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Eh... There's a little more to it than that. https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/starlink-satellites-astronomy/ https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-n

Eh... There's a little more to it than that. https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/starlink-satellites-astronomy/ https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/starlink-satellit... has more details. My personal opinion is that access to the global internet is important enough to justify the light pollution in the night sky. But I understand that not everyone thinks so, and regardless, steps to limit the constellations' impact are important to take.

threeseed 6y ago
I would love to be corrected but Starlink doesn't seem like a solution for true global internet. As you can see in this diagram which is the approved ground stations for Australia: https://i.redd.it/f7u55u7edbz51.jpg https://i.redd.it/f7u55u7edbz51.jpg It is really only competing with existing internet service providers and likely will not be profitable to roll out to even the rest of Australia let alone places like Africa.
- centimeter 6y ago
  I believe the eventual goal is to add satellite-to-satellite links, to permit routing to more remote areas (albeit with increased latency).
  - threeseed 6y ago
    Be curious how feasible this is in practice. a) None of the launched satellites will be able to support it. b) ESA Sentinel laser link is only getting bandwidth of between 1.8-7.2 Gbit/s which isn't all that much.
    - Baeocystin 6y ago
      According to this link (short on details, unfortunately) at least a couple of the sats currently in orbit have laser hardware functional enough to test with. I'm looking forward to hearing more about what kind of bandwidth they're expecting. https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-space-lasers-first-orbital-test/ https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-space-lasers-first...
    - m4rtink 6y ago
      For the record the Iridium satellite phone network has been using (radio) inter-satellite links from 1990s.
- ericd 6y ago
  They're already testing satellite-to-satellite, which for long hops, has the potential to actually be faster than terrestrial fiber, since light is significantly faster in vacuum. Access won't be limited to those near ground stations.

threeseed 6y ago

I would love to be corrected but Starlink doesn't seem like a solution for true global internet. As you can see in this diagram which is the approved ground stations for Australia: https://i.redd.it/f7u55u7edbz51.jpg https://i.redd.it/f7u55u7edbz51.jpg It is really only competing with existing internet service providers and likely will not be profitable to roll out to even the rest of Australia let alone places like Africa.

centimeter 6y ago
I believe the eventual goal is to add satellite-to-satellite links, to permit routing to more remote areas (albeit with increased latency).
- threeseed 6y ago
  Be curious how feasible this is in practice. a) None of the launched satellites will be able to support it. b) ESA Sentinel laser link is only getting bandwidth of between 1.8-7.2 Gbit/s which isn't all that much.
  - Baeocystin 6y ago
    According to this link (short on details, unfortunately) at least a couple of the sats currently in orbit have laser hardware functional enough to test with. I'm looking forward to hearing more about what kind of bandwidth they're expecting. https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-space-lasers-first-orbital-test/ https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-space-lasers-first...
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    For the record the Iridium satellite phone network has been using (radio) inter-satellite links from 1990s.
ericd 6y ago
They're already testing satellite-to-satellite, which for long hops, has the potential to actually be faster than terrestrial fiber, since light is significantly faster in vacuum. Access won't be limited to those near ground stations.