Re:Starlink Maritime
by jhugo on Friday July 08, 2022 @04:01AM
(#32024128)
You'd need an excessively powerful transmitter to use an omnidirectional antenna. In the context of a satellite, where power efficiency is crucial, it makes much more sense to use a lower-power transmitter and a directional antenna / beamforming.
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Hmmm... but less precision is still required than optical lasers, right?
A bit? It doesn't really change the nature of the problem, just the tolerances. It's nowhere near the intractable problem that some people make it out to be.
I mean, we are all aware each extra 9 of precision/uptime/etc. is far more expensive than the last. If the lasers require an order of magnitude more precision (and I could imagine it being higher), it would be a far far harder problem.