7 ms·

Dozens over the open ocean and uninhabited places. between zero and 2 over california. why did they position them this way?

juancampa 5y ago
Those are currently over the ocean but will eventually (after ~1.5h) orbit around to more useful areas. Satellites in low earth orbit need to move very quickly to stay up. If you want a satellite to stay over the same spot you'd need to put it way way above, in geostationary orbit[1], and get really bad latency. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit
- _Microft 5y ago
  1.5 hours should be close to Starlink's orbital period which means that they will be back at the place the are currently at.
  - juancampa 5y ago
    Good point, I meant to say somewhere within that time period.
dangrossman 5y ago
They're not in geo-stationary orbits. A satellite that's over open ocean now will be over land later in the day. If you zoom in on the visualization, you can see how fast they're moving.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gmiller123456 5y ago
There are a lot of people in the ocean at any given time. This is exactly the type of scenario Starlink is designed for: providing access in very remote and rural areas.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  No it's not. Starlink requires satellites have visibility of a ground station and that the users dish be registered to a ground station. Currently neither roaming is supported nor is satellites communicating with other satellites to hop to a ground station that otherwise wouldn't be in range. Thus that makes Starlink inappropriate for use on ships and other platforms in the ocean (stationary or otherwise). Future iterations of Starlink might support this, the service is still in beta at the moment, but it would be a jump to suggest that is why there are satellites over the oceans. What's actually happening is they're not on a geo-stationary orbit. ie they're travelling faster than the Earth's rotation. So they'll spend time over land and time over the oceans too.
  - ganoushoreilly 5y ago
    Starlink Beta users (myself included) already received an updated notice about Sat to Sat laser communications coming online in the near future. It's not a jump to say that's why they are over the ocean, in fact it's already been proven that Starlink is in use on SPACEX recovery platforms. Further, Starlink is working with major airlines already to provide faster network connectivity to commercial and private flight. Starlink will be available across the globe, facilitate land, air, and sea access. Being designed for this function isn't predicated on current availability. A plane is designed to fly, but because it's on a tarmac doesn't suddenly make that a false statement.
    - ghshephard 5y ago
      The parent had it right. They are over the ocean because they are in LEO and are constantly in motion relative to earth, it's got nothing to do with Sat-to-Sat laser (though that should enable access to remote areas like the ocean)
      - gmiller123456 5y ago
        Musk has already said the plan is to offer it to ocean going vessels. Yes, they're over the ocean because they're in LEO, but he put them in LEO specifically so they could reach those places. Whether or not it actually materializes can be taken with all the grains of salt you would normally take with anything Musk says.
frankfrankfrank 5y ago
Another aspect is that the objective is to provide global communications over oceans too, e.g., for container ships, sail boats, planes, global surveillance, etc. The cross-satellite comms are not yet ready to essentially create a global mesh-net, but that's the plan.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  Starlink doesn't support roaming between ground stations. Plus if you look at the oceans you can see there aren't any ground stations there anyways. So you wouldn't get internet out in the oceans even with Starlink. At least not in its current phase -- future releases, maybe? The reason there are satelites over the oceans is simply because they're not at a geo-stationary orbit. ie their orbit is faster than the rotation of the earth.
  - bagels 5y ago
    To be fair, some early pr and articles talked about satellite to satellite hops across oceans, even.though this is not a current capability.
    - KiwiJohnno 5y ago
      current starlink satelites in polar orbit do have satellite to satellite routing capability, via laser comm links. More info here: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/spacex-adds-laser-links-to-starlink-satellites-to-serve-earths-polar-areas/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/space...
      - bagels 5y ago
        There are only a few in polar orbits, from what I've seen.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    > Starlink doesn't support roaming between ground stations That's mostly a beta problem and Starlink is saying they plan to allow roaming eventually. From what I've seen it sounds like right now they only look for your dish in whatever cell it's registered to and don't do any discovery of dishes, it's all preprogrammed.
rtkwe 5y ago
Starlink is a low altitude constellation, those satellites are moving relative to the surface not stationary like traditional communication satellites. They're setup in a mesh of orbits at give or take the same inclination just offset in phase so there's some moving north east and others moving south east over an area at any given time. So every satellite will spend a lot of time over oceans just because the Earth is mostly ocean.

