News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Realtime Starlink Satellite Map. Parent comment

Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by ehsankia on Thursday June 18, 2020 @01:18AM (#23560009)
Is there a rough v1/v2 timeline? The thing they wanted to release by the end of the year is v1 I assume?

Is v2 just a software update? Does it require sending a whole new set of satellite or it something they are planning to patch into existing satellites someday and have inter-sat support?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by bryanlarsen on Thursday June 18, 2020 @03:13AM (#23560572)
The original plan required a laser link, but those were removed from the v1 satellite because the lasers would survive reentry and SpaceX didn't want their satellites falling on anybody's head. So this is definitely a hardware upgrade requiring new satellites.

But that's not a big stumbling block -- SpaceX plans on replacing 1/5th of their constellation every year.

[ Parent | on HN ]