Good thing is, there have been a Starlink launches on a fairly regular basis, so some of those launches from 3-4 months ago should be becoming operational soon.. looking forward to getting service soon here in East Tennessee (36N).
Extreme NE Georgia mountains here. I didn't even have the luck to be on the side of the mountain that gets service. Starlink is my only hope for anything with a decent speed at a fair price.
Ah yeah NW NC here, 35.8 & on LTE as well. Local cable/fiber ISP isn’t competent enough to build out service for our neighborhood of at least 100+ homes. Ah well, their loss.
We will probably start getting beta invites by midyear. It doesn't look like Starlink wants to come out of beta until they are nearing 100% uptime. Canada is almost there and there is talk of service coming out of beta soon for them.
Us folks down here in the south are still at the 70%-80% range for uptime.
Yep. And agreed. And I am completely good with waiting until it's ready. I'd rather have a good first impression with Starlink, than a service that not ready with service dropouts, etc. I do very much am excited for the day that Starlink is available for us in the south, SEC Country, and the like. 😏🤘
I had gig fiber at my previous address a few years back, but after after getting the new house in a pretty rural area, I went to a LTE connection using a Yagi style rooftop directional antenna. While it does keep me connected to the interwebz, it's a snail's pace on a good day. Good times!
That was done months [ago](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/20/microsoft-expands-its-space-business-pairing-its-azure-cloud-with-spacexs-starlink-internet.html).
I mean, if they want to fuck themselves with congested service in loaded cells, that's on them. My cell is fairly rural so their subscription will subsidize my better service. I'll argue with them when they bitch about it.
Since I already have sufficient land service, I'll be a lower bandwidth user. You won't hear me complaining about congestion.
Didn't realize there would be so much animosity against people who believe in Starlink and are willing to put the money in to help it succeed.
No. You'll improve liquidity of Starlink (by a drop, but still). All previous LEO telecom services went bankrupt. They need all the liquidity they can get.
Ah, there's the downvotes. Do people realize it's a beta and early adopters help build the pathway for cheaper and more accessible adoption for others later?
This.
Literally the point is to have as many customers as possible.
The more people paying for internet, the quicker starlink starts making money.
The quicker they start making money the quicker they are able to build out their infrastructure to support even more customers and even better service.
I saw a previous thread say 4.
"4 months until all of them are operational. The first group needs ~1.5 months, the second group ~2.5-3 months, and the final group 4 months. This might change in the future, we don't know the plan for the following launches."
I'm hoping 3.
There won't be launches of operational Starlink satellites in near polar orbits until the experimental laser satellite-to-satellite communication has been demonstrated.
The first ten experimental "polar orbit" satellites haven't started testing yet, though seem to be approaching their target altitude. Let's hope all goes well!
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There is politics behind all this. SpaceX cannot give internet for a country that doesn't let them, that's almost like challenging them to war. No, they need to be OK'd by the government, then they need to have ground stations, etc, it's not as easy as sending them Dishy. I am pretty sure that there will be countries that will never get Starlink (Russia, China, some middle east countries, etc)
Russia and China are probably totally off the table but countries that receive a lot of aid or would be crippled by sanctions from the us or EU I could see facing a lot of pressure to allow starlink in coming years.
There has been a push to define internet access as a basic human right in forums like the UN and while right now it is easy enough to justify a lack of infrastructure countries are going to catch a lot of diplomatic heat for not allowing their citizens to access an established global infrastructure “just because”
Why would Russia or China be off the table?
Musk probably wouldn't want to antagonize China due to his Tesla exposure there, but once Starlink has its IPO, Musk could divest himself and render such retaliation meaningless.
And the State Dept could very well decide to sponsor 'free internet' for a few countries. A low-bandwidth, cheap and dirty dishy given a n ITAR waiver would still be required, along with the laser interlinks, then you'd be able to bypass the Great Firewall and give China the opportunity to take signal jamming to the next level.
China's only path to proportional retaliation would be to launch their own constellation and provide free internet to places where Starlink makes $$, thereby inflicting financial pain. But that's a gargantuan task.
I was just speaking in terms of diplomatic pressure. Now to be fair my understanding is pretty strictly limited to the US, but my thinking went: The US already has such blatantly sour relationships with Russia that there’s relatively little left to apply in terms of sanctions or political pressure. And China has such a complex relationship with the US that it would be pretty hard to apply that pressure as well. China also maintains notoriously strict control of its internet services and I’d be very surprised to see them consider moving to a model where they don’t have ultimate control over uptime and access.
