Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsWitnessing a conga line of dozens of bright satellites marching through the night sky has surprised — and occasionally unsettled — many around the world in recent years. And as much as the sight of SpaceX's Starlink satellites passing overhead might mystify the unacquainted, exactly how they work remains a riddle to many of those who already know about the ambitious project.
That potential cash is igniting a commercial space race to build the satellite-based internet that many think is the future. Companies like Amazon and OneWeb are working on their own satellite internet constellations, known as megaconstellations, too. Even China has plans for a Starlink-like project in the coming years.
Once launched, a Falcon 9 launch vehicle deploys its batch of 60 Starlink satellites into an initial "parking orbit" at around 270 miles above Earth. From there, the individual satellites unfurl their solar panels and slowly start to spread out around the planet. Each satellite also uses its thrusters to gradually boost itself to a higher altitude, climbing into its eventual final orbit some 100 miles above the International Space Station's orbit.
This antenna is confusingly branded as a "Starlink," but more commonly referred to as a “UFO on a Stick” or "Dishy McFlatface." When it's powered up, the self-pointing antenna quickly scans the sky and locks onto the nearest overhead satellite — that is, if the ambient temperature is below 122 degrees Fahrenheit, according to). Then, it seamlessly maintains that connection as each new Starlink satellite comes into view and the previous one fades beyond the horizon.
Things wont stay that way for long, though. Starlink engineers have already experimented with a batch of test satellites that uses lasers to communicate. Instead of connecting people to a nearby ground station, the lasers would let the satellites talk to each other directly at the speed of light, which is faster in the vacuum of space than in fiber optic cables.
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