zlacker

>>alden5+(OP)
> The lasers, which can sustain a 100Gbps connection per link

> Brashears also said Starlink’s laser system was able to connect two satellites over 5,400 kilometers (3,355 miles) apart. The link was so long “it cut down through the atmosphere, all the way down to 30 kilometers above the surface of the Earth,” he said, before the connection broke.

How do these tiny satellites achieve this kind of accuracy and link quality when they're shooting around Earth with 17.000 miles an hour?

(Meanwhile, me on Earth, has link quality issues due to a speck of dust on a fiber connector)

>>mschus+Z55
Phased array antennas probably have a lot to do with this. You can aim the signal more accurately and faster than any mechanical system ever could.

>>polish+hg5
Laser links are not using phased array antennas. It's a physically moving "turret" with a laser and another with a receiver. And they need to be separate units, because the speeds and distances involved are long enough that you are not receiving from the same direction as you are sending.

>>Tuna-F+Po5
> that you are not receiving from the same direction as you are sending

It's a thrill to think about that. Starlink is really out there.

I bet this is lost on a lot of people. Not to patronize anyone, but what Tuna-Fish is pointing out is that due to the speed of light, the distance between satellites and their relatives velocities, when one satellite is beaming data to another satellite it must aim where the receiving satellite will be, as opposed to where it is now, when the light arrives. Further, the receiver must be looking at where the transmitter was back when the signal was sent, as opposed to where the transmitter is now. And because this is all bidirectional, each satellite must send and receive in different, continuously changing directions at the same time.