How Does Starlink Work?

Imagine you're in a remote area with no one around, but you still have fast internet. How is that possible? Today, we'll explain how Starlink works and how this amazing satellite network connects the world.

Starlink network

Starlink has three major components:

• Ground Station
• Satellite in Space
• User Terminal

The ground station is connected to the internet on one end and wirelessly connected to a satellite in space on the other end.

When I say it is connected, I mean it sends and receives data to and from the satellite.

So, this is one part of the network: internet, ground station, and satellite.

Now, from the other end, the satellite is also wirelessly connected to the user terminal on the ground.

This user terminal is a special and beautifully designed dish that people have at home.

The user terminals also send and receive data to and from the satellites up in space.

So now you have an overall picture of a Starlink network. Here we have the internet, which connects to the ground station. The ground station is connected to the satellite in space, and the satellite is connected to the user terminal on the ground.

So, as you can see, the satellite works as a simple connection between the ground station and the user terminal.

How Starlink works

Now let’s see how this network actually works.

Let’s say you want to watch a YouTube video. If you are using Starlink for your internet, when you click on a video on YouTube, your user terminal sends a request to a satellite in space.

The satellite takes this request signal and connects it to the closest ground station.

As mentioned before, the ground station is connected to the internet, so it looks for the data on the internet, gets the data you asked for, and sends it back to the satellite.

Now the satellite has the data, and it sends it to the user terminal. From there, the user terminal sends this data to the router, and then the router sends this to your device, which can be a computer, mobile phone, or any other device connected to the internet.

So, when you want to use the internet, there is always a request going from your device to the user terminal, through a router of course,  then to the satellite, then to the ground station, and then to the internet.

So when you use the internet, you actually send a request for data. In response to this request, data flows back to your device in the same way.

The data comes from the internet, goes to the ground station, then to the satellite, then to the user terminal, and finally to your device. Very simple, right? This whole process happens in milliseconds, so when you click on a video, it feels like it plays instantly.

For you to get this instant feeling when playing a YouTube video, the Starlink team needs to ensure that at any moment you click on a video, there is a satellite above you that can take your request, no matter where you are located in the world.

Because of this, as we are writing this article, there are more than 6,000 Starlink satellites in space ready to take your request at any moment. Yes, that is correct. There are currently 6,000 Starlink satellites in space.

Starlink satellites’ speed and coverage

Now you may wonder, are these satellites just standing still up in space or are they moving? The answer is they are moving, and they are moving very fast.

Each of these satellites is moving at a speed of 17,000 miles per hour. This is more than 27,000 kilometers per hour. To put this in perspective, when you take a flight on a normal passenger airplane, the airplane usually flies at a speed of 500 mph.

So, 17,000 mph is the speed of a Starlink satellite moving around the Earth, while the speed of an airplane is 500 mph.

In fact, at this speed, each Starlink satellite completes one whole turn around the Earth in about 1.5 hours. Yes, that is true, it takes only 1.5 hours for a Starlink satellite to complete one round around the Earth.

Now you may wonder, why do they need to move at such high speed? Can they go slower? Well, they can’t. Why? Because if they go slower, the Earth's gravity will pull them down, and they will fall to the ground. So, they always need to move around the Earth at a very high speed to stay up there.

Currently, there are more than 6,000 Starlink satellites constantly moving around the Earth. When one satellite moves out of the range of your user terminal, another one moves into position to ensure the connection is always stable.

Starlink is constantly adding satellites and plans to increase the number of active satellites from 6,000 to 34,000 in the future to create an even stronger internet network. That is a huge number of satellites in space for a stable internet connection, right?

Ground stations

Now, what about the ground stations? How many of these does Starlink have? As we are writing this article, there are more than 140 ground stations spread all over the world.

These are located in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America. They are constantly adding to the number of these ground stations as well.

Starlink satellites vs. Traditional satellites

Okay, I think you now have a good understanding of how Starlink works. Now let’s see the difference between a traditional satellite and a Starlink satellite.

Traditional satellites, like those used for TV broadcasting, are usually positioned at a much greater distance from Earth compared to a Starlink satellite. So one obvious difference is the distance these satellites have from the Earth.

Another difference is that traditional satellites move much slower than Starlink satellites.

You know that the Earth is moving around the Sun, right? While doing that, it also rotates around its axis. These traditional satellites move at the same speed as the Earth’s rotation, which is why they always stay in the same position relative to the Earth.

So this is another difference, the Starlink satellites move very fast around the earth but traditional satellites move at a very slower pace.

So, we have two main differences between a traditional satellite and a Starlink satellite:

1. Traditional satellites are much farther from the Earth.
2. Traditional satellites move much slower compared to a Starlink satellite.

Because these traditional satellites are positioned at a higher distance, they can cover a broader area of the Earth, so fewer of these satellites are needed. However, because they are far from the Earth, communication with them is much slower as well. This makes sense, right? The long distance means it takes more time for them to send signals to the Earth.

This is different for Starlink satellites. Since they are much closer, they can send and receive signals very quickly. But because they are closer to the Earth, they cover a smaller area, so we need many more of them to cover the same area.

Wrap-Up

Just to recap, here’s what you learned in this article:

For a Starlink network, we have the internet connected to a ground station. The ground station is connected wirelessly to the satellite in space. The satellite is wirelessly connected to the user terminal, which is connected to your device through a router.

When you want to use the internet, you send a request through the user terminal to the satellite. The satellite connects that to the ground station. The ground station gets the data from the internet and sends it to the satellite. From there, the satellite sends the data to your user terminal, which is connected wirelessly to your computer or mobile phone.

That’s it. I hope this article helped you get a clear understanding of how the Starlink internet works.

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