[Starlink] a puzzling starlink uplink trace
David Lang
david at lang.hm
Thu Aug 31 09:54:08 EDT 2023
On Thu, 31 Aug 2023, Dave Taht via Starlink wrote:
> I like the idea of starlink finding some way to leverage satellites
> moving into the right orbits. (the timestamp of this trace was
> 2023-08-27 06:59:35 UTC and I am in half moon bay, ca) This would
> imply that they can transmit data at full thrust, and also, perhaps,
> VLEO (I am not sure if that is an established acronym - very low earth
> orbit operations) - feasible. Dropping the things even lower, making
> the shell more aerodynamic, and burning fuel to stay there might well
> be an interesting option. It seems to me the current altitude(s) are
> pretty conservative and given the fuel consumption reported on the
> maneuvering side, they can last at 530km much longer than 5 years, and
> with the pace of technology and launch rates, moving them lower would
> be a huge win for bandwidth and latency.
It's not just a fuel issue, it's a matter of their assigned orbits (not getting
in the way of other satellites)
Here are the altitudes they are authorized to operate in and the current count
per orbit (from wikipedia so I don't know how up to date they are given the
frequent launches, but I suspect pretty close)
Altitude Authorized Active Decaying/deorbited
550 km 1584[313] 1457 268
570 km 720 404 4
560 km 348 233 10
540 km 1584 1567 70
560 km 172
335.9 km 2493
340.8 km 2478
345.6 km 2547
it's not a matter of being able to operate while under thrust from a technical
point of view, it's a matter of them being authorized by the FCC to do so and
anti-collision rules.
the US considers 'space' to start at a round number of 50 miles (just over
80km), the metric world picked 100km (another nice round number, just over 62
miles), so any satellite at 70km is technically not 'in space' and will die in a
few orbits
David Lang
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