From the almost "car accident" of Starlink satellites, do Internet satellites really only have advantages?

I believe that many friends in front of the screen are no longer familiar with Musk. As the founder of SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink, he can be called a generation of Internet leaders. On the 19th, the SpaceX starship prototype SN15 was tested in Texas, USA. The live broadcast showed that SN15 flew to an altitude of 10 kilometers and successfully landed at the Texas base 6 minutes after takeoff. It has successfully sent humans to space, completed another commercial manned flight, and plans to send humans to Mars in 2025.

Falcon 9

Speaking of Starlink, the so-called Starlink plan is to create an information channel between the transmitting base station and the receiving station on the ground through one communication satellite, so as to transmit and amplify the communication signal. Because satellite communication is far away from the ground, it can cover a very wide area, and it will not be affected by terrain and natural disasters. These are huge advantages compared to ground base stations. Therefore, some people call this kind of communication satellite "space-based". ".

Musk's goal is to allow wireless networks to cover the entire earth, and in the future, low-cost wireless network services that cover the world will be available. The Starlink plan is to operate in the low earth orbit of the earth, that is, 180-2000 kilometers above the earth's surface, which will reduce the transmission delay, and the transmission speed is faster than optical fiber, which is irrelevant for broadcast and television, but for the high For frequent transactions, or scenarios such as medical and technical applications, transmission speed is critical. However, because it is closer to the ground, more satellites are needed, and the Starlink project is expected to launch 42,000 satellites into space, which is five times the number that has been launched by all mankind.

Although Starlink has deployed more than 1,000 satellites so far, a big oolong has been made a few days ago: it almost collided with someone else's Internet satellite.

The other satellite that almost collided was from OneWeb. This OneWeb is also in the Internet satellite business. Founded in 2012, it plans to create a high-speed telecommunications network covering the world by launching more than 650 small satellites into low orbits. It will enable user terminals supporting 3G, LTE, 5G and WiFi coverage to provide global high-speed Internet access. The company hopes to expand service to the UK, Alaska, Canada, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland and the underserved northern region of the Arctic by the end of the year, with global service starting in 2022.

OneWeb

Fortunately, OneWeb manually moved its satellite to the next position, which avoided a space traffic accident. But if it really hits, there will inevitably be a pile of space junk in space, and the problem of space junk is actually very serious now. Since the first time humans explored space, space junk has been increasing, and some are falling into After the atmosphere burns out, there is still a large amount of space junk floating in space, which will bring great hidden dangers to future space exploration. As of 2012, more than 4,500 tons of space junk remained in orbit.

And so many technology companies are making Internet satellites, and SpaceX is planning to launch more than 10,000 satellites. I am afraid that there will be nowhere to fly the aircraft in the future. Interfering with ground-based astronomical observations. Because each satellite has solar panels, it sometimes reflects sunlight toward Earth, which can spoil pictures taken by ground-based observatories. These satellites not only reflect sunlight, but also emit radio frequencies that threaten observations by radio telescopes on Earth. Since SpaceX began to engage in Starlink, some scientists are reflecting this problem. And among the Starlink satellites that SpaceX has launched, the failure rate is not low. At present, it is known that about 3% of the Starlink satellites have proved to be unresponsive and unable to perform exciting operations in orbit, or to other satellites and in-orbit aerospace. device poses a threat.

Alternative "Star Chain" Light Pollution

It seems that satellite Internet broadband is good or bad, and it is impossible to draw conclusions so early. Some foreign netizens have proved that even in strong winds, blizzards and even severe cold weather, SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet services can still be used, and theoretically can be maintained. 175Mbps speed.

However, if these defects can be effectively dealt with and the speed of the Internet can be really improved, I believe that in the future, Internet satellites will be the destination of the communication industry. As for now, we can only let the bullets fly for a while.