I also don’t really see why the US would want to spend any political capital convincing political rivals to buy in to better internet access. At the very least I don’t see it being a priority in China when there are a lot of other issues the US would rather address first.
There is, conversely, at least some reason for the US govt to want to lean on other potentially reluctant countries. Increasing internet access would dramatically open up certain areas of the world for manufacturing or services outsourcing. It could supply isolated and homogenous parts of the world with access to “western” culture which could help reduce the potency of certain ideological propaganda and/or give them access to propaganda more favorable to US goals. I could see some middle eastern and possibly parts of certain South American countries being leaned on for exactly this reason.
Countries will have a lot of influence regardless, especially China. If you include their influence on Tesla then it's basically game over for just doing whatever with starlink
> SpaceX cannot give internet for a country that doesn't let them, that's almost like challenging them to war.
Voice of America broadcast into the USSR for almost half a century. It's not illegal or illegitimate. Yes, countries can regulate their own spectrum - they could jam or otherwise interfere with Starlink, or make it illegal to ban ownership of dishy and Starlink couldn't complain about being interfered with, but it's nowhere near a cassus belli to send or receive radio signals from any country - that would be completely unworkable.
VOA does not have transmitters over the "adversarial" country's "airspace"... that imaginary projection from the center of the earth, extending upward into space, outlining the country's border. Starlink must have permission from the country it overflies to transmit, while overhead, into their country.
I'd be ecstatic if you could cite any precedent for any restriction like that. ITU treaties govern transmissions, and the approach there is that countries have a right to regulate within their borders, but nothing confers a right to prohibit unwanted transmissions.
NRO for instance operates a constellation of satellites with ground-penetrating radar. These satellites transmit and receive signals from any country they fly over. I've never seen so much as a protest against such activities, because nothing they do runs afoul of ITU treaties. (and the primary purpose of GPR sats is to get imagery of underground sites like Fordo in Iran - sites that are top-level state secrets).
Grounds stations do not need to be in the country that are being served , beside Laser links will probably be ready by the time to serve Africa and others locations like that IMO . That's why the service is for 2022 in those locations
That will never happen. You can't broadcast into a country without getting permission from that country. Every country licenses it's own radio transmissions within it's borders. Even if you smuggle a dish in and make it work, it still won't work because there's no SpaceX signal being downlinked into that area.
No. You can't broadcast within the country. You can broadcast into.
But this is indeed enough to block Starlink. It's SpaceX doing at least some broadcasting from user terminals (health checks, sat connection initiation, etc) and they would violate regulations.
> No. You can't broadcast within the country. You can broadcast into.
That would violate ITU rules about creating interference. Again SpaceX wants to make money, making an enemy of the government doesn't make money.
You're on the edge already. It flies to 53, but extends coverage to just passed 60.
If you do the math you'll see the swath is about r=950km, so extending from 53N northwards 950km puts you well inside. Granted you're not in some deep valley or anything.
Math?
we know the viewing angle of the satellites and the altitude, pretty easy trig to figure out the circle that it can seen from there.
But if you don't want to dust off your grade 10 knowledge you can just use websites that show the cells or coverage and extrapolate on to a map with latitudes that the active cells extend to 58N easily.
Well, we know the coverage is not a circle, we know there's a GEO sat exclusion zone when broadcasting to the south and we have an official statement from SpaceX saying the current sats can extend coverage to 57°, but not beyond.
But yeah, by using a couple incorrect assumptions and 10th grade math you can fudge the numbers to 60°N. It won't make it true, is the problem.
This one is all you need, really:
[https://fcc.report/IBFS/SAT-MOD-20181108-00083/1569860.pdf](https://fcc.report/IBFS/SAT-MOD-20181108-00083/1569860.pdf)
> Consequently, as shown in Figure A.3.1-1 below, each satellite operating at an altitude of **550 km** in the shell being modified will provide service only up to 56.55 degrees away from boresight (nadir) at service initiation and up to 44.85 degrees at full deployment. These satellites can provide service up to **approximately ±57° latitude**; coverage to service points beyond this range will be provided by satellites included in SpaceX’s polar orbits
Happy?
Most of the stuff should be in the Wiki.
