The Starlink Satellites
 | Author:
Jeff Ross
Contributor |
The Starlink Satellites
My good friend, Vic Sample, sent me this in a text:
"A lady at the Senior Center had a request for "the guy that writes the "With Clear Skies" column. Last week she couldn't sleep so was sitting on her porch having a cup of tea and enjoying the stars. She saw a string of lights in the sky and took a picture. There were about 5 lights, like beads on a string. Someone told her it was Elon Musk's "Sky Link" dropping off satellites. She wanted to know if you knew what it was and, if you do, would you write an article so that people who see it would know."
I am happy to oblige, although this may not be what lovers of the night sky, as I am, would want to hear.
Internet access is still not available to a lot of rural people around the planet. Satellite internet was born trying to solve this problem. Back in the 1990s, the very earliest satellite providers used a landline connection to a satellite up-link facility in Texas to connect to a satellite in Earth's geostationary orbit. That fancy term means that the satellite rotates the earth at the exact speed necessary to remain over the same spot on the surface below. To achieve that, the satellite must be 22,236 miles above mean sea level and be located directly over the equator. 22,000 miles might not sound like a lot, but that round trip to and from the satellite adds a noticeable delay (latency) to each and every internet connection. If you are streaming video from Netflix you hit the delay only when the stream starts. If you are loading a complex web page you get that delay on every part of the page as it loads. Anyone who has used satellite internet knows how painfully slow it can be.
SpaceX's version of satellite internet is completely different. The satellites, currently over 2800 in number, are in orbits ranging from 208 to 304 miles above mean sea level. SpaceX's goal is to have around 12,000 satellites in orbit by 2026. Because these satellites orbit much lower than geostationary satellites, latency is almost non-existent. Starlink claims to have 500,000 subscribers worldwide and provides them near fiber optic speed. It's fairly pricey with a $600 equipment charge and a $110 per month subscription fee.
SpaceX puts up to 140 Starlink satellites on a single launch. As those satellites disperse on the way to their final orbit they spread out a little. Almost certainly the "5 lights like beads on a string" was a Starlink launch. Like all satellites, these will all be visible in the night sky at various times and are actually quite bright. Astronomical observations at some of the world's largest land-based telescopes have been ruined by a Starlink train passing in front of the telescope as it was being used to photograph the stars above.
SpaceX has made some attempts to lower the amount of light reflected by the Starlink satellites but none have proven very successful yet. Even worse for star gazers are some of the plans other companies have for providing competing services. The Starlink satellites are small. Some of the competitors are planning on launching satellites with massive solar arrays that will outshine everything but the Moon in the night sky. In a few years, it is possible that when we step out at night to look up at the Milky Way, instead of seeing a river of stars stretch overhead we will see an endless stream of bright satellites.
Clear skies might not be such a treat then.
