I’m just glad they’re in low enough orbit to not contribute to the space junk problem. Wait until Musk decides Starlink constellations need to be in high orbit.
So I was under the impression that high orbit internet satellites weren’t desirable because of latency- satellite net isn’t a new thing, but low latency, high throughput is new and it’s because of low orbit mesh. Am I mistaken here? I don’t know much about it, but the speed of light is the speed of light- something traveling an extra 40,000 miles is gonna take a lot more time.
Nope you are correct. Latency is the reason these are in LEO.
I’m sure you’re right. But you’re talking about a company run by the guy who came up with the Cybertruck.
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Interesting and compelling alone do not, a good product, make.
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Interesting in some respects and a laughable failure in others - the body is made of a proprietary blend of steel that they’ve somehow managed to make extremely corrodible, even by stuff like rain, as one example. Certainly not holistically well engineered, at least not in all aspects.
So I was under the impression that high orbit internet satellites weren’t desirable because of latency- satellite net isn’t a new thing, but low latency, high throughput is new and it’s because of low orbit mesh. Am I mistaken here?
Yes and No.
Yes you’re right in the desire for Starlink orbits (an its real satellite compeditors) all want LEO or Low Earth Orbit altitudes, which is essentially anything below 1200 miles-ish up vs GEO which is 20,000 or so miles up.
However there’s lots of different spaces in that “up to 1200 miles up” space. Musk DID want Starlink higher than they are, at about 750 miles up if I remember correctly. It would still mean really low latency compared to GEO but mean quite a bit fewer satellites needed. Fewer needed because each satellite can “see” more of the Earth from higher up. Except OneWeb got that slot first.
An even smarter decision is to just build a bunch of tall cell towers. You don’t even need rockets at all!
Ping is too high in high orbit
I wouldn’t count on Elon understanding that or believing his engineers when they tell him that either.
They still add to the particles in the atmosphere we just found out about so have no ideas about the repercussions.
True. I was reading that not too long ago. Just rocket launches alone are adding a ton of stuff we probably don’t want in the upper atmosphere.
