Questions tagged [starlink]
Questions about Starlink, the satellite constellation developed by SpaceX to provide global broadband Internet
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Which is the primary spacecraft in a conjunction?
I ask the question in the title because I cannot find a clear answer.
It seems that in collision avoidance, the primary spacecraft is always more accurately known then the secondary. But I think this ...
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Satellites - predominant apparent motion?
Recently, while foolin’ around with Stellarium, and checking out its simulation capabilities, I recorded some satellite activity.
Sped up ~30x, here are about 12 minutes of simulated sky on March 31, ...
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How does "onboard GPS" suggest "escalation speed and severity of a storm caused atmospheric drag to increase up to 50 percent"?
Engadget's says:
A recent batch of SpaceX’s Starlink internet-beaming cubesats met with tragedy on February 3rd when a 49-member cohort of the newly-launched satellites encountered a strong ...
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How might an "imminent Starlink reentry in your area" alerting script work?
The video below Space debris over Puerto Rico (2/7/2022) SAC seems likely to show one or more reentering Starlink satellites from the 40 "Starlost" lost to atmospheric heating due to a ...
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Why didn't SpaceX see that geomagnetic storm coming? Was this a fluke or could this happen more frequently in the future? (R.I.P. 40 lost starlinks)
Ars Technica's SpaceX loses up to 40 satellites to geomagnetic storm after Starlink launch explains that a geomagnetic storm heated Earth's upper atmosphere (circa 200 km) so much that the aerodynamic ...
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How close were Starlink-1095 and Starlink-2305 to the Tiangong Chinese Space Station?
Various news outlets reported on the Chinese government complaining about SpaceX Starlink satellites (#1095 and #2305) getting so close to their Tiangong Space Station that they had to initiate ...
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Do operational Starlink satellites run their ion engines at night on batteries? And if so, do they have hi/low settings?
Discussion below What is the maximum thrust of the Starlink satellites? raise the question of the Starlink communications satellites' power budget and use of their ion thruster in daylight when the ...
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What is the maximum thrust of the Starlink satellites?
As in the title, what is the maximum thrust (in N) that the satellites of the Starlink constellation can achieve? I read that they use Hall-effect thrusters, but I couldn't find a specification of the ...
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Arc length between two satellites [duplicate]
When considering two satellites in the same circular orbit, is it correct to say: The arc length between the satellites is...? Is there a more appropriate term when talking about the curved distance ...
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Distance between two satellites
What is the appropriate term for arc length between satellites moving in the same circular orbit?
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Biggest periscope camera that could fit inside a Starlink satellite; how thick are they?
If all Starlink satellites had phone tier cameras & simple scopes, could images processed by their super-resolution imaging network be competitive? is a cool question and to integrate a reasonable ...
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If all Starlink satellites had phone tier cameras & simple scopes, could images processed by their super-resolution imaging network be competitive?
I was wondering; if all Starlink satellites had high-end cellphone quality cameras modules on simple telescopes, could the resulting images be combined and processed in such a way that a super-...
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Modifying Starlink / Dragon for orbital communication
In this answer @uhoh notes:
The Starlinks currently have three types of internet-related communication:
downwards with customers fixed on the Earth's surface below the satellites (except an ...
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Why does the Crew Dragon seem to rely primarily on a low bandwidth downlink for voice communications?
What are the particular reasons that the Dragon Capsule is not communicating via Starlink, or that it seems that the audio and video downlinks from the Dragon Capsule are on separate streams?
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What is the theoretical smallest size limit for a phased array antenna that can reach LEO?
Now that one provider is operating a phased array ground-to-satellite internet comm system, others will follow. A frequently asked question is "When can we use Starlink with a sat phone?". ...
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How much could a full-blown Starlink constellation contribute to a future Kessler scenario? What would be the worst-case scenario?
Discussions in comments below this answer to What is the biggest satellite constellation in space right now? have touched on risk vs reward and the Kessler Syndrome in the context of full-blown ...
