Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map
by makomk on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @05:49PM
(#23557195)
Yeah, as I understand it the current generation of Starlink satellites are likely to be pretty much unusable when they're over the ocean since they need to have line of sight to a ground station.
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Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map
by sacred_numbers on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @10:17PM
(#23559126)
A ground station doesn't have to actually be on the ground. They could park a boat in the ocean between London and NYC with equipment to act as a repeater. This YouTube video (along with others on this channel) does a good job of explaining how this could work. [https://youtu.be/m05abdGSOxY]
> They could park a boat in the ocean between London and NYC with equipment to act as a repeater.
They could, but I bet they won't. Speculation is fun but permanent floating platforms are expensive, it's easier to just wait until inter-satellite links.
They might be usable for airplanes, ships, oil platforms, islands...
without interlinks an airplane, ship, oil platform, or island could talk to the starlink sat, but the sat couldn't talk to its ground base station to forward their messages to the rest of the internet. Coverage for deep ocean will require a second generation that can talk sat -> sat.
Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map
by toomuchtodo on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @08:30PM
(#23558507)
There are remote islands with enough fiber to support a ground station. Not a lot, but they exist.