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Posts posted by Jacques
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6 hours ago, Urabug said:It would be fine to see some justification, to the requirements of so many satellites.
What their real purpose is and how it will affect us.
As far as I can see no one is questioning what all those satellites will be doing, and the necessity for them.
Some explanation wold be good ,I'm not against it in anyway but suspicious why we need so many satellites and even more curious to know how it might affect us all.
Their not spending all this money, without gaining something ,point is where are they getting that something.
4 hours ago, Davie P said:There's about 2,500 satellites currently in various earth orbits. The majority are for communications, and there's currently a push to launch thousands more to provide global high-speed wireless internet access (much cheaper than running fibre optic)
There are several international organisations who 'license' satellite launches and orbits, in particular to avoid collisions. Low earth orbits are quite strictly policed as there are so many operational and defunct satellites in orbit that collisions are becoming more common, and the collisions themselves produce more debris which in turn cause more collisions.
The types of satellite vary depending on the mission requirement. For example, GEO (Geostationary Orbiting Satellites) are most commonly used for telecommunications, satellite TV such as Sky and internet broadband. A lot of the satellites most people are hearing about are LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites, Starlink is a good example. Shetland Space Centre is looking to support launch vehicles into a polar & sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) for LEO satellites.
Most satellites launching into a Polar or SSO are earth observation, imagery and radar etc. A lot of these satellites are long term mission multi sensor sats or small cube sats which are single purpose but have a shorter life span. An area which has picked up a lot of interest is using satellite imagery to help farmers understand crop health and where on the land isn’t producing.
There is a lot of satellites and more to go up, but all have specific missions and operating in a variety of orbits.
I hope this gives you a little bit more of an idea around satellite operations, any other questions, let me know!
Shetland Space Centre
in Shetland News
Posted · Edited by Jacques
I can only speak for satellite communications, the main problem some users experience with current GEO satellite communications is the latency, speeds and cost. However, this is a solution that many people use in remote locations and even oil and gas platforms. What will be interesting are the new LEO Starlink and OneWeb satellite constellation providing affordable pricing, comparable broadband latency with high bandwidth connections. I believe this week Starlink officially opened its network up to the UK for beta testing.
As David P said, satellite broadband won’t replace traditional communication links like Fibre optic broadband, but, it is definitely a good option for remote communities and even an option for home and business backup solutions.