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 areas, but there are various different makes use of for the revolutionary constellation each deliberate and already in use.
Whereas Starlink satellites constantly 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 info about Starlink that fly beneath the radar.
Associated: Starlink satellites: Everything you need to know
1. The identify “Starlink” comes from the e book “The Fault in Our Stars”
In keeping 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 identified with terminal most cancers. At a most cancers assist group, Hazel meets one other teenager with most cancers, Augustus, and the 2 fall in love. The novel drives house 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 keeping 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, with the intention to be a free, openly-shared working system that might be tailor-made for customers’ particular laptop {hardware}.
By its very design, Linux is simple to customise, making it ideally suited for particular use instances like Starlink satellites. As well as, Linux-based working programs can draw upon a worldwide repository of open-source applications 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 – rather a lot greater
SpaceX just lately acquired 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).Â
To loft these bigger Starlinks to orbit, SpaceX will ultimately start utilizing Starship, its large new Mars and moon rocket. Starship remains to be beneath improvement, 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 said on the thirty sixth annual House Symposium in 2021 that every one Starlink satellites from that time on could be equipped with laser crosslinks that allow them to speak with each other.
This permits Starlink satellites inside a constellations to share information amongst themselves, lowering 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 probably the most distant areas, 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) comprise 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 Companies supplied 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 by means of self-governing ideas, established in good religion, on the time of Martian settlement.”
SpaceX has plans to put people on the Purple Planet by the end of the decade, in line with feedback made by firm management.Â
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 among the most distant elements 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 consumer terminal at McMurdo Station, growing bandwidth and connectivity for science assist,” 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 House Pressure Base in California. Â “These polar launches will allow full protection of Earth (the place accepted by native authorities),” Musk tweeted in July 2022 (opens in new tab).
Learn extra: SpaceX’s Starlink internet service reaches Antarctica
7. Starlink is accountable for UFO sightings
Trains of Starlink satellites can look fairly odd within the sky. Although SpaceX has taken steps to make Starlink appear dimmer in the night sky, the satellites could be fairly vibrant after they’re launched as they make their manner 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.
Apart from being mistaken for UFOs, these sightings current one other worrisome subject: Ruining the darkish sky situations essential 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 Pressure has used Starlink in live-fire workout routines
Whereas Starlink is most frequently mentioned by way of the broadband web it beams to distant areas, 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 Pressure and SpaceX teamed up for a live-fire exercise (opens in new tab) wherein Starlink satellites shared information with U.S. navy belongings that shot down a drone and a cruise missile.
SpaceX has since created a Starlink accomplice mission referred to as Starshield that may cater completely to america navy and related businesses. Starshield will provide a better degree of safety than Starlink, that includes “extra high-assurance cryptographic functionality to host categorised payloads and course of information securely, assembly probably 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 could be ‘reverse engineered’ to be used as a location service
SpaceX has acquired requests lately to make use of Starlink constellations as a place, navigation, and timing service just like GPS, however SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has thus far rejected them.
Nonetheless, a workforce of researchers on the College of Texas at Austin discovered a strategy 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, might 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 is going to be taught on the fly, inform you what’s being transmitted, and inform you the place you might be.”
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, lots of the United States’ peer rivals have their issues in regards to the constellations.Â
Actually, one workforce of Chinese language researchers on the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Expertise, a analysis institute run by the Individuals’s Liberation Military, just lately revealed a paper discussing methods to destroy or disable Starlink. Their answer? Detonating a nuclear weapon in space.
In keeping with the South China Morning Post (opens in new tab) (SCMP), the researchers prompt {that a} 10-megaton nuclear explosion could be highly effective sufficient to d “The robust residual radiation of the particles cloud could trigger failures of spacecraft shifting in it, akin to satellites, and even trigger direct harm that may result in destruction,” the researchers wrote in a publication within the Chinese language journal Nuclear Strategies, 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.Â
