3 ms·
Yes, this one got caught. ;) This seems difficult. Even with two Starlinks: one to control it in Colombia, and one to control it at the destination coast, kill
by flowerthoughts 1y ago
Yes, this one got caught. ;)
This seems difficult. Even with two Starlinks: one to control it in Colombia, and one to control it at the destination coast, killing power to each. And make it autonomous on the way. This leaves the problem that there is a sudden (dis-)appearance of the link at sea, which might still make you light up like a lighthouse in analysis.
However, it would seem cartels could use a cubesat and make their own links?
- Polizeiposaune 1y agoOne cubesat launched as a rideshare payload wouldn't cut it. Those typically get dropped off in a highly inclined low earth orbit -- around the world, roughly pole to pole, in 90 minutes. Any given satellite in that sort of orbit will only be useful to a ground station when it has line-of-sight for maybe 5-10 minutes every few days. At the very least you'd need a few dozen. Iridium manages to get coverage from 66. Then there are the power/cooling/antenna size issues.
- idiotsecant 1y agoIsn't iridium way higher, though? At LEO geometry is not your friend.
- Polizeiposaune 1y agoNot way higher. wikipedia says Iridium satellites orbit at 781km altitude. Starlink satellites are a little lower -- mainly at around 560km (but there's some variation). Way higher would be O3B at around 8,000km, GPS at 20,200km and geosynchronous at around 35,800km.