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Interesting. Still, territorial waters extend for 12 nautical miles. Apparently, these satellites fly at 1100-1300 km. If ground stations (both SpaceX backbone
by Const-me 6y ago
Interesting.
Still, territorial waters extend for 12 nautical miles. Apparently, these satellites fly at 1100-1300 km. If ground stations (both SpaceX backbone routers, and mobile terminals) can talk to a satellite 45 degree above horizon, the satellite can connect the terminal with the ground station in a circle 1100-1300 km radius underneath (slightly less due to Earth curvature, but not by much).
Not gonna work in the middle of the Pacific, but might be good enough for many. For instance, one can sail from here across Mediterranean Sea all the way to Africa or middle East, while staying within reach of Europe-based routers. That’s assuming SpaceX gonna build them.
- kanox 6y ago> Apparently, these satellites fly at 1100-1300 km. SpaceX updated all of their applications to only request 550 km.
- Tepix 6y agoSome of them will fly even lower in the later phases. But 45° is also wrong, they go as low as 25° above the horizon now. Which means that the maximum radius that a satellite can cover should be around 500km if my last calculations were correct and I remember correctly. Under ideal conditions you could have internet up to 1000km off the coast then even without laserlink. Under normal conditions it would be more like 500km from the nearest ground station. I'm still hoping that they can use user terminals as ground stations for these maritime scenarios.