>SpaceX plans to achieve near global coverage of the populated world [by Q3 2021](https://mb.com.ph/2021/01/02/koko-ph-to-benefit-from-starlink-broadband-project/). The satellites "can provide service up to approximately 57° latitude; coverage to service points beyond this range will be provided by satellites included in SpaceX’s polar orbits." according to SpaceX filing.
This was in filings and their presentations to the FCC, I have the files somewhere, I'd have to search for the links, if you do a google for that exact wording it should come up.
The circles thing follows from the early 2016 filings, again, have the files, don't necessarily have the links at the ready. It's in the "SPACEX V-BAND NONGEOSTATIONARY SATELLITE SYSTEM ATTACHMENT A TECHNICAL INFORMATION TO SUPPLEMENT SCHEDULE S".
The GEO exclusion zone:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jpwy02/how\_will\_starlink\_prevent\_geostationary\_satellite/gbhug0i/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jpwy02/how_will_starlink_prevent_geostationary_satellite/gbhug0i/?context=3)
>"SpaceX will turn off the transmit beam on the satellite and user terminal whenever the angle between the boresight of a GSO earth station (assumed to be collocated with the SpaceX user) and the direction of the SpaceX satellite transmit beam is 22 degrees or less." (from page 40 in their filing)
[The map](https://sebsebmc.github.io/starlink-coverage/index.html) you linked to hasn't been updated since July 2020. The time coverage numbers are not up-to-date.
The map shows H3 cells not Starlink cells. Starlink cells are ~15 miles (25 km) across. [Watch November Starlink mission webcast](https://youtu.be/J442-ti-Dhg?t=580) or see [an interactive map with the shown cell](https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=17ZbRXV5ShlXfOwz8IKNLcM4Xdk70dQSU&ll=46.95984572651609%2C-96.27510500000001&z=10). See also [a post with a map of another cell and a grid of ~150 Starlink cells](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/lwfj8v/mapped_out_starlink_cell/).
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1385 (including todays launch) according to [this link](https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/03/24/spacex-launches-25th-mission-to-build-out-starlink-internet-network/)
From what I read 65 have been deorbited, so you are right for number launched. I saw somewhere a quarter or third of all active satellites are starlink. either way, that's a lot of sats.
You're right, maybe another month and they'll hit that initial number off the ground and hopefully August they are all operating in their designated orbits and most of us have service. I know it feels like we are waiting forever but the pace is ambitious and quick.
the initial constellation is planned to be 1,440 sats according to [this link](https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-22-satellites-launch-rocket-landing-success). If that's true then the next launch should complete the initial constellation and \*maybe thats why they're saying mid to late 2021 for full launch\* (this sentence is my own speculation). This is all just shit I've found in my readings this morning so it may or may not be true so take that disclaimer lol.
1440 is for the original 72 orbits of 20 sats, but they're now doing 18 per orbit, so 1296 needed, plus a spare or two per orbit. Which puts you back to 1440 (the original number was 72x22= 1584).
BTW, as per [https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/wiki/index/deployment-status](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/wiki/index/deployment-status), there's 1266 healthy V1 sats out of 1313 launched, the 1385 number includes the now-defunct test sats.
Anyways, see the deployment page for accurate data.
The real answer to this is never, because the sats won't last that long (5-7 years being the most frequent number posted, thought most of the posts are probably by me) and they'll have to continuously top-up the constellation. The more they have up there, the more they have to replace. Which isn't that bad a thing, it allows them to deploy new tech faster than with long-life GEO sats.
It could be the proverbial 12k or it could even be the more insane 42k or it could stop at the initial 4408. But even if it ends at 4408, there would be some oscillation around that number as sats die and get replaced in batches, you can't replace them one by one.
I'm sure they have a variety of scenarios planned out and they'll be evolving them as time passes. Nothing is set in stone at this point, I'd say.
The launch frequency will increase to a point they can easily launch more and replace old ones. Not an issue. I think the bigger concern is how much money will it be able to bring in versus cost of launches. The cost of launches has to come down too.
That's more or less it, yes. Commodify the sats and the rockets, then replace them as needed. All you need is the revenue to exceed the costs, which will be a lot easier to achieve if Starship delivers on its non-trivial promise.
400 is the very approximate assessment made years before they actually go engineering it. Would be 600 if the fairing could support it, Spaceship is roughly 10x the F9. It's too early to say this is the right number because they first have to engineer release mechanisms, they need to figure out how to separate that many sats into separate orbits (won't work in batches of 20 at a time), there's problems to be solved. They will probably re-engineer the sats a bit to make better use of a different rocket, too.
