VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Jnana Sangama, Macche, Belagaum – 590018

A Technical Seminar Report

ON

“Space Internet and Starlink”

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of

Submitted by
ISAAC A 1AK19CS017
Under the guidance of
Sujatha S
Assistant Professor,
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Akshaya Institute of Technology, Tumkur

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

AKSHAY INSTITUE OF TECHNOLOGY

Lingapura,Tumkur-Koratagere road, tumkur-572106
2022-23
 AKSHAYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Lingapura, Tumkur-Koratagere road,Tumkur-572-106

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

CERTIFICATE

Certified that the Technical Seminar entitled “Space Internet and Starlink” is a bona fide
work carried out by Isaac A (1AK19CS017) in partial fulfilment for the award of Bachelor of
Engineering in Computer Science and Engineering of the Visvesvaraya Technological University

2022-2023.

Signature of the Guide Signature of the HOD

Prof. RAKESH S Assistant Prof. RAKESH S
Professor, Assistant Professor,
Department of CSE, Department of CSE,
AIT, TUMKUR. AIT, TUMKUR.

Name of the Examiners Signature Date

1) ____________________ _____________________

2) ____________________ _____________________
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The sense of contentment and elation that accomplishes the successful of completion of our task would
be incomplete without mentioning the names of the people who helped in accomplishment of this
Technical-Seminar, whose constant guidance, support and encouragement resulted in its realization.

I take this opportunity to thank our principal, Dr. K V Srinivas Rao for providing us with serene
and healthy environment within the college, which helped us in concentrating on our task.

I express our deep sense of gratitude to our RAKESH S Assistant Professor for his constant
encouragement and useful suggestions in carrying out this project successful.

I thank my guide Prof. Rakesh S Department of CSE for having provided the necessary guidance
and facilities to carry out the project.

I thank all teaching and non-teaching staff of the department of CSE, who has helped me in
completing the Seminar.

I wish to thank my friends for their useful guidance on various topics. Last, but not least, I would like
to thank my Parents for the support.

Isaac A
(1AK19CS017)
 ABSTRACT

The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide system of computer networks -- a
network of networks in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get information
from any other computer.

The Internet today is the backbone of virtual communication worldwide. It is expanding its horizon at
a fast pace. Internet is rightly defined as “network of networks”. It is, in most simple terms, a means of
establishing a connection between your computer and any other computer globally through servers and
some dedicated routers. The major form of communication of current Internet is among humans

Internet over satellites has been a hot research topic for some time. In addition to the development of
Internet applications and services over satellites, there are also significant developments in satellite
communication systems and networks with Ka band and high throughput satellites (HTS). These
developments enhance greatly the role of satellite in the global Internet infrastructure to allow the
satellite to support broadband Internet and services beyond coverage of terrestrial networks, such as
air, sea and space an addition to the land with most of the populations.

Satellite Internet access is Internet access provided through communication satellites. Modern
consumer grade satellite Internet service is typically provided to individual users through geostationary
satellites that can offer relatively high data speeds, with newer satellites using Ku band to achieve
downstream data speeds up to 506 Mbit/s.In addition, new satellite internet constellations are being
developed in low-earth orbit to enable low-latency internet access from space

Keywords: SpaceX, frequency, bandwidth, Lower Earth Orbit (LEO).

 Introduction

Chapter 1: Space Internet / Satellite Internet

Internet access provides through communication satellites System uses satellites in geostationary
orbit. This orbit is located at a height of 35,786km (about 22236.39 mi) over the Earth's surface,
directly above the Equator, Theoretical data transfers at the speed of light

Involves 3 satellite dishes; one at the internet services providers hub, one in space and one
attached to your property, in addition to the satellite dish you also need a modem and cables
running to and from the dish to your modem.

Latency: Average 638 ms, Average uplink rate: 256 kbit/s, Average downlink rate: 1Mbits/s

Satellite Internet generally relies on three primary components: a satellite – historically in

geostationary orbit (or GEO) but now increasingly in Low Earth orbit (LEO) or Medium Earth
orbit MEO) a number of ground stations known as gateways that relay Internet data to and from
the satellite via radio waves (microwave), and further ground stations to serve each subscriber,
with a small antenna and transceiver. Other components of a satellite Internet system include a
modem at the user end which links the user's network with the transceiver, and a centralized
network operations centre (NOC) for monitoring the entire system. Working in concert with a
broadband gateway, the satellite operates a Star network topology where all network
communication passes through the network's hub processor, which is at the center of the star.
With this configuration, the number of ground stations that can be connected to the hub is
virtually limitless
Chapter 2: Working of Space Internet

Satellite Internet generally relies on three primary components

A satellite, typically in geostationary orbit

Several ground stations known as gateways that rely on internet data to and from the satellite via
radio waves

A small antenna at the subscriber's location, often a VSAT dish with a transceiver.

