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SpaceX's satellite constellation started in 2014 in Redmond, Washington and currently controlling over 1600 satellites since mid 2021 in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The $10 billion estimated project has now moved into 17 countries and soon to jump into the African market.
1600 satellites might mean a great mass of shit, but each satellite is estimated at about 227-260 kg nearly the mass of a fully grown tiger. These being taken into orbit by the SpaceX falcon-9 reusable orbital rocket - the only relaunchable in the whole universe not confusing it with the space shuttle.
The promise for more junk being raised into orbit has initialized the approval of 30,000 satellites in addition to the 12,000 already approved Star link satellites. This means the sky will be a network of small robots interconnected to provide a safe and reliable network to those in low network areas.
With the maximum number of satellites in low earth orbit being 100,000, countries china and Russia are on the chase to get satellites into LEO before SpaceX does it all.
The scary number of satellites to be launched magnified the charge by the earth based astronomical researchers against the continued injection of satellites into space. SpaceX then retaliated with a new model of their network called DarkSat which had a non-reflective coating then the VisorSat with a special sunshade visor. This would minimize reflections from the satellites that would confuse astronomers.
Space image of 60 Star link satellites by the Falcon 9 rocket.
The satellites are ready programmed to avoid collision and switch out of orbit using special Krypton-fueled Hall thrusters when their life ends.
Starlink is in a bid to accomplish the filling of the Nothern hemisphere between latitude 45° and 53° with the satellites being 60 times closer to Earth's surface than earlier satellites.
The internet speed has been tested to be at more than 200mbs/s with latency ranging from 20 to 40 milliseconds.
The requirements for the connection are a satellite dish and router selling at $500, three times what a primary teacher in Uganda earns plus a continued payment of$99 per month which is expected to depreciate though that cannot be guaranteed in the near future owing to competitors like Amazon's Project Kiuper,Hughes Net, Viasat and the 5G network.
The signal receivers(dishes) will be positioned using AR(Augmented Reality) with a mobile app provided by Star link.
The effect of rain and wind on signal cannot be ignored and that is expected to overstate the experimental latency. Another problem is freezing of ice during winter though it has been flushed down the toilet by the receiver's ability to melt snow around it.
The company has gone on to sell more than 100,000 packages of its service as pre-orders and live connections with Google cloud platform and Microsoft Azure acting as on-ground network services. Being a branch of SpaceX, Star link is also predicted to zoom into providing internet service in Mars after SpaceX has established their dream city on the red planet.
Summary
The advance of Star link cannot be ignored remembering that it is an initiative by, Elon Musk, a world-class billionaire. Everything will be here about this and more as fast as we can provide.
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