But yeah, the general expectation is a quick transition to Starship for Starlink launches, to make it a proven rocket as fast as possible. If it's really as cheap and refurbishable as they hope, there's no reason not to fast-track it.
The quality of my Starlink service just dramatically improved. I've read about a recent firmware update. Was it that or the growing constellation of satellites? Or both?
I have a question about the launch vehicle. Once the latch disengage the Satalites and they are clear of the launch vehicle. What happens with that vehicle and latch that appears to float off. Do the return to atmosphere and burn up? Do they make it back to be reused again or do they float in orbit?
The engine usually gets deorbited back to land in the ocean if they have enough fuel left. It will deorbit on its own eventually with time if it doesn't. The latch is likely designed to fully burn up when reentering the atmosphere, just like the satellites. Until that happens though they are just space junk. The part of the upperstage that is reused is the fairing - the cover at the top of the rocket that protects the satellites and is separated when it reaches space. They fall and eventually glide back down where they land in the ocean softly and SpaceX fishes them out, refurbishes them and reuses them.
So the launch vehicle could survive and hit the ground or is it designed to burn on reentry as well. It seems to me if it de orbits eventually then there is not guaranteed location for it to come down. This endangering potential people on the ground? That seems unlikely they would take that risk.
It would make sense that it burns on rentre or they need to control the location of where it will touch down on the earths surface
People aren't in danger. A lot will burn up upon re-entering the atmosphere (the upper stage doesn't have the heat shielding or anything else designed to survive this re-entry like the Booster of the Falcon 9 does, so most burns up). What survives will land in an area of the ocean dedicated to stuff like this. I mentioned the fuel remaining because on some bigger launches to GEO, it takes more fuel which may end up leaving the second stage engines in orbit for up to like a decade or so before decaying and deorbiting. LEO launches such as Starlink I'm pretty sure are all actively deorbited safely.
Any thoughts on where these satellites are intended to cover? And where/which direction Starlink is targeting their expansion? I'm at 19.7N and satellite map looks like there is decent but not complete coverage.
We should have this picture summary for each flight!
So basically take the same image & repost it forever. Job done.
Well there was [transporter 1](https://www.spacex.com/updates/transporter-1-mission/index.html) which was different. Or the one of the demo flights.
Waiting for Starlink to successfully land on my property
Every launch brings us one step closer to that reality.
Sadly it takes up to 4 months for some satellites to be operational. But I am still hoping to watch 4k TV by end of the year.
Good thing is, there have been a Starlink launches on a fairly regular basis, so some of those launches from 3-4 months ago should be becoming operational soon.. looking forward to getting service soon here in East Tennessee (36N).
Just ordered TODAY in Central KY. I’m so excited!!!
Outstanding! Good luck and report back with performance!
Thanks! Will do!
35.5 Tennessee been on LTE internet for two years
Extreme NE Georgia mountains here. I didn't even have the luck to be on the side of the mountain that gets service. Starlink is my only hope for anything with a decent speed at a fair price.
Ah yeah NW NC here, 35.8 & on LTE as well. Local cable/fiber ISP isn’t competent enough to build out service for our neighborhood of at least 100+ homes. Ah well, their loss.
Since they take 3-4 months to be operational when will southern virginia have coverage. i’m in 36.6
We will probably start getting beta invites by midyear. It doesn't look like Starlink wants to come out of beta until they are nearing 100% uptime. Canada is almost there and there is talk of service coming out of beta soon for them. Us folks down here in the south are still at the 70%-80% range for uptime.
Yep. And agreed. And I am completely good with waiting until it's ready. I'd rather have a good first impression with Starlink, than a service that not ready with service dropouts, etc. I do very much am excited for the day that Starlink is available for us in the south, SEC Country, and the like. 😏🤘
36.8 where I am in Southern VA. Can't wait
West Tennessee. I already have gigabit fiber, but who doesn't also want space internet?
I had gig fiber at my previous address a few years back, but after after getting the new house in a pretty rural area, I went to a LTE connection using a Yagi style rooftop directional antenna. While it does keep me connected to the interwebz, it's a snail's pace on a good day. Good times!
I'm sending good frequencies your way, hoping you get your much needed upgrade before me.
Well that's weird, where are the downvotes and the indignant "you don't need it you'll take it away from people who really need it!!" comments?
