SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are among the many most well-known spacecraft on the planet.
There are at present over 3,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, and SpaceX plans to launch many more. The satellites are primarily designed to offer broadband web to distant or underserved places, but there are lots of different makes use of for the revolutionary constellation each deliberate and already in use.
Whereas Starlink satellites persistently make headlines for the sheer variety of launches SpaceX performs every year, to not point out the impacts the satellites have had on astronomy and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there are many bizarre information about Starlink that fly beneath the radar.
Associated: Starlink satellites: Everything you need to know
1. The identify “Starlink” comes from the ebook “The Fault in Our Stars”
In line with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, the identify “Starlink” comes from the 2012 novel “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Inexperienced. Musk tweeted the explanation (opens in new tab) in 2018, writing that “If anybody is curious, the identify was impressed by The Fault in Our Stars.”
The novel follows 16-year-old Hazel Lancaster, who has been recognized with terminal most cancers. At a most cancers help group, Hazel meets one other teenager with most cancers, Augustus, and the 2 fall in love. The novel drives dwelling the truth that whereas emotional ache is a continuing of the human existence, we at the very least have the selection of who we share that ache with.
Learn extra: SpaceX Starlink satellites to beam service straight to smartphones
If anybody is curious, the identify was impressed by The Fault in Our StarsFebruary 21, 2018
2. Starlink runs on the open-source Linux working system
In line with a SpaceX resources page (opens in new tab), Starlink satellites run on the open-source working system Linux.
Linux (opens in new tab) was created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish software program engineer, as a way to be a free, openly-shared working system that could possibly be tailor-made for customers’ particular pc {hardware}.
By its very design, Linux is simple to customise, making it supreme for particular use instances like Starlink satellites. As well as, Linux-based working programs can draw upon a worldwide repository of open-source packages and instruments, enabling speedy prototyping of recent {hardware} and software program.
Learn extra: SpaceX raises launch and Starlink prices, citing inflation
3. Starlink 2.0 is even greater – quite a bit greater
SpaceX lately obtained approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to deploy 7,500 Starlink 2.0 satellites. These second-generation Starlink satellites are reported to be bigger and extra succesful than their predecessors.
First-generation Starlink satellites weigh 573 lbs (259 kg), whereas Starlink 2.0 weigh in at 2,755 lb (1250 kg), Musk told Everyday Astronaut’s Tim Dodd (opens in new tab).
To loft these bigger Starlinks to orbit, SpaceX will finally start utilizing Starship, its big new Mars and moon rocket. Starship remains to be beneath growth, however SpaceX is planning an orbital test soon.
Learn extra: SpaceX aims to start launching next-gen Starlink satellites this month: report
4. Starlink satellites use lasers to speak
SpaceX chief working officer Gwynne Shotwell acknowledged on the thirty sixth annual Area Symposium in 2021 that every one Starlink satellites from that time on can be equipped with laser crosslinks that allow them to speak with each other.
This permits Starlink satellites inside a constellations to share knowledge amongst themselves, decreasing the reliance on floor stations. These laser hyperlinks enable web visitors to be shared from satellite to satellite all over the world, avoiding the necessity to relay the alerts to a ground-based web community.
The laser crosslinks enable Starlink constellations to beam web connectivity to essentially the most distant places, together with polar areas.
Learn extra: SpaceX paused Starlink launches to give its internet satellites lasers
5. The Starlink Mars independence assertion
The Starlink terms of service (opens in new tab) include a bit stating that within the occasion that SpaceX will attain Mars and set up service there, the corporate can have full independence from any authorities on Earth.
“For Providers offered on Mars, or in transit to Mars by way of Starship or different spacecraft, the events acknowledge Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based authorities has authority or sovereignty over Martian actions,” the Starlink phrases of service learn. “Accordingly, Disputes will likely be settled via self-governing rules, established in good religion, on the time of Martian settlement.”
SpaceX has plans to put people on the Pink Planet by the end of the decade, in line with feedback made by firm management.
Learn extra: Humanity will go to Mars ‘in this decade,’ SpaceX president predicts
6. Starlink is accessible in Antarctica
Starlink web service is accessible in a few of the most distant components of the globe, including Antarctica.
