Space Exploration Technology Company successfully launched 60 Starlink satellites and entered the era of space Internet.

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Today, the Musk Star Chain Project successfully launched the seventh batch of 60 satellites. This means that the subversive space Internet era is close at hand! The human imagination is endless. After the completion of the Star Chain Project, it is expected to cover all the plateau glaciers, mountains and rivers, osawa, which are difficult to set foot in, and it can be said that it is omnipotent.

Although the whole world is still worried about COVID-19, this has not delayed Musk's star chain plan.

On the afternoon of April 22nd 12:30 local time, Falcon 9 rocket was launched from the Kennedy Space Center base in Florida. This time it sent the seventh batch of 60 satellites into space.

Including this mission, the total number of satellites launched will reach 422. Space exploration technology company plans to launch more than 1000 satellites into the sky before the end of this year. As early as 20 15, Musk threatened to launch12,000 satellites. Recently, he changed his mind and said that he would release 42,000 * *! This is really a sea of stars.

This also means that the era of space internet is coming! When we talk about 5G and 6G, we are of course talking about faster speed and lower communication delay. At this time, you are out if you don't know the star chain plan.

Musk once said that the Star Chain plan will realize that the bandwidth of individual users will exceed 1 Gbps, and the access rate can reach more than 30 times of the current home broadband.

This launch is not just 60 satellites, but an aerial dream on the contemporary Internet.

The 5G base station has climbed Mount Everest, and human imagination is endless. After the completion of the Star Chain Project, it is expected to cover all the plateau glaciers, mountains and rivers, osawa, which are difficult to set foot in, and it can be said that it is omnipotent.

Astronomy lovers can count the stars with binoculars if they have nothing to worry about.

The internet is going to heaven, netizen: Starlink is better than 5G.

What's the use of so many stars?

The vision of Star Chain Project is to realize the "space Internet" in science fiction movies.

The satellite link project is to build a low-cost broadband Internet communication system with global coverage through satellites and ground base stations.

Can I make a video call with Mars?

Wifi can connect from space. These satellites are routers. Is the satellite internet built by the star chain stuck or not? Can I connect to vpn?

The most obvious advantages of Starlink are fast propagation speed and low delay.

The signal propagation speed of star chain is close to the speed of light, which is 300,000 kilometers per second in vacuum, while the optical signal propagation speed in optical fiber is 200,000 kilometers per second.

In addition, unlike long-distance optical fiber communication, satellite links can be directly point-to-point without connecting one by one, so satellite links are still faster even considering air-ground round trip.

Although the cost of building satellites is high, the overall launch cost can be controlled by launching 60 satellites at a time. 5G has been said for a long time, but it takes time and energy to build a large number of base stations. I don't know when it will be commercialized globally.

Some netizens said that the star chain may be more powerful than 5G, and the cost of 5 G global layout is definitely much higher than that of the star chain. Personally, I feel that the cost of 5G is too high and it can only be laid out in big cities. Many small cities with low population density can be replaced by star chains, which is much cheaper than 5G!

In fact, the star chain is not the first to think so. The competition of satellite Internet began in the 1990s. Motorola's famous Iridium satellite system has long wanted to do this, and the project went bankrupt before 66 satellites were launched. Bill Gates' Teledesic also went bankrupt after burning 9 billion dollars.

This satellite will cost a lot of money.

But the satellite link is indeed the best in the commercialization of low-orbit communication satellites. One of its competitors, OneWeb, has gone bankrupt because of financing problems. Space exploration technology companies can make their own rockets and reuse them, sending 60 rockets at a time, saving a lot of costs. At this rate, the construction of giant constellations is really just around the corner.

When you think about it, Starlink satellite can serve a wide range of customers, especially those who can't connect to the Internet in remote areas, such as a rich man's private jet, an island in the Pacific Ocean, the Mariana Trench, Mount Everest and the East African Prairie.

7 1% of the whole earth's surface is oceans, mountains, rivers, lakes and oceans, and wifi can be connected.

Musk is not only a business genius, but also reads a lot of science fiction.

2065438+In February 2008, Space Exploration Technology Company launched two test satellites, and Musk said on Twitter that they had started working. WiFi ID is Tintin A and Tintin B respectively, and the password is "Martian". This name reminds me of the movie "Mars Rescue".

20 19, 10, Musk sent a tweet with his own satellite network.

As of March 18, 2008, Space Exploration Technology Company has successfully launched six times, with a total of 360 satellites in orbit. Each piece weighs 225 kilograms, similar to a car, and has a large solar panel that can reflect sunlight.

This seventh launch, the name of the unmanned sea barge recycling rocket is also very romantic, called "Of course, I still love you".

