Understanding Starlink

 Half a century ago, a technology developed that captured the whole world at such expense that now it is way difficult to live even for a single minute without it. The 21st century is best known for its technical development. Initially developed for military purposes, an idea rose why not use the same technology for general usage. That idea brought down a miracle to the technological revolution. Gradually, in sort of about two decades, a massive amount of undersea cables were spread across the globe, as no country would leave this opportunity. And now after about five decades, that technology is used almost everywhere. A technology developed for military purposes is now used for video calling to get in touch with your beloved once, data transmitting, internet of things, scientific purposes, and many more. Yes, the discussion is all about the internet. As it is mention above its hard to live without the internet even for a minute. If the internet goes down for a minute, it would bring a global catastrophe. In one minute of the internet, about 3.8 million google searches are done, 1 million Facebook login, 18.1 million texts sent, 188 million emails sent, about $1 million are spent by online shopping. It's like one minute for us is a whole year for the internet. It has grown with such expense that for a normal human its just as difficult to think that what can be the next major development that can grow the internet much even further. But this isn't the case with the billionaire founder and CEO of private space company, Elon Musk. For such an innovative person the current rate of development is nothing, he wants to take it even further so that the internet can be made available without any interruption. Project Starlink is just a step towards the approach. So now let's get into the topic.

Image source- Google | Image by- DAVE MOSHER

Description 

Announced in 2015, the Starlink mission is a group of satellite network being developed by the private space organization SpaceX to provide low-cost internet to very remote locations. In the mega constellation of Starlink, SpaceX hopes to have more than 12,000 satellites. Initially, in January 2015, CEO Elon Musk said to have registered documents for launching 4000 satellites in low earth orbit. Few years after the announcement, Musk's estimate for the number of satellites grew soon, and the U.S federal communication system finally granted SpaceX permission to fly as many satellites as 30,000. The first two Starlink satellites launched in 2018 were TinTinA and TinTinB and they went smoothly. After the successful launch of these two satellites, SpaceX launched 60 satellites on March 23, 2019, through their Falcon 9 rocket. They were kept in low earth orbit at bout 550 kilometres so that they can be pulled down to Earth in the future. 

To better understand this project, first, we need to know how does the internet works. As we know the internet is the mode or network of communication between a massive number of computer systems. To make this work, protocols are used. Protocols are the set of rules that are used by computers to communicate over a network. The data that is sent over a network is called a message. Before going through the network these massages are divided into small fragments called packets. The internet protocol decides how messages should be packed. The structure of the internet is based open various specialized computers called routers. These routers move the messages from their source to their destination. The routers were first developed by ARPANET in the 1960s for military uses. They were later deployed everywhere to decentralize computers. basically, the internet works upon client-server connection. The normal computers that we use to seek data from the internet are called clients. The computers where all the data are stored are called servers. Every device that is connected through the internet has a unique IP address. These IP addresses follow the internet protocol. This is the address by which any router can find the desired location of data throughout the internet. When we request for some sort of data from the internet, the request goes the internet service provider(ISP) from which we use the internet. The ISP further routes the request to the server from where we receive data.

An average person can have an idea up to this point. You may be thinking that from here, the data from the ISP may be travelling to the server and back to us wirelessly. As most of use may be using wireless connections like wifi or cellular connections, it's actually difficult for us to figure out that the actual internet runs wirelessly about 1% and the rest of the internet is totally wired. The rest of the data is moved all around the world via something called undersea cables. As the name implies these cables that rest on sea beds and connects various land-based stations from different countries together for data transmission. These cables are made up of fibre optics so that data can move at high speeds. Also known as submarine cables, these are the lifeline of the internet, that means every single click we do on the internet, the data moves through these undersea cables. These submarine cables carry 99% of the total internet data that we use. The reliability of these cables is very high as we can use the internet because of these cables. The investment in implementing these cables touched about more than $22 billion between 1999 and 2001. The need for these cables is so high that any amount can be paid for their implementation. Of course, these cables are very important but their maintenance is quite another job. These cables are strong enough to last long without any great repairment for about a century but external and man-made impacts can cause great harm to these cables. These cables can be broken by fishermen, earthquakes, anchors and underwater animals. Apart from their implementation, millions of dollars are spent every year for their maintenance. These cables also impact marine life which has become a matter of concern. 

Even if we spread these submarine cables to every country, we cannot provide internet everywhere. We are dependent over cell towers and cable network to our homes for the use of the internet. For this reason, people living in remote locations are unable to access the internet. There are still many areas in the world where people don't know what is the internet as it is very hard to get the internet reach to them. For this cause, Starlink mission can be proved very effective. The innovative idea of implementing the internet everywhere by the billionaire CEO Elon Musk drew the attention of the whole world towards it. The basic idea is to build up a network of satellite in the low earth orbit which can make internet reach to every corner of the globe. To better understand how it can be made successful, we need to understand how it's going to work. 

How Starlink works

Image Source - Google | Image by - Anthony Wood

Internet speed

The Starlink satellite systems come with advance communication systems that allow them to communicate with four other satellites using lasers. This makes them capable of beaming the data across the globe almost at speed of light. As discussed above these are 40% faster than the traditional fibre optics systems. 

Image Source - Google | Image by -  Brandon Hill

To check the internet speeds an initial beta test program partnership was made between US air force and the Starlink in 2108 project called the Global lightning. It was supposed to measure the internet speed of the internet through Starlink satellites. The final measurement comes out to be 610 Mbps. They used two Starlink satellites to send signals to the terminals located inside a C-12 transport plane while in flight. Starlink satellite systems are still in development and supposed to have speeds far beyond the record. They still have a latency of less than 75ms. 

Latency is the time delay for the internet signal to travel from the computer of the user to the ISP. Starlink internet systems have a latency of less than 75ms now but in the SATELLITE 2020 keynote CEO Elon Musk stated that Starlink satellite internet can go up to latency of less than 20ms.

To complete the so-called mega constellation, the company hopes to launch satellites up to 42,000. Till now there are more than 595 satellites are already launched into space.

Starlink future plans

With already launched such a massive number of satellites, Starlink constantly boosts their launches. With their newly announced plans which accelerates their launching to launch 60 new satellites every 2 weeks, the company will cover up the skies of  Earth with 1500 satellites till the end of the year.

Here on Earth, Starlink set up 6 satellites to provide fixed-satellite service. Originally SpaceX filled request with FCC for 1 million satellites, but with the availability of such a massive number of beta testers, SpaceX recently filled request FCC for 5 million ground stations.

Developed by SpaceX, the new system called VisorSat essentially use sun visor to block inbound sunlight from hitting the antenna, stopping them to reflect light back to Earth. Besides, SpaceX will constantly upgrade their satellites with the latest technology like adding the latest hardware to change their orientation as they raise to their target orbit after the launch. This is the time when they are especially visible. The overall plan is to make them nearly invisible to the naked eye. This will make no effect on the astronomy. SpaceX is trying to implement darkening treatment for the satellites' reflecting surfaces. Musk also said somewhat about the alternative of the VisorSat which will be more effective.

Controversies with Starlink