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What orbits are Starlink satellites now deployed into? How low to do they go on their first perigee?
In my answer to Delta-V of Starlink Satellites I ballpark spherical-cow envelope-back estimated 190 m/s with 2 kg of krypton based on raising only from a 445 km circular orbit to a 550 km circular ...
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Which satellite constellations are already operational in LEO (Low Earth Orbit)?
I am researching information on active and operational constellations in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) but from what I can see, many missions are still only planned (e.g. OneWeb, Amazon) and the only one ...
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Are Starlink satellites flaring?
The "Old and Busted" Iridium satellites flared like crazy because they had big flat metal surfaces for their phased array antennas (that were certainly so shiny completely by accident and ...
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Why are some Starlink launches announced as instantaneous and some not?
I have not been able to find information online to chart out the SpaceX Starlink launches to see which have announced instantaneous launch windows and others are not announced as such, leading to my ...
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Why 53º orbits for Starlink?
In the UCS satellite dataset, I see a very modest number of non-Starlink LEO satellites around 53º (see graph below).
Conversely, Starlink satellites are regularly deployed around that inclination.
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What is the time frame for the Starlink satellites to reach their final orbit after deployment from the fairing?
How long does it take for the Starlink satellites to reach their final orbit after deployment?
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Why do AST SpaceMobile satellites have antennas much larger than Starlink, whereas they both aim at providing network coverage anywhere on earth?
I read on cnbc.com (mirror):
AST drew the attention of NASA in October, when the U.S. space agency commented on the company’s FCC proposal and said AST’s “extremely large satellites” would create “an ...
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Did Starlink's experimental Darksat help reduce brightness? [duplicate]
Did Darksat's visor like coverings to its parabolic antennas reduce the brightness or was it a failure.
Or is SpaceX devoleping any other mechanisms or manuveres to counter this problem?
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Main differences between 5G and Starlink? [closed]
I wonder who is better in terms of whole if considered. Speed, latency, reach, accessibility and affordability.
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Portable Starlink antennas
Starlink is slowly starting to spread their wings globally, with a recent beta launched in Canada after their initial launch in the US.
Let's assume I buy the antennae/dish and their service in Canada....
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How much krypton do Starlink satellites carry when they are first deployed?
Starlink satellites use krypton as propellant.
This answer roughly estimates 2.3 kg of Krypton based on a total delta-V of 190 m/s and an exhaust velocity of 20,000 m/s.
But how close is that to ...
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How should we point our SpaceX Starlink ground transceiver antennas?
I don't have one of course, but I see that the Starlink ground transceiver antennas are flat but "pointable" to some extent. I assume but don't know for sure that there's at least some kind ...
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Are there Starlink train-finding websites?
In Astronomy SE Line of lights moving in a straight line, with a few following is the canonical close as duplicate target for questions about the likely seeing of recently deployed Starlinks that move ...
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What are the electrical requirements of the antennas used in Starlink?
My interest is in both the antenna for the ground segment (the "UFO on a stick") and the antennas for the space segment (phased arrays if I'm not mistaken).
I couldn't find around much more ...
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What impact will the deorbiting of thousands of satellites have on the atmosphere?
With the creation of mega satellite constellations like Starlink, there are several thousand satellites being launched each year. This means that as these satellites go out of order in a few years, ...
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How much krypton is stored on a Starlink satellite?
How much krypton (fuel) is there for the krypton-powered ion thrusters on Starlink satellites and how long does it last?
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Once Starlink is fully deployed how many satellites will be visible at any given moment?
So the GPS system has 31 satellites in an orbit of 20,180 km. Most of the time there are at least 3-4 satellites 'visible' (visible from a signal reception point of view) at any given moment.
The ...
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Is Starlink VisorSat really dimmer?
Basically a repeat of Is Starlink 1130 (Darksat) really dimmer? but this time with Visorsat.