Scientists with america Antarctic Program (USAP) have examined on the McMurdo Station analysis outpost. “NSF-supported USAP scientists in #Antarctica are over the moon! Starlink is testing polar service with a newly deployed person terminal at McMurdo Station, growing bandwidth and connectivity for science help,” the U.S. Nationwide Science Basis stated via Twitter (opens in new tab) in September 2021.
SpaceX started lofting satellites into polar orbit in September 2021 with its first West Coast launch at Vandenberg Area Drive Base in California. “These polar launches will allow full protection of Earth (the place authorised by native authorities),” Musk tweeted in July 2022 (opens in new tab).
Learn extra: SpaceX’s Starlink internet service reaches Antarctica
7. Starlink is chargeable for UFO sightings
Trains of Starlink satellites can look fairly odd within the sky. Even if SpaceX has taken steps to make Starlink appear dimmer in the night sky, the satellites will be fairly shiny after they’re launched as they make their method into their orbits.
On quite a few events, these Starlink trains have been mistaken for UFOs (opens in new tab) and have generated headlines (opens in new tab) as native information stations receive floods of calls from startled skywatchers.
Except for being mistaken for UFOs, these sightings current one other worrisome situation: Ruining the darkish sky situations crucial for astronomy. The Worldwide Astronomical Union has even implored the United Nations to take steps to protect the night sky from Starlink constellations.
Learn extra: No, they’re not aliens — SpaceX’s Starlink satellites surprise British skywatchers
8. The U.S. Air Drive has used Starlink in live-fire workout routines
Whereas Starlink is most frequently mentioned by way of the broadband web it beams to distant places, the satellite constellation has one other use: Offering connectivity to navy belongings.
Starlink has been used extensively by Ukrainian forces throughout Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, however america navy has additionally eyed its personal makes use of for Starlink. In 2020, the U.S. Air Drive and SpaceX teamed up for a live-fire exercise (opens in new tab) by which Starlink satellites shared knowledge with U.S. navy belongings that shot down a drone and a cruise missile.
SpaceX has since created a Starlink associate challenge known as Starshield that can cater solely to america navy and related companies. Starshield will supply a better degree of safety than Starlink, that includes “extra high-assurance cryptographic functionality to host categorised payloads and course of knowledge securely, assembly essentially the most demanding authorities necessities,” in line with SpaceX’s Starshield page (opens in new tab).
Learn extra: SpaceX reveals ‘Starshield’ satellite project for national security use
9. Starlink alerts will be ‘reverse engineered’ to be used as a location service
SpaceX has obtained requests in recent times to make use of Starlink constellations as a place, navigation, and timing service just like GPS, however SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has up to now rejected them.
Nonetheless, a crew of researchers on the College of Texas at Austin discovered a method to just do that in October 2022 by reverse-engineering Starlink signals (opens in new tab). They discovered that the repeating beacon alerts from Starlink constellations, designed to assist receivers on the bottom join with satellites, could possibly be used to kind a navigation system.
“It is a framework that’s so normal we are able to apply it to any terrestrial or extraterrestrial sign,” UT Austin’s Todd Humphreys told the MIT Technology Review (opens in new tab). “It should study on the fly, let you know what’s being transmitted, and let you know the place you’re.”
Learn extra: Elon Musk says Russia is ramping up cyberattacks on SpaceX’s Starlink systems in Ukraine
10. China has simulated utilizing nuclear blasts to take out Starlink
On condition that Starlink satellites are being more and more used as military assets, most of the United States’ peer rivals have their considerations in regards to the constellations.
The truth is, one crew of Chinese language researchers on the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Know-how, a analysis institute run by the Individuals’s Liberation Military, lately revealed a paper discussing methods to destroy or disable Starlink. Their answer? Detonating a nuclear weapon in space.
In line with the South China Morning Post (opens in new tab) (SCMP), the researchers prompt {that a} 10-megaton nuclear explosion can be highly effective sufficient to d “The sturdy residual radiation of the particles cloud might trigger failures of spacecraft shifting in it, resembling satellites, and even trigger direct injury that may result in destruction,” the researchers wrote in a publication within the Chinese language journal Nuclear Methods, reported SCMP.
Learn extra: Chinese scientists call for plan to destroy Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites
Observe Brett on Twitter at @bretttingley. Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.
