3 ms·

More ground stations will definitely make things better, but 24/7 connectivity to assets in LEO will take monumental, Starlink-scale level of effort.

• chinathrow 6y ago
  Would it be possible to use Starlink for comms if a sat is flying in a lower position?
  • d_silin 6y ago
    In theory, yes. In practice, this will depend more on my negotiation skills when talking to Elon Musk and less on any technical challenge :)
    • portyllo 6y ago
      No, it will not be possible, no matter what Elon says. Starlink operates in portions of the Ku and Ka bands that are reserved for Earth-to-space comms, not for space-to-space comms.
      • d_silin 6y ago
        My impression was that Starlink relies on inter-satellite links to route traffic. We can use the same links for our own extended network.
        • portillo 6y ago
          The current satellites do not have crosslinks, and in any case, in their FCC filings SpaceX talks about optical crosslinks, not RF.
• portillo 6y ago
  You can get 24/7 connectivity to LEO right now (and 25 years ago too) using TDRSS. The system costs a fraction of what Starlink will cost, as you only need 3 GEO satellites.