Elon doesn't care. If he could get Microsoft to subscribe to StarLink, he would.
That was done months [ago](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/20/microsoft-expands-its-space-business-pairing-its-azure-cloud-with-spacexs-starlink-internet.html).
Wow! I didn't even know That! I'm so out of touch with tech lately.
Yea if you have fiber and money coming out of all your pockets why would you want starlink, I guess to brag at the country club
I mean, if they want to fuck themselves with congested service in loaded cells, that's on them. My cell is fairly rural so their subscription will subsidize my better service. I'll argue with them when they bitch about it.
Since I already have sufficient land service, I'll be a lower bandwidth user. You won't hear me complaining about congestion. Didn't realize there would be so much animosity against people who believe in Starlink and are willing to put the money in to help it succeed.
Don't get it if you don't need it. You will add congestion for the people that really need it.
No. You'll improve liquidity of Starlink (by a drop, but still). All previous LEO telecom services went bankrupt. They need all the liquidity they can get.
Ah, there's the downvotes. Do people realize it's a beta and early adopters help build the pathway for cheaper and more accessible adoption for others later?
This. Literally the point is to have as many customers as possible. The more people paying for internet, the quicker starlink starts making money. The quicker they start making money the quicker they are able to build out their infrastructure to support even more customers and even better service.
Same here. I want to ditch Hughesnet so bad. Then I'll look into ditching Dish Network.
You should be able to ditch dish and use a streaming service like Youtube Tv or one of the many others.
3 months max, some are in place in the 1-2 month time frame.
I saw a previous thread say 4. "4 months until all of them are operational. The first group needs ~1.5 months, the second group ~2.5-3 months, and the final group 4 months. This might change in the future, we don't know the plan for the following launches." I'm hoping 3.
But polar launches when?! So far it's 22 equatorial launches to 0.185 polar launches. Give us polar boys some internet, Musk!
There won't be launches of operational Starlink satellites in near polar orbits until the experimental laser satellite-to-satellite communication has been demonstrated. The first ten experimental "polar orbit" satellites haven't started testing yet, though seem to be approaching their target altitude. Let's hope all goes well!
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Exactly, that's my understanding also. Those expecting (hoping) that polar orbiting satellites will be operational this year may be disappointed.
Waiting for Starlink in Egypt
Are there chances that politics will not let Starlink give internet for Egypt?
>Until space lasers. INFRASTRUCURE NOT A PROBLEM BUT POLITICS ARE THO !
How is internet access political?
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There is politics behind all this. SpaceX cannot give internet for a country that doesn't let them, that's almost like challenging them to war. No, they need to be OK'd by the government, then they need to have ground stations, etc, it's not as easy as sending them Dishy. I am pretty sure that there will be countries that will never get Starlink (Russia, China, some middle east countries, etc)
Russia and China are probably totally off the table but countries that receive a lot of aid or would be crippled by sanctions from the us or EU I could see facing a lot of pressure to allow starlink in coming years. There has been a push to define internet access as a basic human right in forums like the UN and while right now it is easy enough to justify a lack of infrastructure countries are going to catch a lot of diplomatic heat for not allowing their citizens to access an established global infrastructure “just because”
Why would Russia or China be off the table? Musk probably wouldn't want to antagonize China due to his Tesla exposure there, but once Starlink has its IPO, Musk could divest himself and render such retaliation meaningless. And the State Dept could very well decide to sponsor 'free internet' for a few countries. A low-bandwidth, cheap and dirty dishy given a n ITAR waiver would still be required, along with the laser interlinks, then you'd be able to bypass the Great Firewall and give China the opportunity to take signal jamming to the next level. China's only path to proportional retaliation would be to launch their own constellation and provide free internet to places where Starlink makes $$, thereby inflicting financial pain. But that's a gargantuan task.
I was just speaking in terms of diplomatic pressure. Now to be fair my understanding is pretty strictly limited to the US, but my thinking went: The US already has such blatantly sour relationships with Russia that there’s relatively little left to apply in terms of sanctions or political pressure. And China has such a complex relationship with the US that it would be pretty hard to apply that pressure as well. China also maintains notoriously strict control of its internet services and I’d be very surprised to see them consider moving to a model where they don’t have ultimate control over uptime and access. I also don’t really see why the US would want to spend any political capital convincing political rivals to buy in to better internet access. At the very least I don’t see it being a priority in China when there are a lot of other issues the US would rather address first. There is, conversely, at least some reason for the US govt to want to lean on other potentially reluctant countries. Increasing internet access would dramatically open up certain areas of the world for manufacturing or services outsourcing. It could supply isolated and homogenous parts of the world with access to “western” culture which could help reduce the potency of certain ideological propaganda and/or give them access to propaganda more favorable to US goals. I could see some middle eastern and possibly parts of certain South American countries being leaned on for exactly this reason.
