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What if you don't have to worry about your internet connectivity anymore, even when you are in a remote corner of the world? Starlink promises to make this dream a reality by launching a series of satellites into space and using the satellites in the low orbit to establish internet connections. But by doing so, we might end up creating more space debris in the space which could not be cleaned up. It could even affect our space exploration. What is the Starlink project and why astronomers are raising concern over this?
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| Internet from the Satellites |
What is Starlink?
Starlink is a mega constellation of satellite systems that is proposed by the private space agency, SpaceX to provide high-speed internet to remote places all over the world. This mission was announced in January 2015 by the CEO of SpaceX, Elon musk and it was initially planned to launch 4000 satellites into low earth orbit. It could transform the world of the internet forever and even people in remote locations could get access to the high-speed internet connection. This mission could also propel our economy and SpaceX might get enough profit from this project to fund all its mars missions.
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| SpaceX plans to provide High-speed internet even in the remote areas of the globe |
Starlink became a grand project when SpaceX announced that it is going to launch 42,000 satellites into orbit within the next decade. It is going to be a humongous task to develop and deploy all these satellites into space. To make you understand how big a task is this, you need to consider the fact that there are only 11,670 satellites launched so far into outer space and there are only 4200 active satellites at the moment. These satellites are going to be launched at a lower altitude than the normal satellites and you could these satellites just with your naked eye.
The test run was performed in 2018 when the first Starlink twin satellites TinTinA and TinTinB was launched into space with the help of the Falcon rocket and the trial run was successful. The first fleet of satellites which consists of 60 satellites was launched into orbit by the Falcon 9 rockets at an altitude of 550 kilometres (341 miles). So far, SpaceX has launched about 1730 Starlink satellites and its broadband connection is launched throughout the world as part of a testing phase. But it made the sky brighter and it could potentially generate more space debris the problem we are already worried about. But SpaceX has taken steps to prevent these problems.
How Starlink works?
Even though there is already internet via the satellites are available because of the high altitude of the satellites. That is why SpaceX has planned and got approval to deploy 42,000 satellites at lower altitudes. Each Starlink satellite has its own thrusters to stay in relative position with other Starlink satellites and to avoid any space debris. Each Starlink satellite is connected to another Starlink satellite via laser communication. But we don't have many satellites to perform this technique efficiently and so we have to rely on the current fibre optic infrastructure.
The existing Starlink network relies on fibre optic cable as the signal from the Starlink satellites are exchanged with the SpaceX stations on the ground. Whenever the Starlink satellite passes over your area, the connection is made with the Starlink satellite and the receiver antenna with the help of these ground stations. But this technique doesn't provide the latency speed promised by SpaceX. However, this technique is going to stay long once SpaceX deploys all its Starlink satellites into orbit.
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| Starlink connectivity. Source: Insider.com |
Once the mega-constellations of Starlink satellites are launched and deployed into orbit, it doesn't have to depend on the fibre optic infrastructure for establishing the connections. Satellites will communicate with each other with the aid of lasers and it will avoid the need for connecting with the ground stations. But it would still be a challenging and audacious task to pull off. With the revolution made by SpaceX by creating reusable rockets, launching these satellites is already seems possible.
How Starlink will change the world of the Internet?
The Traditional Internet Infrastructure
Unlike the traditional internet service, the Starlink internet service will not be restrained to provide high-speed internet only to the cities, whereas it could provide high-speed internet even to the remote places of the world. As more and more Starlink satellites are rolled out into orbit, we can expect a high latency rate and high data speed from SpaceX. SpaceX promises to provide internet across the globe with high data transfer rate once it has deployed 10,000 in orbit. These could revolutionize our internet across the globe as it will be faster and cheaper than the existing internet infrastructure once it is completely rolled out.
Astronomer's concerns
The idea of high-speed internet throughout the world might seem dream project, but it comes with its own problems. The Astronomers and scientists are worried about the amount of space debris this mission could produce, which could cause Kessler syndrome and also about the light reflected by the satellites making our sky brighter. Kessler Syndrome is a case in which the number of satellites and space probes in a particular orbit is so high that collisions of satellites might happen. With 42,000 Starlink satellites to be deployed in orbit within the next decade and that too in the low orbit of the Earth could make the Earth's orbit messier.
With already thousands of dead satellites in the orbit, it could be dangerous to launch these many satellites into orbit. More collisions could occur and these collisions could form more space debris making the Earth's orbit dangerous. These satellites could have several components will could sustain the atmospheric pressure and they will stay in orbit as space debris revolving around the Earth at high speed. The Astronomers have also observed the sky to be brighter because of the light reflected by the Starlink satellites which could make space observations difficult.
SpaceX tried to solve all these problems by deploying the satellites at low altitude so that it gets dragged by the gravitational pull of the Earth and gets burned in the atmosphere after completing its mission. It also tried to make the satellites reflected fewer light rays by making the satellites darker, although there seems to be no improvement at all by making the satellites darker. Governments need to step up and implement new regulations for launching satellites. They also need to make sure to stop the littering of our orbit by ensuring that further missions will be destroyed after the completion of their mission. We still don't know that Starlink is a good concept going forward.