juancampa 5y ago

Those are currently over the ocean but will eventually (after ~1.5h) orbit around to more useful areas. Satellites in low earth orbit need to move very quickly to stay up. If you want a satellite to stay over the same spot you'd need to put it way way above, in geostationary orbit[1], and get really bad latency. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit

_Microft 5y ago
1.5 hours should be close to Starlink's orbital period which means that they will be back at the place the are currently at.
- juancampa 5y ago
  Good point, I meant to say somewhere within that time period.

dangrossman 5y ago

They're not in geo-stationary orbits. A satellite that's over open ocean now will be over land later in the day. If you zoom in on the visualization, you can see how fast they're moving.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gmiller123456 5y ago

There are a lot of people in the ocean at any given time. This is exactly the type of scenario Starlink is designed for: providing access in very remote and rural areas.

hnlmorg 5y ago
No it's not. Starlink requires satellites have visibility of a ground station and that the users dish be registered to a ground station. Currently neither roaming is supported nor is satellites communicating with other satellites to hop to a ground station that otherwise wouldn't be in range. Thus that makes Starlink inappropriate for use on ships and other platforms in the ocean (stationary or otherwise). Future iterations of Starlink might support this, the service is still in beta at the moment, but it would be a jump to suggest that is why there are satellites over the oceans. What's actually happening is they're not on a geo-stationary orbit. ie they're travelling faster than the Earth's rotation. So they'll spend time over land and time over the oceans too.
- ganoushoreilly 5y ago
  Starlink Beta users (myself included) already received an updated notice about Sat to Sat laser communications coming online in the near future. It's not a jump to say that's why they are over the ocean, in fact it's already been proven that Starlink is in use on SPACEX recovery platforms. Further, Starlink is working with major airlines already to provide faster network connectivity to commercial and private flight. Starlink will be available across the globe, facilitate land, air, and sea access. Being designed for this function isn't predicated on current availability. A plane is designed to fly, but because it's on a tarmac doesn't suddenly make that a false statement.
  - ghshephard 5y ago
    The parent had it right. They are over the ocean because they are in LEO and are constantly in motion relative to earth, it's got nothing to do with Sat-to-Sat laser (though that should enable access to remote areas like the ocean)
    - gmiller123456 5y ago
      Musk has already said the plan is to offer it to ocean going vessels. Yes, they're over the ocean because they're in LEO, but he put them in LEO specifically so they could reach those places. Whether or not it actually materializes can be taken with all the grains of salt you would normally take with anything Musk says.

frankfrankfrank 5y ago

Another aspect is that the objective is to provide global communications over oceans too, e.g., for container ships, sail boats, planes, global surveillance, etc. The cross-satellite comms are not yet ready to essentially create a global mesh-net, but that's the plan.

hnlmorg 5y ago
Starlink doesn't support roaming between ground stations. Plus if you look at the oceans you can see there aren't any ground stations there anyways. So you wouldn't get internet out in the oceans even with Starlink. At least not in its current phase -- future releases, maybe? The reason there are satelites over the oceans is simply because they're not at a geo-stationary orbit. ie their orbit is faster than the rotation of the earth.
- bagels 5y ago
  To be fair, some early pr and articles talked about satellite to satellite hops across oceans, even.though this is not a current capability.
  - KiwiJohnno 5y ago
    current starlink satelites in polar orbit do have satellite to satellite routing capability, via laser comm links. More info here: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/spacex-adds-laser-links-to-starlink-satellites-to-serve-earths-polar-areas/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/space...
    - bagels 5y ago
      There are only a few in polar orbits, from what I've seen.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  > Starlink doesn't support roaming between ground stations That's mostly a beta problem and Starlink is saying they plan to allow roaming eventually. From what I've seen it sounds like right now they only look for your dish in whatever cell it's registered to and don't do any discovery of dishes, it's all preprogrammed.

rtkwe 5y ago

Starlink is a low altitude constellation, those satellites are moving relative to the surface not stationary like traditional communication satellites. They're setup in a mesh of orbits at give or take the same inclination just offset in phase so there's some moving north east and others moving south east over an area at any given time. So every satellite will spend a lot of time over oceans just because the Earth is mostly ocean.