What is the observed brightness of VisorSat(s) and is it dimmer than non-Visorsat Starlink satellites?
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How is 'space junk' monitored pre-launches and when picking satellite orbits?
There is a bunch of junk orbiting right outside the atmosphere of the Earth, an issue that gets addressed more and more as space travel develops. How do they monitor the movement of these to avoid so ...
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What about Starlink ground terminals for server farms?
There is some information about the small cheap user ground terminals for the Starlink network.
But there should be also high bandwidth ground terminals for server farms. For a low latency time these ...
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Why does the Falcon 9 launch 60 instead of 100 Starlink satellites at a time?
The Falcon 9 has a capacity of 22,800 kg to LEO.
A Starlink satellite has a mass of 227 kg.
That means that one Falcon 9 can launch 100 satellites.
So why does SpaceX launch 60 instead of 100 ...
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Can the Indian government ask SpaceX to pay for bandwidth usage in its airspace?
Any telecom operator who wants to launch their services in India has to pay billions of USD to the Indian government.
My query is if I'm using SpaceX Starlink based data, can the Indian government ...
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Why is SpaceX deploying Starlink satellites without inter-satellite communication capability?
According to this answer, which cites Wikipedia, the current batch of Starlink satellites that are being deployed don't have the ability to talk to each other. That will come later, according to ...
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Starlink's autonomous collision avoidance
On their website, SpaceX claims that Starlink satellites are able to conduct autonomous collision avoidance manoeuvres using alerts from the US Department of Defence. This seems very reasonable, given ...
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How do Starlink trains spread into separate orbits with equidistant orbital slots?
Starlink satellites are launched in batches of 60. They are released from the launch vehicle, and then have to spread out – not only into equidistant slots along a single orbit ring, but now ...
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Have astronauts seen Starlink trains?
Starlink satellites move in the same altitude region as the ISS (on their way up and eventually back down) and are particularly noticeable for weeks after deployment as "trains".
Have one of these ...
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How did SpaceX's VisorSat work? How did the sunshade articulate to shade parts of Starlink satellite as it orbits the Earth?
CNET's Elon Musk wants SpaceX to launch the next generation of space telescopes says:
The billionaire entrepreneur said that "VisorSat" satellites equipped with a sunshade to block ...
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How to explain the fast motion of the Starlink satellite in this video?
My friend in Łódź sent me this video today:
https://i.imgur.com/EmpNzfs.mp4
This was observed in Widzew district, at 20:42 Warsaw time. He has two questions:
given that it looks like it's Starlink ...
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Do Starlink satellites have cameras?
Obviously, Starlink satellites are equipped with sensors for attitude and location detection (like a star tracker or sun tracker) but I'm wondering if they have with any direct Earth observation ...
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Is Starlink 1130 (Darksat) really dimmer?
I measured a couple of Starlink satellites tonight, finally, Starlink 1130 (Darksat) arrived (March 17th 2020, 20:15 local time). I could not see the sat on the screen although I turned up to gain a ...
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What are the orbits of all Starlink satellites launched?
Latest batch of SpaceX Starlink satellites went into elliptical orbit.
Using all available data (launch times, release times, applications by SpaceX etc), what are the orbits of all current 300 ...
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Satellite communications interference due to Starlink by SpaceX
As of 8th February 2020, SpaceX has launched 242 Starlink satellites.
To what extent will SpaceX's launch of its Starlink satellites affect satellite communications for other satellites?
How much (...
user33891
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Do the latest Starlink satellites use inter-satellite laser communications?
Do the latest (as of Jan 30, 2020) Starlink satellites use inter-satellite laser communications?
I can't find any info about that!
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Astrophotographer Thierry Legault is not convinced that DarkSat is darker than the others. Have photometric measurements been reported?
In the video below Passage of 7 Starlink satellites including (supposed) "darksat" world renowned astrophotographer Thierry Legault is not impressed by DarkSat's darkness:
SpaceX said they ...
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