Starlink : You should know about this

What is? Season 1 article1

Around 47% of the world population doesn’t have access to the Internet. Yet, in the world moving toward complete digitalization, the internet plays a significant role it.

I have a broadband internet connection with a speed of 40 Mbps. But I face issues like a drop in internet speed, high cost, internet outage, and many more.

The above was a case of an Urban area. However, the problems face are different in the rural areas, like there are not many Broadband providers because of infrastructure costs and many more difficulties.

The solution for the above problems is meet by Sattelite internet. How this is going to happen, we will discuss this later in this article.

The development of Starlink begins in 2015 by SpaceX. It is going to revolutionize the satellite internet industry.

Elon musk stated there is an unmet market for low-cost global broadband internet capability. However, he thought that this market was notable enough to be very profitable.

Starlink

                    

What is Starlink?

Starlink is a network of orbital satellite it aims to enable nearly anybody from any place to have access to the broadband internet connection.

In 2018, SpaceX launched the first Starlink prototype satellite into the lower earth orbit. SpaceX scientists used the data received from the prototype to fine-tune the technology in upcoming Satellites.

By May 2021, Starlink has over 1500 satellites on lower earth orbit which offer internet to more than 10,000 customers in their beta testing program. Moreover, in May of this year, the pre-order for Starlink internet subsequently increased to 500,000. By which we can say that the popularity of Starlink is increasing.

SpaceX targets to launch around 42,000 satellites into space by 2027. Forty-two thousand satellites is a massive number because humans launch only 8000 satellites since 1st satellite Sputnik 1, which Russia launched.

Gwynne Shotwell(President Starlink) said Starlink is best suited for rural and semi-rural populations. In a place where mainstream Internet service providers are unable to deliver as effectively as the urban population.

She said Starlink is not a rival to a giant provider like AT&T and Comcast in the current time; instead, they complement them. But in the upcoming year, Starlink can contest them.

Also, Starlink will serve 60 million households only in the United States soon. And the number of customers globally is much more.

Elon musk “Starlink will serve the customers who are harder to serve.”

Starlink project consist lot of satellite to launch to space and SpaceX is carrying out the satellites by Falcon 9 spacecraft. The setup of satellites includes Router, tripod, and Dish to receive network from Starlink’s satellites.

Aim of Starlink project

SpaceX has a long-term goal to help people to habitat on mars. SpaceX in the current time on the fortune of Elon musk. Starlink project aims to stabilize financial capability.

Elon musk estimates that Starlink could generate between 30-50 billion dollars annually (which is a long shot) by 2025 when the service has over 40 million subscribers.

It can provide quality internet to everyone without any difficulties.

         The initial phase of the project

               SRC: Lamid58

      

Starlink vs fiber

Starlink is satellite internet because it does not need any ground infrastructure like fiber internet.

Starlink solves the Expensive laying of fiber optic wire and saves many infrastructures carried for ground services.

But the technology involved in launching the satellite is very complex; obviously, it involves Rockets. Moreover, Starlink is not cheap like fiber internet on the ground.

Fortunately, Starlink can use SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to launch their satellite because SpaceX is the best commercial space company with a cost-effective launch cycle.

And launching Rocket to space became routine to SpaceX in recent time. Recently SpaceX launched their 2nd crewed mission to the international space center with reused capsule and booster 1st in history.

Each Starlink satellite cost 300,000 US dollars, which is a huge number for ordinary people, but it is cheap compared to other commercial satellite.

Starlink vs other satellite internet

The idea of satellite internet is as old as the internet itself. The initially preferred idea was to launch a satellite to geosynchronous orbit, followed by many other satellite internet providers.

In 1990, the internet was booming, and many were trying to take the internet to space.

The most famous attempt was from Teledesic, which was a 9 billion US dollar failure. Microsoft partially funded it. In 2003 the project was abandoned.

But in 2003 first internet-ready satellite was successfully launched by Eutelsat.

 Satellite internet
    SRC: Vgeek15

                    

Features of Starlink satellites

SpaceX developed Starlink’s satellite on their own because which satellites are pack with some great technology on them.

One of the features is the Krypton plasma thruster. This thruster allows the satellites to autonomously doge the space debris. In addition, they help the satellite to autocorrect the trajectory of satellites.

They also help when the satellite’s lifetime is finished; they can safely maneuver the satellite in a position where satellite burnout comes in contact with the earth’s atmosphere.

95% of the component involved in satellites is designed to burn while contacting the earth’s atmosphere contact quickly.

Satellite exceeds all current safety standards. Satellite build with future iterative design move to complete disintegration.

Starlink has over 1500 active satellites in lower earth orbit and aim to launch 12,000 satellite into space by 2025. But final System includes 40,000 satellites.

Starlink uses laser technology to form a communication system between satellites. If it succeeds, then the speed of the internet will increase.

Because light travels faster in a vacuum rather than in fiber optic cable, and data is shared by using light as the medium in both fiber and Starlink’s method.

Starlink will also reduce the latency around the globe, for example.


location                            Fiber latency    Starlink’s latency

New York to London       70ms                    50ms

London to Singapore       160ms                   90ms

Satellite Internet problems

One of the most relatable problems of satellite internet is Why satellite internet is slow?

Satellite is beneficial to both rural and urban populations equally, and they are also in flight, but the internet speed is slow.

Most internet satellites are launched into geosynchronous orbit. Because of which the travel time of data increases so latency increases and the average latency is about 600ms.

And generally, satellite internet is very costly in comparison with fiber.

But there are some familiar problems with Starlink like if heavy rainfall occurs, there can be low speed or maybe rare internet outage. Also, if snow is gathered on the same receiver issue can appear.

Starlink is not on the cheap side. Starlink cost 99$ per month and one-time pay of 499$ for satellite receiver dishes, tripod, and wifi router.

What SpaceX is doing differently from other(Starlink matter)

SpaceX decided to launch a satellite to a much lower orbit to solve the above problem by which the Starlink signal will travel less, thus less latency around 20ms.

Latency plays a huge role in time-sensitive video gaming and calling because of delay in it.

And also, Starlink didn’t choose the geosynchronous orbit approach, which helps in less latency and makes it challenging to communicate with the satellite.

So a question arises that how Starlink dishes on the ground internet data from the satellites flying the space with the speed of 7km per second.

And the most amazing fact is that the Starlink dish has many tiny antennas on it. Receiver dishes also contain an integrated circuit that smartly reacts to the data collected from antennas.

Because the beam moves virtually rather than physically, it can accurately scan so fast that it can follow any satellite.

It could change satellites instantaneously if it lost connection with the first one in any case. This type of setup is used in the military and coast much more.

Starlink is targeting to achieve 1 Gbps of speed and latency of 20 ms around the globe.

Competition of Starlink

OneWeb is the leading competitor of Starlink, owned by Bharti Enterprises, in part with the united kingdom government founded in 2012 by Greg Wyler. On March 27, 2020, they filed for bankruptcy.


Kuiper is also in the race. It is a project supported by the fortune of Jeff Bezos.

Some Astrounout raised questions about launching this many satellites will cause light pollution in space. The astronomer researching star, exoplanets, and many more things rely on dusk and dawn to study.

Starlink started coloring their satellite black to reduce space light pollution.

What if the autonomous system does not work in a satellite at the time of hitting space debris. Then a satellite will collide with each other, and large trash will be created on earth orbit. The chance of happening is significantly less, though.