Starlink

When you think about the future, a few names may pop into your mind. For some people, it may be Tony stark with the iron man suit. For some others, it may be Bill Gates with technology from Microsoft. There are a lot of cool technologies yet to come from all the big tech companies. But with the recent development in space, the final frontier. SpaceX, a company own by Elon Musk, has just made a massive step towards the future.

Are you happy with your current internet speed? Have you ever had trouble connecting to the world in the wild? That is where Starlink comes in. Starlink is the latest technology the tech giant Elon Musk is putting up. The idea is to provide people with fast, reliable everywhere, even the most remote places.
Starlink has said the users should experience above-average speed. Saying the download speed up to 150 Mb/s and latency as low as 20 ms. This is a huge deal! For business, this means you can pass information such as stock much quicker. If a London business wants to know some information from the New York stock exchange. Typically, it would take on average 76 ms at the moment. However, with Starlink, the latency theoretically would be around 43 ms due to how it is set up. That is a 77 percent increase in speed! The difference in time to a business could mean the difference of millions of pounds.

How does SpaceX do it?

The plan is to have an initial constellation of 12,000 satellites. This would be creating a network at a low earth orbit of 550km. Each satellite will communicate with each other by using lasers. In space, there is no atmosphere. Therefore lasers can travel with less resistance. All the users need is a kit that consists of only 4 components. It is straightforward for ordinary people to install.

12,000 satellites? That is a lot! What about space pollutions? Isn’t there are already too much?

The Starlink satellites have a trick up their sleeves. They can deorbit themselves with an onboard booster. Meaning that they will burn up in the atmosphere at the end of their life. Very eco-friendly!

All the compliment aside, Starlink did have some troubles along the way. After the first two test satellite, SpaceX launched 360 more satellite into orbit. It was a sight to behold, but it caused pain to the astronomers. Because of the material Starlink was made from, they were very reflective. In 2019, two astronomers were looking at some images from a telescope in Chile. All they saw was the train of satellites flies across the sky. That is a huge issue, as that is only 360 satellites. What would 12,000 do? SpaceX has since addressed the issue by giving the satellites darkening treatments. “We are currently detecting roughly a 55 percent reduction in the reflective brightness of DarkSat compared to the other Starlink satellites.” Says Jeremy Tregloan-Reed from the University of Antofagasta. But according to other experts, it is still too bright.

Whether or not Starlink is the future of the internet is still to be decided. But the direction of SpaceX looks just as bright as their satellites.