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Starlink Ground Station Map

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Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#31

Post by pmorici »

supernova87a wrote: post #17

Does anyone have an image of what one of these ground stations looks like? Do they piggyback on some existing antenna shack? Or did they build their own from scratch? I also wonder whether they considered partnering with AWS Ground Station? https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/ Or maybe the Starlink constellation's requirements are not amenable to that?

These were posted by a user on Reddit

https://m.imgur.com/a/DkfdjbU

Basically a gravel lot fenced in with a bunch of radomes mounted to what look like prefab concrete pads.

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#32

Post by ac29 »

supernova87a wrote: post #28
sneak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is also planning an LEO internet constellation; being dependent upon a direct competitor for core infrastructure probably isn't a good idea, especially when that specific competitor (Amazon) has been busted before abusing its position as vendor to appropriate their customers' private information and enter their markets directly as participant. If you are going to compete with Amazon, don't use AWS to do it. I…

Ah, that is a good point, of course. What kind of ground station density does Starlink need in its eventual state?

The ground stations I saw on the map had 2.1GHz of uplink and 1.3GHz of downlink. If we assume 4b/hz (about as efficient as LTE/WiFi), thats 8.2Gbps up and 5.2Gbps down. I'm not too sure to what extent they can use MIMO techniques, but if they can, throughput could be multiplied by the number of MIMO channels.

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#33

Post by ec109685 »

sneak wrote: post #8
Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #4

Wow. For a service that should have global reach, these are mostly in the US! I'm a lot more excited about LEO broadband compared to 5G. Sounds like a career change worth pursuing, even if you are halfway around the world.

There is no direct connectivity between the satellites at this point, so starlink can't be expected to have global reach yet - you go up, and you come down within a certain distance of where you are. They will need ground stations all over the earth soon.

They are working on satellite to satellite links: https://spacenews.com/spacex-adds-laser-crosslinks-to-polar-...

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#34

Post by janzer »

wikibob wrote: post #19
supernova87a wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately (at present) Starlink does not provide for mobile platform access. They say you have to stay within your access cell and people have reported inability to connect if the antenna is taken somewhere distant from the registered home position. Maybe that will change in the future though?

That’s true, but only for capacity planning reasons during the beta. They’re working on demonstrating flight use on a Air Force plane. They’ve filed for FCC approval for mobile tests. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/8/22319761/spacex-starlink-f... Elon’s tweeted about it https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1369051431903268865?s=21

There have already been USAF flight tests of starlink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Military_user_tests

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#35

Post by tyldum »

supernova87a wrote: post #17

Does anyone have an image of what one of these ground stations looks like? Do they piggyback on some existing antenna shack? Or did they build their own from scratch? I also wonder whether they considered partnering with AWS Ground Station? https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/ Or maybe the Starlink constellation's requirements are not amenable to that?

Currently AWS Ground consists of a very small set of sites and antennas, not enough for any constellation. It's also very limited in terms if services.

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#37

Post by aeyes »

stirlo wrote: post #2

Those stations in Chile are going to revolutionise comms down there. I trekked to El Chalten in 2019 and the entire town was connected with a ~150mb microwave link. With thousands of tourists in town it had slowed to a crawl. Starlink won’t do much in cities but for regional areas it will open massive opportunities particularly in tourism with today’s instagramming travellers.

El Chalten is in Argentina and its a completely different story over there.

Chile has fiber all the way to the very south and is in the process of further expanding this network to all relevant cities in the south until the end of next year.

https://foa.subtel.gob.cl/mapa-de-proyecto-foa/

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#39

Post by londons_explore »

wikibob wrote: post #19
supernova87a wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately (at present) Starlink does not provide for mobile platform access. They say you have to stay within your access cell and people have reported inability to connect if the antenna is taken somewhere distant from the registered home position. Maybe that will change in the future though?

That’s true, but only for capacity planning reasons during the beta. They’re working on demonstrating flight use on a Air Force plane. They’ve filed for FCC approval for mobile tests. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/8/22319761/spacex-starlink-f... Elon’s tweeted about it https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1369051431903268865?s=21

There are two approaches to mobile users. Either you have a beam from the satellite directly track a moving user, or you have many fixed beams from the satellite and the user has to jump from one to the next as they move.

The first method was definitely used to begin with, but it doesn't scale - the satellite only has a certain number of beams available, so past a certain number of moving users it becomes necessary to use the 2nd system, which requires a very different software setup.

Eventually a hybrid system might be used, allocating per-user beams to the highest bandwidth users at the time. Per user beams can be far narrower and therefore get better SNR and more data throughput.

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