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  1. #1
    Transparent Wall Technician crazed 9.6's Avatar
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    If you thought there were alot of satelittes in orbit before... check this

    C/P

    Starlink is a satellite internet constellation being constructed by SpaceX, providing satellite Internet access. The constellation will consist of thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit, working in combination with ground transceivers.
    The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in May 2018 to be about US$10 billion.

    Product development began in 2015, with the first two prototype test-flight satellites launched in February 2018. A second set of test satellites and the first large deployment of a piece of the constellation occurred in May 2019 when the first 60 operational satellites were launched.
    As of September 2020, SpaceX is launching up to 60 satellites at a time, aiming to deploy 1,440 of these satellites to provide near-global service by late 2021 or 2022.
    SpaceX was initially targeting a private beta service in the Northern United States and Canada by August 2020 with a public beta following in November 2020, service beginning at high latitudes between 44°-52° North.

    end c/p


    SpaceX and Elon Musk were not the first to come up with this plan. There have been others in the past, but seems they all have gone bankrupt. The last group (OneWeb) to try this filed for Chapter 7 but this last July they were bailed out.

    OneWeb’s new owners, pending court approvals of the sale later this year, will be the U.K. government and Indian telecommunications conglomerate Bharti Global.

    OneWeb already had 60 + satellites in orbit before they filed for bankruptcy (of the proposed 670 + birds).

    So seems SpaceX's Starlink will have some completion after-all.
    And if or when others getting into the game, there will be literally 1000s upon 1000s of low earth orbit 'birds' in our skies

    The benefit to to people in rural areas will be awesome thou.
    High Speed Internet access available anywhere on the Globe. And this will not be the slow satellite internet we see now, this will be true High Speed access, or so it was reported.

    And oh yea, I should mention that Google (yes, Google) has a hand in this somewhere.
    "The illusion of freedom will continue for as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will take down the scenery, move the tables and chairs out of the way, then they will pull back the curtains and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
    - Frank Zappa

  2. #2
    iptv
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    Thanks Crazed, good info... apparently people are reporting these launches as UFO sightings, from what I hear, there is now an app to track when the launches are happening

  3. #3
    Rocket Recovery Technician
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    Glad people around the world will be able to see the witnesses in the street for their three days. It may be a good thing, but all technology has a price besides the monetary cost. I wonder what it will be. Thanks for the info Crazed, I have all but delinked from anything tech these days. Nice to hear about a big step like this though.

 

 

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