After launch, in the next few months, these satellites used their own ion engines to rise to an orbit of 340 to 550 kilometers.

During this time, these satellites will clearly appear in the night sky because of the reflection from the surface.

Every evening and dawn, just after the sun falls below the horizon, the satellite will reflect the sunlight back to the ground and shine brilliantly. It is at this time that observers can get a glimpse of their "looks". They pass overhead, just like a golden train, and a series of bright spots are connected in series, one after another, which is beautiful.

Guide to naked eye observation: Starlink enthusiasts count stars online

During the epidemic, people in isolated western Europe looked up at the starry sky and found a string of shining spots. This time, these "one, two, three and four in a line" are no longer stars, but Starlink satellites.

Recently, the Starlink satellite flashed in the clear night sky all over western Europe from the United States to the United Kingdom. On Monday, European stargazers witnessed a satellite trajectory, and then netizens from Wales, England, Germany and Kosovo shared their experiences on social media.

This is the track map of Starlink satellite taken in salter, England on April 20th.

The 60 sent in March are all visible to the naked eye.

It is really difficult to predict when Starlink will be witnessed by the naked eye due to the influence of weather and satellite orbital position. In order to facilitate stargazing, some fanatical "groupies" have set up apps and websites to track satellite positions in real time. Website: Enter the current location in the website to find the best observation time.

Enthusiasts are so awesome that the International Space Station is not to be outdone.

In addition to people on the ground observing the stars with naked eyes, astronauts of the International Space Station have also recently observed the satellite group of Starlink. On April 13, when the astronauts of the International Space Station were observing the aurora over Antarctica, a row of Starlink satellites passed by. The map shows that at least 16 satellites are evenly distributed in low-earth orbit, flying in a semi-straight line and looking like a row of stars.

Marco Langbroek, a Dutch satellite expert, identified the satellite in the picture as "Starlink4" launched by Space Exploration Technology Company on February 17, 2020. When the above picture was taken, the International Space Station was located 440 kilometers above the Indian Ocean, with the coordinate position of 48.25 south latitude and 8 1.03 east longitude.

Really "the brightest star in the night sky" is controversial: wifi or astronomical observation?

Astronomers are angry. With so many satellites hanging in the sky, how can they observe the celestial bodies well?

These satellites are really "the brightest stars in the night sky", brighter than other 99% satellites, and will show bright stripes in astronomical telescopes, which are very dazzling.

So space exploration technology company gave a perfunctory answer. The company has painted the bottom of each satellite black, but the solar panels can still reflect light. What is the difference?

Want poetry and distance, or satellite Wifi, choose for yourself.

Some people say that it will cause a lot of space junk and pose a threat to other satellites in Earth orbit. If you accidentally touch it, it will explode, producing thousands of pieces.

Each of these fragments may hit other satellites. In the worst case, there will be a "Kessler phenomenon". It is said that when the density of space debris reaches a certain level, it will cause space debris to cover low-earth orbit, making it impossible for human beings to explore space for hundreds of years, or even to use artificial satellites. There is a scene in the movie Gravity that says so.

gravity

There is a reason for this. 2065438+In September 2009, a satellite of the European Space Agency deviated from its orbit to avoid the Starlink satellite.

Google is a balloon flying across the ocean to send the net.

Besides satellites, balloons can also send nets. Recently, Loon, a subsidiary of Alphabet, brought Internet balloons to Kenya for the first time. Loon's ideal is to send the net by hot air balloon.

After the balloon is lifted off, it will rise to the stratosphere. In order to determine the route, the engineer automatically built the map with software. First of all, the time required to reach Kenya from anywhere in the stratosphere is estimated by digital weather forecast.

At the same time, the navigation system will analyze the wind direction around each balloon every minute to ensure that it always moves to its destination.

The balloon will fly thousands of kilometers just to send the Internet to the African savannah. These balloons are launched from various stations in Puerto Rico or Nevada, and the sailing distance is about 1 1 0,000 kilometers to Kenya. For example, HBAL 125 took off from Puerto Rico, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and then flew southeast along the coast of Brazil. After entering the South Atlantic jet, it quickly bypassed the Cape of Good Hope and then turned north to the equator. Finally reach the destination.

After the balloon arrived in Kenya, it moved up and down in the stratosphere to capture different air currents, and flew for a short distance in a fixed geographical area to provide Internet services for users in Kenya.

Because of different weather, air pressure difference, airflow and other factors, each balloon flight journey is unique. At the same time, Alphabet also optimizes balloon safety and travel time.

Satellites are in the sky, and balloons are floating across the sea. Which one do you choose?

Reference link:

Editor/Meng Jia, Jing Yan, Ya Xin

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