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So by the end of the year (best case) they will start commercial service after 6 launches. And plan on 2-6 more this year. This could have a huge impact on peo
by skunkworker 7y ago
So by the end of the year (best case) they will start commercial service after 6 launches. And plan on 2-6 more this year.
This could have a huge impact on people wanting to live out of a van remotely and still be connected.
- perilunar 7y agoOr a boat. When I can get cheap high-speed low-latency internet in the middle of the ocean then I'm buying a boat and going to sea.
- dzhiurgis 7y agoI do wonder how well Starlink's antenna will handle roll. Current VSAT require rather large boat, but this is probably different. I can see price for older boats increase purely due to Starlink. It's already somewhat cheap way of living and I do hope special tax provisions are made for people out in the ocean (I don't use any social benefits for paying my taxes in country X...)
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago> I do wonder how well Starlink's antenna will handle roll. I'm thinking some sort of stabilization technology similar to how they manage to land rockets on ships. But not rocket-powered, of course!
- mr_toad 7y agoIt’s a phased array antenna. Unless your boat goes sideways it will probably get a signal.
- dzhiurgis 7y agoIt does go sideways, all sailboats do. But usually less than1 knot when sailing 5-10 knots. Roll on monohulls is pretty big. Current generation of Youtubers seem to have switched to catamarans, which makes me too envious - I am not sure I can save up that much before responsibilities catch up on me.
- Klathmon 7y agoI'm far from an expert on this, but I believe the biggest benefit to phased array antennas is that they don't have any moving parts, and adjusting where the signal is pointing is almost instant. As long as the "pizza box" can track the sats, it should be able to communicate through some pretty intense speed and acceleration changes.
- wtallis 7y agoStationary Starlink antennas will already need to handle aiming at around one degree per second just because of how quickly a satellite directly overhead will move. So the roll of a sailboat in a marina should be no problem at all, and maintaining a connection while underway is probably doable without much redesign. And that's assuming there's any difficulty to aiming. Phased array radars have shown that merely sweeping the beam around in a predetermined pattern can be very quick. I don't know how much harder it would be to adjust that based on input from gyros.
- stcredzero 7y agoOr a boat. Or an anarcho-capitalist hyper libertarian micro-nation perched on top of a spar buoy.
- consumer451 7y agoI'm no expert, but I would think that the first customers will be the same people using the very expensive but low-latency terrestrial microwave links. Though now that I actually researched it, I don't know if Starlink will be able to beat 8.5ms round trip of this Chicago-NYC link.[0] [0]https://www.zerohedge.com/news/chicago-new-york-and-back-85-milliseconds https://www.zerohedge.com/news/chicago-new-york-and-back-85-...