Starlink: Why is Elon Musk launching thousands of satellites?

Image source, Starlink

Thousands of satellites have been put into space by the company. People claim to have seen them in the sky.

The Starlink project aims to provide high speed internet from space to remote areas.

Starlink has a large network of satellites.

It's for people who can't get high-speed internet in their area.

In places like Africa, there are more people in that category than in the UK.

Starlink's satellites have been put in low-level orbits around the Earth to make it easier to connect them to the ground.

Full coverage of the globe requires many low level satellites.

Starlink has put thousands of them into space. Chris Hall says it could use 10,000 or 12,000.

Satellites can be used to get internet connections to remote locations.

It doesn't need to build a lot of infrastructure to get to those areas.

Starlink is more expensive than a standard internet provider.

In the UK, it costs 89 per month. The dish and routers cost $549 in the UK.

Most households in the UK and the EU have access to high-speed internet.

Professor Sa'id Mosteshar of the Institute of Space Policy and Law says that most of the developed world is well connected. They rely on a small share of the market to make money.

Most of the 400,000 subscribers are in North America, Europe and Australasia. Households and businesses make up this.

Next year, Starlink will expand its coverage into Asia and Africa, where internet coverage is more patchy.

Chris Hall says that Starlink's prices may be too high. It could be used to connect schools and hospitals in remote areas.

Russian forces have tried to block social media as they advance in Ukraine.

Starlink was made available in Ukranian immediately after the invasion began. Thousands of Starlink's dishes and routers have been shipped to the country.

Chris Hall said that Starlink has kept things going. The Russians haven't figured out a way to stop it.

On the battlefield, it has been used.

"Ukrainian forces are using it to communicate between headquarters and troops in the field," says Dr Marina Miron, a defence studies researcher at Kings College London.

It takes only 15 minutes to set up the kit because the signals cannot be jammed.

Rivals such as OneWeb and Viasat are putting thousands of satellites into low-Earth space.

Sa'id Mosteshar thinks that will lead to problems.

He says that it makes space less and safer.

Satellites can cause a lot more damage when flying at high speeds by hitting other vessels.

Dr King says that if there are too many fragments, it could make low- Earth orbit useless in the future.

We may not be able to get out of low-Earth orbit where our navigation satellites are located.

Image source, Getty Images

Problems for astronomer are created by Starlink's satellites.

They can be seen by the naked eye at sunrise and sunset.

The view of stars and planets can be obscured by this.

Professor Mosteshar says that astronomy saw the problems early. They were the first to make a complaint.