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Why SpaceX is Making Starlink

Real Engineering · 7.4M views · 2019-06-15 · 15:41

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Overview

Real Engineering explains why SpaceX is building Starlink, including the economics of satellite internet. It covers the latency advantage of light in vacuum over fiber for long-distance links.

On Hacker News

Recommended as a clear explanation of Starlink's purpose and the case that it can beat fiber on latency for long routes.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2019–2020

Topics

Space exploration & spaceflightNetworking & internet infrastructureTech industry & business models
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starlinkspacexlatencysatellite constellationsfiber

What people said

hangonhn · 2020-09 · Recommendation

Right, so if you can't go through the crust then going up would be another option. Over long enough of a distance, say NYC to London (or even farther), the overhead of going up first and then a "straight" line horizontally (it's not completely straight because it has relay between the satellites via LOS laser but each arc would be fairly long) and back down would be shorter than a line following the curvature. (Edited: This is wrong. I had conflated the lower latency with shorter distance as others have pointed out.) BTW, I want to give full credit to my source: [VIDEO] It also does a much better job of explaining it than I have but it is a convincing argument for how Starlink can be useful and why traders would be willing to pay a lot for it.

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PopeDotNinja · 2020-08 · Recommendation

Light travels 47% slower in a fiber optic cable than it does in the vacuum of space. [1] [1] [VIDEO] (the whole video is worth watching, but that timestamp answers your specific question.

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bearcobra · 2019-10 · Recommendation

Real Engineering has an interesting video on why it would be useful for firms trading internationally [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Real Engineering, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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