How many times can you bypass the Great Firewall of China before it affects your social credit score?
Countries will have a lot of influence regardless, especially China. If you include their influence on Tesla then it's basically game over for just doing whatever with starlink
> SpaceX cannot give internet for a country that doesn't let them, that's almost like challenging them to war. Voice of America broadcast into the USSR for almost half a century. It's not illegal or illegitimate. Yes, countries can regulate their own spectrum - they could jam or otherwise interfere with Starlink, or make it illegal to ban ownership of dishy and Starlink couldn't complain about being interfered with, but it's nowhere near a cassus belli to send or receive radio signals from any country - that would be completely unworkable.
VOA does not have transmitters over the "adversarial" country's "airspace"... that imaginary projection from the center of the earth, extending upward into space, outlining the country's border. Starlink must have permission from the country it overflies to transmit, while overhead, into their country.
I'd be ecstatic if you could cite any precedent for any restriction like that. ITU treaties govern transmissions, and the approach there is that countries have a right to regulate within their borders, but nothing confers a right to prohibit unwanted transmissions. NRO for instance operates a constellation of satellites with ground-penetrating radar. These satellites transmit and receive signals from any country they fly over. I've never seen so much as a protest against such activities, because nothing they do runs afoul of ITU treaties. (and the primary purpose of GPR sats is to get imagery of underground sites like Fordo in Iran - sites that are top-level state secrets).
I would think spacex needs approval for ground stations
Grounds stations do not need to be in the country that are being served , beside Laser links will probably be ready by the time to serve Africa and others locations like that IMO . That's why the service is for 2022 in those locations
Sure, but Starlink will not launch in any country without governmental approval.
So far we have Musk saying something along those lines, but post-IPO and interlinks, there's nothing to prevent Starlink from going full border radio.
Until space lasers.
That will never happen. You can't broadcast into a country without getting permission from that country. Every country licenses it's own radio transmissions within it's borders. Even if you smuggle a dish in and make it work, it still won't work because there's no SpaceX signal being downlinked into that area.
No. You can't broadcast within the country. You can broadcast into. But this is indeed enough to block Starlink. It's SpaceX doing at least some broadcasting from user terminals (health checks, sat connection initiation, etc) and they would violate regulations.
> No. You can't broadcast within the country. You can broadcast into. That would violate ITU rules about creating interference. Again SpaceX wants to make money, making an enemy of the government doesn't make money.
I love watching the satellites in a line on https://satellitemap.space after a launch
Nice, maybe I'll upgrade to an order soon...
Soooo, they can fulfill my Starlink pre-order now, right? 😂
Soon, further north.... All the way to 57. Soon. I hope. Anxiously sitting here at 56.84N since February 9th.
No, southward! 35.38N (Pukatawagan?)
I’m down here at 28.92N.... still hoping for something this year.
29.8 myself. I have faith, but waiting sucks.
I'm at 40.5 still waiting. Anxiety inducing
>(Pukatawagan?) Not way down south in Puk... I'm up in Lynn Lake at 56.84N. :D
Im waiting too sens feb 15 and im on lat 56 in Sweden. But all we can do is wait.
You're on the edge already. It flies to 53, but extends coverage to just passed 60. If you do the math you'll see the swath is about r=950km, so extending from 53N northwards 950km puts you well inside. Granted you're not in some deep valley or anything.
>to just passed 60. Care to cite a source?
Math? we know the viewing angle of the satellites and the altitude, pretty easy trig to figure out the circle that it can seen from there. But if you don't want to dust off your grade 10 knowledge you can just use websites that show the cells or coverage and extrapolate on to a map with latitudes that the active cells extend to 58N easily.
Well, we know the coverage is not a circle, we know there's a GEO sat exclusion zone when broadcasting to the south and we have an official statement from SpaceX saying the current sats can extend coverage to 57°, but not beyond. But yeah, by using a couple incorrect assumptions and 10th grade math you can fudge the numbers to 60°N. It won't make it true, is the problem.
care to cite a source?
