Starlink Satellites|Greatest Reason Behind it's Creation
Imagine you're in a forest or island in the middle of nowhere there is no internet, cell phones or any way of communication with the outside world. There is not much you can do about it except hope until now.
SpaceX has been launching its Starlink Satellites into orbit since early 2019. It's Elon Musk's ambitious project to provide high speed internet even to the most remote areas in the world. The goal of this project is to connect the world by providing internet to places where it's unreliable expensive or just not available but the Starlink is also be created for another reason. There's a bigger purpose behind it which is explained below. So how exactly does Starlink work?
SpaceX is using its Falcon-9 rocket to launch about 60 Stirling satellites at a time. The satellites are assembled on top of each other. The satellites are placed at a relatively low altitude in space because the closer you are to earth the lower the latency. Latency refers to how much time it takes for a signal to travel to its destination and back so low latency gives you a higher internet speed. Stirling speed will be good enough for competitive gaming. It's targeting a latency of less than 20 milliseconds that's faster than cable internet in comparable what you would get with fiber-optics broadband. About one thousand satellites will be enough for basic service but the SpaceX wants to lunch 12,000 of these satellites into earth's orbit. As of june 13-2020 SpaceX has launched 540. The company has actually applied for permission to launch up to 42,000 Satellites. Although it's not guaranteed that they'll actually launch that money why so many? Because the satellites are so much closer to the Earth they can't be stationary. The starlink satellites have to move faster to maintain their trajectory in the orbit. They will cover small area so more satellites are required for internet coverage everywhere.
What SpaceX is trying to achieve is unprecedented. About 9-thousand satellites have ever been launched in all of history, out of those 9000 about 5000 are in orbit in less than half are actually in use. In comparison Starlink will be ridiculously large satellites constellation but with that comes concerns. Scientists are worried about light pollution because of how much closer the satellites are to earth. They are bright enough to see naked eye or without using a telescope. SpaceX has been trying to address the issue the latest batch it launched, had a sunshade that can block reflections of sunlight off the antenna. Starlink will be controlled on earth with a device about the size of a pizza box. The terminal will look like around UFO on a stick and it will be easy to use. There are two instructions plug-in socket point at sky but it's not so simple for those who live in countries where the internet is censored one of the most famous examples is the great firewall of China where a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram YouTube and Google are all banned. Star links internet can't by national governments because it does not rely on domestic communications infrastructure. But the government that censors the internet will probably ban the Starlink device, like most things that are banned. It will be impossible to confiscate them all but countries can also try to jam the satellites signals or take it one step further. Elon once said about this what China could do.
Let's not forget Elons other company Tesla has a lot invested in China. There is a huge customer base there as well as the Giga Factory in the city Shanghai. Starlink hopes to begin service North America first, starting with the northern US and Canada in 2020 and then expanding coverage to nearly everywhere in the world by 2021. If you live in a large city like New York, Mumbai and tokyo, Starlink is not going to replace your internet provider. Starlink is not intended to be used in high density areas because it doesn't have sufficient bandwidth which can slows down the speed. One of the main focus is on reaching places that don't have internet coverage or where coverage is weak.
Reason Behind It's Creation
SpaceX does not have competition in the space internet race but it's also ahead of the game. The company is at an advantage because it owns rocket and the rockets are reusable. They land back on the earth that is key because it significantly brings down the cost significantly of each launch. The British startup 'One Web' was a competitor but earlier this year, one web was filed for bankruptcy.
Amazon's project 'Kuiper' also wants to provide you high speed internet from the outer space, what Starlink will do. It's CEO Jeff Bezos is the owner of the Blue Origin which is also developing reusable rockets. SpaceX has not said how much the Starlink service will cost but this is meant to generate a lot of revenue for the company. SpaceX estimates Starlink will eventually bring in 30 billion dollars a year that is about 10 times more than the annual revenue from its core rocket launch business.
The bigger purpose for the creation of Starlink is the revenue from Starlink will be used to support Elon's greatest ambition that is to make humans multi-planetary. Starlink will help fund development of a city on Mars. There are also plans to use the satellites system on the red planet. So, Starlink is not just a standalone project it's a piece of puzzle leading to a larger goal. It's not an end, but a means to an end that end is civilization on another planet 
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