zlacker

>>hnburn+(OP)
Seems like a generally good idea, the satellites already need to use star trackers, they need an almanac of what should be there so deviations need to be tracked.

I can entirely see the military perspective though, this is almost a direct challenge for any adversary that any maneuver you perform, we will know about it.

>>Hextin+oc
The Space Force already tracks satellites (and debris). I imagine this is more of an improvement for small debris such as bolts, etc.

>>reed12+ag
It's not.

>>sfblah+Ik
If you're familiar with the technical specs, I'd be interested in hearing what size of objects the star trackers can sense and at what range. In theory the fancier star trackers can see objects around 10 cm diameter hundreds of kilometers away, without needing to worry about a pesky atmosphere [1], but I don't know how sensitive the sensors on Starlink's current generation satellites are, and this web site isn't saying.

They're mostly touting the improvement in latency over existing tracking, from delays measured in hours to ones measured in minutes. Which is very nice, of course, but the lack of other technical detail is mildly frustrating.

[1] https://www.mit.edu/~hamsa/pubs/ShtofenmakherBalakrishnan-IA...