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Eliminate deep sea cables? How are they going to send the lasers in a curve from one base station to the next? Starlink is already working on a backhaul from s

Eliminate deep sea cables? How are they going to send the lasers in a curve from one base station to the next? Starlink is already working on a backhaul from satellite to satellite. Interestingly, they claim that they can speed up data transfers by 50% over long distances. Musk said that in a Tweet which I cannot find now. I looked a bit into it and the reason seems to be that light trough a cable can only reach 70% of the speed of light while lasers through the vacuum of space can reach the speed of light.

ceejayoz 3y ago
> Eliminate deep sea cables? How are they going to send the lasers in a curve from one base station to the next? Multiple satellites. The ISS can see about a thousand miles in each direction to the horizon, so you'd only need to bounce across a couple to cross the Atlantic.
toast0 3y ago
Sending lasers in a curve should be easy if you use circular polarization. /s You would send to a satellite in view; my orbital dynamics are poor, but I think with the LEO orbits, you may need to relay in space for a cross ocean link, as it seems unlikely one satelite would have a view of both sides. But Telstar 1 and 2 were used for cross-Atlantic microwave relay with a single satellite in view at a time. Future Telstars were geostationary, because satellite tracking was a lot of work (and with only two satellites, service was intermittent as they were only in view for a portion of their orbits). I imagine satellite tracking for lasers is going to be very difficult as well.
- ackbar03 3y ago
  How hard can it be
  - Tuna-Fish 3y ago
    To be clear, Starlink is already doing this. Their satellites have laser links that connect them to each other.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      They’ve launched satellites with laser links, but I don’t think they’ve got the satellite-to-satellite links active yet. https://www.starlink.com/technology https://www.starlink.com/technology says “testing” for that feature.
      - Tuna-Fish 3y ago
        The website is out of date. They are already providing service over open ocean out of reach of one hop to base station.
Aaargh20318 3y ago
> Eliminate deep sea cables? How are they going to send the lasers in a curve from one base station to the next? They use a special laser that gives the photons a bit of topspin.
dlisboa 3y ago
> How are they going to send the lasers in a curve from one base station to the next? All you need is a well-placed black hole in Earth’s atmosphere.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ketralnis 3y ago
> Musk said that in a Tweet This gives me negative confidence in the claim

ceejayoz 3y ago

> Eliminate deep sea cables? How are they going to send the lasers in a curve from one base station to the next? Multiple satellites. The ISS can see about a thousand miles in each direction to the horizon, so you'd only need to bounce across a couple to cross the Atlantic.

toast0 3y ago

Sending lasers in a curve should be easy if you use circular polarization. /s You would send to a satellite in view; my orbital dynamics are poor, but I think with the LEO orbits, you may need to relay in space for a cross ocean link, as it seems unlikely one satelite would have a view of both sides. But Telstar 1 and 2 were used for cross-Atlantic microwave relay with a single satellite in view at a time. Future Telstars were geostationary, because satellite tracking was a lot of work (and with only two satellites, service was intermittent as they were only in view for a portion of their orbits). I imagine satellite tracking for lasers is going to be very difficult as well.

ackbar03 3y ago
How hard can it be
- Tuna-Fish 3y ago
  To be clear, Starlink is already doing this. Their satellites have laser links that connect them to each other.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    They’ve launched satellites with laser links, but I don’t think they’ve got the satellite-to-satellite links active yet. https://www.starlink.com/technology https://www.starlink.com/technology says “testing” for that feature.
    - Tuna-Fish 3y ago
      The website is out of date. They are already providing service over open ocean out of reach of one hop to base station.

Aaargh20318 3y ago

> Eliminate deep sea cables? How are they going to send the lasers in a curve from one base station to the next? They use a special laser that gives the photons a bit of topspin.

dlisboa 3y ago

> How are they going to send the lasers in a curve from one base station to the next? All you need is a well-placed black hole in Earth’s atmosphere.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ketralnis 3y ago

> Musk said that in a Tweet This gives me negative confidence in the claim