset and just before dawn. Once they are…
Thanks for the info!
Absolutely! Things will be really interesting when they can use Starships to launch batches. I've seen estimates that they could launch 600 starlink satellites at a time. They could theatrically also launch fewer, but put them all the way into their final orbit, skipping the few weeks of light pollution.
Re: Starlink Satellites Tracker
#27For the record, these satellites are inserted in groups of 60 at half their orbital height. They have onboard thrusters to boost up to the final operational orbit. There is high atmospheric drag at lower altitudes, so they deploy their solar panels horizontally during this boost period, which usually lasts less than a month. These horizontal panels reflect the sun just after sunset and just before dawn. Once they are…
> Basically, the constellation's effect on the night sky is proportional to the number of launches in the last month, not the total number in orbit.
For the major brightness issues sure, but they are not invisible or undetectable while in operation. Surely the effects are proportional to both the recent launches and the whole size.
I think it's a bit early to dismiss the whole sky effect of multiple Starlink-style constellations in operation.
Also isn't Starlink intending to do launches for the rest of time? There is always a value for the last month of launches- they'll never stop launching right?
Just thinking out loud.
Re: Starlink Satellites Tracker
#28We also have a coverage map for Starlink: https://orbitalindex.com/feature/starlink-coverage/
I like this map, I just wish it didn't start with auto-rotate on. Auto-rotate just makes it hard to see as the satellites travel around the world.
Re: Starlink Satellites Tracker
#29For the record, these satellites are inserted in groups of 60 at half their orbital height. They have onboard thrusters to boost up to the final operational orbit. There is high atmospheric drag at lower altitudes, so they deploy their solar panels horizontally during this boost period, which usually lasts less than a month. These horizontal panels reflect the sun just after sunset and just before dawn. Once they are…
> Basically, the constellation's effect on the night sky is proportional to the number of launches in the last month, not the total number in orbit. For the major brightness issues sure, but they are not invisible or undetectable while in operation. Surely the effects are proportional to both the recent launches and the whole size. I think it's a bit early to dismiss the whole sky effect of multiple Starlink-style co…
There is also the (no help at the moment) fact that the more money that Starlink's parent company makes, the more likely we are to get the world's cheapest heavy lift orbital booster soon, and the more likely we are to soon have multiple large orbital telescopes that far exceed ground-based capabilities.
Basically, if SpaceX makes it, we'll probably have a Starship-launched lunar observatory quite soon, in the grand scheme of things.
This doesn't help the situation now, although there is so much screaming from the anti-Musk people as well as the pro-Musk people that it's hard to tell what the actual impact of the now-somewhat-albedo-mitigated starlink v.whatever satellites are. All of the coverage is breathless sky-is-falling stuff.
In any case, the situation is temporary. Either SpaceX makes it and we get a far side of Luna observatory and LEO/MEO telescopes besides, or they don't and in a few years Starlink all falls down and burns.
Re: Starlink Satellites Tracker
#30For the record, these satellites are inserted in groups of 60 at half their orbital height. They have onboard thrusters to boost up to the final operational orbit. There is high atmospheric drag at lower altitudes, so they deploy their solar panels horizontally during this boost period, which usually lasts less than a month. These horizontal panels reflect the sun just after sunset and just before dawn. Once they are…
> Basically, the constellation's effect on the night sky is proportional to the number of launches in the last month, not the total number in orbit. For the major brightness issues sure, but they are not invisible or undetectable while in operation. Surely the effects are proportional to both the recent launches and the whole size. I think it's a bit early to dismiss the whole sky effect of multiple Starlink-style co…
I'm reminded of Earth orbit from the film Wall-E for some reason.