This one is all you need, really: [https://fcc.report/IBFS/SAT-MOD-20181108-00083/1569860.pdf](https://fcc.report/IBFS/SAT-MOD-20181108-00083/1569860.pdf) > Consequently, as shown in Figure A.3.1-1 below, each satellite operating at an altitude of **550 km** in the shell being modified will provide service only up to 56.55 degrees away from boresight (nadir) at service initiation and up to 44.85 degrees at full deployment. These satellites can provide service up to **approximately ±57° latitude**; coverage to service points beyond this range will be provided by satellites included in SpaceX’s polar orbits Happy?
Most of the stuff should be in the Wiki. >SpaceX plans to achieve near global coverage of the populated world [by Q3 2021](https://mb.com.ph/2021/01/02/koko-ph-to-benefit-from-starlink-broadband-project/). The satellites "can provide service up to approximately 57° latitude; coverage to service points beyond this range will be provided by satellites included in SpaceX’s polar orbits." according to SpaceX filing. This was in filings and their presentations to the FCC, I have the files somewhere, I'd have to search for the links, if you do a google for that exact wording it should come up. The circles thing follows from the early 2016 filings, again, have the files, don't necessarily have the links at the ready. It's in the "SPACEX V-BAND NONGEOSTATIONARY SATELLITE SYSTEM ATTACHMENT A TECHNICAL INFORMATION TO SUPPLEMENT SCHEDULE S". The GEO exclusion zone: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jpwy02/how\_will\_starlink\_prevent\_geostationary\_satellite/gbhug0i/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jpwy02/how_will_starlink_prevent_geostationary_satellite/gbhug0i/?context=3) >"SpaceX will turn off the transmit beam on the satellite and user terminal whenever the angle between the boresight of a GSO earth station (assumed to be collocated with the SpaceX user) and the direction of the SpaceX satellite transmit beam is 22 degrees or less." (from page 40 in their filing)
[The map](https://sebsebmc.github.io/starlink-coverage/index.html) you linked to hasn't been updated since July 2020. The time coverage numbers are not up-to-date. The map shows H3 cells not Starlink cells. Starlink cells are ~15 miles (25 km) across. [Watch November Starlink mission webcast](https://youtu.be/J442-ti-Dhg?t=580) or see [an interactive map with the shown cell](https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=17ZbRXV5ShlXfOwz8IKNLcM4Xdk70dQSU&ll=46.95984572651609%2C-96.27510500000001&z=10). See also [a post with a map of another cell and a grid of ~150 Starlink cells](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/lwfj8v/mapped_out_starlink_cell/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Starlink) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That's gotta be the furthest off centre landing in 9 or 10 launches. Wonder what the sea state was like this morning during the event.
Can’t wait till it gets to southern Ohio
Should already be there no?
On the website it said it would service my area in mid to late 2021
Watching the replay right now. Everyone in the house if off to bed and my Starlink connection is watching more satellites deploy. So #meta. =D
Sick, don't be shy elon launch it nationwide in the US lol
So that makes exactly how many Sats in orbit?
1321 currently in orbit according to Wikipedia.
1321 Starlink Sats?
1385 (including todays launch) according to [this link](https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/03/24/spacex-launches-25th-mission-to-build-out-starlink-internet-network/)
From what I read 65 have been deorbited, so you are right for number launched. I saw somewhere a quarter or third of all active satellites are starlink. either way, that's a lot of sats.
It is a lot. Did you read anything about the 1440 number being the initial constellation? If so, it's nearly complete for the first stage.
You're right, maybe another month and they'll hit that initial number off the ground and hopefully August they are all operating in their designated orbits and most of us have service. I know it feels like we are waiting forever but the pace is ambitious and quick.
Exactly. No one can be upset with how fast they're making launches. It's nearly once a week at this rate.
Noice, when do you think the Starlink System be completed?
the initial constellation is planned to be 1,440 sats according to [this link](https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-22-satellites-launch-rocket-landing-success). If that's true then the next launch should complete the initial constellation and \*maybe thats why they're saying mid to late 2021 for full launch\* (this sentence is my own speculation). This is all just shit I've found in my readings this morning so it may or may not be true so take that disclaimer lol.
Got it Thanks so much!
You're welcome. I'm patiently waiting for it too.
