SpaceX Internet Satellite Network: Starlink

[DMC-Orangeville]

Is there a beta thread? I've applied as I'm looking to buy a house that has no viable broadband. Wondering how long it might be or maybe it's a total mystery.

Go here: Starlink
Enter your email address and address of the new property......verify the google earth location, and see if you can get service now.

I tried...my house doesn't qualify (43.56 latitude), but my cottage, north east of the house does (44.52 latitude). My understanding is that the current beta service is between 44 and 52 degrees

 

[Discoducky]

Go here: Starlink
Enter your email address and address of the new property......verify the google earth location, and see if you can get service now.

I tried...my house doesn't qualify (43.56 latitude), but my cottage, north east of the house does (44.52 latitude). My understanding is that the current beta service is between 44 and 52 degrees

Yep, already did that and I qualify (47 degrees), but I'm also in the Seattle area so I'm thinking they might be max'd out here. Regardless, I'll suffer with a 5G hotspot if StarLink doesn't work out in the short term.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Is there a beta thread? I've applied as I'm looking to buy a house that has no viable broadband. Wondering how long it might be or maybe it's a total mystery.

Where's the house? Try applying again - people are finding that sometimes they can order a terminal right away without having to wait.

 

[Discoducky]

Where's the house? Try applying again - people are finding that sometimes they can order a terminal right away without having to wait.

I just applied today. Will try again tomorrow

 

[webbbcam]

Agree with Cosmacelf. No harm in reapplying.
I applied for my lake home in Hayden (lat 47.76) months and months ago and got nothing. On a whim reapplied early January, got my acceptance email on 1/14. Ordered (paid) on 1/16 and just received the dish tonight via fedex.
Excited to drive up to the lake this week and test it out.

 

[HVM]

Polar sats have laser links and they are in use:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1353574169288396800?s=19

 

[Cosmacelf]

Wow. Once again SpaceX moves fast and breaks things. Didn't the opportunity to even launch polar sats come together at the last minute? They realized they had enough payload capacity for 10 polar sats on this ride share like in November so they asked the FCC for a permit exception to launch. FCC granted the permit in a few weeks, and then SpaceX had to integrate the ten sats (at the bottom of the stack!) onto Falcon 9 in a hurry. Somewhere along that timeline, they fitted ten prototype laser links onto ten Starlink sats, because only these ten sats have lasers.

Talk about an agile company!

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Wow. Once again SpaceX moves fast and breaks things. Didn't the opportunity to even launch polar sats come together at the last minute? They realized they had enough payload capacity for 10 polar sats on this ride share like in November so they asked the FCC for a permit exception to launch. FCC granted the permit in a few weeks, and then SpaceX had to integrate the ten sats (at the bottom of the stack!) onto Falcon 9 in a hurry. Somewhere along that timeline, they fitted ten prototype laser links onto ten Starlink sats, because only these ten sats have lasers.

Talk about an agile company!

They had already launched satellites with space lasers and tested them, so I don't think it was a huge deal.

 

[Electroman]

Aren't lasers extremely narrow beam. How are they able to have a laser from one satellite point precisely to another one that is 100s pf KMs away and also moving at an incredible speed? Or maybe that is not how this thing works?

 

[bxr140]

They had already launched satellites with space lasers and tested them, so I don't think it was a huge deal.

Were there ISLs on any of the production starlinks? To my recollection it was only the two prototypes, and those seemed to be big, expensive, externally procured units.

Aren't lasers extremely narrow beam. How are they able to have a laser from one satellite point precisely to another one that is 100s pf KMs away and also moving at an incredible speed? Or maybe that is not how this thing works?

Relative to each other, the satellites are moving extremely slowly. Think of cars on the freeway, all traveling about the same speed. Absolute speed is 70mph, relative speed is 2mph. The in-plane satellites almost have literally near-zero relative velocity to each other. Cross-plane interlinks are where satellite velocities end up non-zero, but those velocities deltas are also very predictable/sinusoidal.

Note that both tracking heads (one on each sat) have to track each other to close the link.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Aren't lasers extremely narrow beam. How are they able to have a laser from one satellite point precisely to another one that is 100s pf KMs away and also moving at an incredible speed? Or maybe that is not how this thing works?

Point to point laser communication system have optics which focus or defocus the beam to take into account movement jitter and also bit rate. For example, if you only needed 1 Mbps of bit rate, you probably could defocus the laser beam such that it was 500m in diameter at the receiving satellite thus giving you a lot of error margin in pointing the lasers and receivers at each other. Higher bit rates are going to need tighter beams, but there is still going to be quite a bit of directional slop available at the receiving sat.

Add in the fact that each satellite is essentially stationary relative to each other in the same orbital plane, and that there is no atmosphere to muck up the beam, and you've got a pretty stable communications link.

Lasers for satellite to satellite communications I believe are a well established technology - as usual with SpaceX, the challenge is to make them cheaply.

 

[Cosmacelf]

They had already launched satellites with space lasers and tested them, so I don't think it was a huge deal.

As bxr140 said, AFAIK, there were only two satellites launched with test ISL links. No doubt these lasers are a newer version. And if my time line is correct, it was a very big deal. But whatever.

 

[e-FTW]

Pretty darn cool visualization tool for Starlink orbits: Starlink

 

[Cosmacelf]

Pretty darn cool visualization tool for Starlink orbits: Starlink

polar sats aren’t there yet. I guess they are still getting into their correct orbit.

 

[1965Falcon]

I just applied today. Will try again tomorrow

I just signed up for the 4th time, crossing my fingers!

 

[e-FTW]

polar sats aren’t there yet. I guess they are still getting into their correct orbit.

Yup, 15 is the last batch there. Others not yet up to the correct orbit?

 

[1208]

Someone in my county of Kent in England has got Starlink broadband.

Elon Musk's SpaceX Starlink broadband to be tested out by Sittingbourne man (kentonline.co.uk)

 

[dhanson865]

a snapshot of the orbits. Reminder: orbits shift from left to right (or is it right to left), either way that lone "polar" orbit will cover the entire map, just takes several days to work it's way around so those regions only get coverage for a few minutes here and there.

 

[dkemme]

polar sats aren’t there yet. I guess they are still getting into their correct orbit.

Here they are!

 

[nativewolf]

What kind of dirt do the penguins have on Musk?