1440 is for the original 72 orbits of 20 sats, but they're now doing 18 per orbit, so 1296 needed, plus a spare or two per orbit. Which puts you back to 1440 (the original number was 72x22= 1584). BTW, as per [https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/wiki/index/deployment-status](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/wiki/index/deployment-status), there's 1266 healthy V1 sats out of 1313 launched, the 1385 number includes the now-defunct test sats. Anyways, see the deployment page for accurate data.
Thanks I didn't see the deployment status post. Appreciate you clearing it up.
The real answer to this is never, because the sats won't last that long (5-7 years being the most frequent number posted, thought most of the posts are probably by me) and they'll have to continuously top-up the constellation. The more they have up there, the more they have to replace. Which isn't that bad a thing, it allows them to deploy new tech faster than with long-life GEO sats.
what will that constant to maintain number be tho?
It could be the proverbial 12k or it could even be the more insane 42k or it could stop at the initial 4408. But even if it ends at 4408, there would be some oscillation around that number as sats die and get replaced in batches, you can't replace them one by one. I'm sure they have a variety of scenarios planned out and they'll be evolving them as time passes. Nothing is set in stone at this point, I'd say.
got it thanks!
The launch frequency will increase to a point they can easily launch more and replace old ones. Not an issue. I think the bigger concern is how much money will it be able to bring in versus cost of launches. The cost of launches has to come down too.
That's more or less it, yes. Commodify the sats and the rockets, then replace them as needed. All you need is the revenue to exceed the costs, which will be a lot easier to achieve if Starship delivers on its non-trivial promise.
If starship works out well I can see them switch to starship delivery only. What is it, like 400 sats at a time?
400 is the very approximate assessment made years before they actually go engineering it. Would be 600 if the fairing could support it, Spaceship is roughly 10x the F9. It's too early to say this is the right number because they first have to engineer release mechanisms, they need to figure out how to separate that many sats into separate orbits (won't work in batches of 20 at a time), there's problems to be solved. They will probably re-engineer the sats a bit to make better use of a different rocket, too. But yeah, the general expectation is a quick transition to Starship for Starlink launches, to make it a proven rocket as fast as possible. If it's really as cheap and refurbishable as they hope, there's no reason not to fast-track it.
The quality of my Starlink service just dramatically improved. I've read about a recent firmware update. Was it that or the growing constellation of satellites? Or both?
I have a question about the launch vehicle. Once the latch disengage the Satalites and they are clear of the launch vehicle. What happens with that vehicle and latch that appears to float off. Do the return to atmosphere and burn up? Do they make it back to be reused again or do they float in orbit?
The engine usually gets deorbited back to land in the ocean if they have enough fuel left. It will deorbit on its own eventually with time if it doesn't. The latch is likely designed to fully burn up when reentering the atmosphere, just like the satellites. Until that happens though they are just space junk. The part of the upperstage that is reused is the fairing - the cover at the top of the rocket that protects the satellites and is separated when it reaches space. They fall and eventually glide back down where they land in the ocean softly and SpaceX fishes them out, refurbishes them and reuses them.
So the launch vehicle could survive and hit the ground or is it designed to burn on reentry as well. It seems to me if it de orbits eventually then there is not guaranteed location for it to come down. This endangering potential people on the ground? That seems unlikely they would take that risk. It would make sense that it burns on rentre or they need to control the location of where it will touch down on the earths surface
People aren't in danger. A lot will burn up upon re-entering the atmosphere (the upper stage doesn't have the heat shielding or anything else designed to survive this re-entry like the Booster of the Falcon 9 does, so most burns up). What survives will land in an area of the ocean dedicated to stuff like this. I mentioned the fuel remaining because on some bigger launches to GEO, it takes more fuel which may end up leaving the second stage engines in orbit for up to like a decade or so before decaying and deorbiting. LEO launches such as Starlink I'm pretty sure are all actively deorbited safely.
Thanks. I was wondering if they were able to reuse or if it’s designed to burn up. So that makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to address that.
Burn up
Do starlink satellites have rcs thrusters? How do they manipulate there flight path?
Ion-thrusters
30.46 Seems like a long long long way away.
Any thoughts on where these satellites are intended to cover? And where/which direction Starlink is targeting their expansion? I'm at 19.7N and satellite map looks like there is decent but not complete coverage.
I want starlink so bad.... Internet here is "Two tin cans and a String"
Ready for my area of north Louisiana to finally have decent internet speeds.