Satellite internet works similarly to satellite TV. It begins with an internet service provider
sending satellites up into space to orbit around the earth. That ISP then relies on a signal routed
through one of those satellites in low- or high-Earth orbit and a receiver dish that picks up that
signal. The receiver is typically placed on your home or business in a spot with as unobstructed
access to the sky as possible. You'll connect a modem to that dish to translate the incoming
signal into a workable internet connection.
You'll need electricity to keep the receiver dish powered (and, again, a clear view of the sky), but
that's really about it. Satellite internet isn't dependent on cable wires, fiber or phone lines.
Ground-based technologies like those aren't as well-developed in rural areas because the lack of
population density means that internet providers need to spend more to cover more ground to
bring the same number of households online. Satellite internet sidesteps that problem by skipping
ground-laid infrastructure altogether.

Chapter 3: Satellite

Marketed as the centre of the new broadband satellite networks are a new generation of high-
powered GEO satellites positioned 35,786 kilometres (22,236 mi) above the equator, operating
in Ka-band (18.3–30 GHz) mode.[17] These new purpose-built satellites are designed and
optimized for broadband applications, employing many narrow spot beams,[18] which target a
much smaller area than the broad beams used by earlier communication satellites. This spot
beam technology allows satellites to reuse assigned bandwidth multiple times which can enable
them to achieve much higher overall capacity than conventional broad beam satellites. The spot
beams can also increase performance and consequential capacity by focusing more power and
increased receiver sensitivity into defined concentrated areas. Spot beams are designated as one
of two types: subscriber spot beams, which transmit to and from the subscriber-side terminal, and
gateway spot beams, which transmit to/from a service provider ground station. Note that moving
off the tight footprint of a spotbeam can degrade performance significantly. Also, spotbeams can
make the use of other significant new technologies impossible, including 'Carrier in Carrier'
modulation.

In conjunction with the satellite's spot-beam technology, a bent-pipe architecture has traditionally
been employed in the network in which the satellite functions as a bridge in space, connecting
two communication points on the ground. The term "bent-pipe" is used to describe the shape of
the data path between sending and receiving antennas, with the satellite positioned at the point of
the bend. Simply put, the satellite's role in this network arrangement is to relay signals from the
end user's terminal to the ISP's gateways, and back again without processing the signal at the
satellite. The satellite receives, amplifies, and redirects a carrier on a specific radio frequency
through a signal path called a transponder.[19]
Some satellite constellations in LEO such as Starlink and the proposed Telesat constellation will
employ laser communication equipment for high-throughput optical inter-satellite links. The
interconnected satellites allow for direct routing of user data from satellite to satellite and
effectively create a space-based optical mesh network that will enable seamless network
management and continuity of service.[20]

The satellite has its own set of antennas to receive communication signals from Earth and to
transmit signals to their target location. These antennas and transponders are part of the satellite's
"payload", which is designed to receive and transmit signals to and from various places on Earth.
What enables this transmission and reception in the payload transponders is a repeater subsystem
(RF (radio frequency) equipment) used to change frequencies, filter, separate, amplify and group
signals before routing them to their destination address on Earth. The satellite's high-gain
receiving antenna passes the transmitted data to the transponder which filters, translates and
amplifies them, then redirects them to the transmitting antenna on board. The signal is then
routed to a specific ground location through a channel known as a carrier. Beside the payload,
the other main component of a communications satellite is called the bus, which comprises all
equipment required to move the satellite into position, supply power, regulate equipment ,
provide health and tracking information, and perform numerous other operational tasks
Chapter 4: Gateway

Along with dramatic advances in satellite technology over the past decade, ground equipment
has similarly evolved, benefiting from higher levels of integration and increasing processing
power, expanding both capacity and performance boundaries.

The Gateway—or Gateway Earth Station (its full name)—is also referred to as a ground station,
teleport or hub. The term is sometimes used to describe just the antenna dish portion, or it can
refer to the complete system with all associated components.

In short, the gateway receives radio wave signals from the satellite on the last leg of the return or
upstream payload, carrying the request originating from the end-user's site. The satellite modem
at the gateway location demodulates the incoming signal from the outdoor antenna into IP
packets and sends the packets to the local network.

Access server/gateways manage traffic transported to/from the Internet. Once the initial request
has been processed by the gateway's servers, sent to and returned from the Internet, the requested
information is sent back as a forward or downstream payload to the end-user via the satellite,
which directs the signal to the subscriber terminal. Each Gateway provides the connection to the
Internet backbone for the gateway beam(s) it serves. The system of gateways comprising the
satellite ground system provides all network services for satellite and corresponding terrestrial
connectivity.

Each gateway provides a multiservice access network for subscriber terminal connections to the
Internet. In the continental United States, because it is north of the equator, all gateway and
subscriber dish antenna must have an unobstructed view of the southern sky.

Because of the satellite's geostationary orbit, the gateway antenna can stay pointed at a fixed
position
Chapter 5: Antenna dish and Modem

For the customer-provided equipment (i.e. PC and router) to access the broadband satellite
network, the customer must have additional physical components installed:

Outdoor unit (ODU)

At the far end of the outdoor unit is typically a small (2–3-foot, 60–90 cm diameter), reflective
dish-type radio antenna. The VSAT antenna must also have an unobstructed view of the sky to
allow for proper line-of-sight (L-O-S) to the satellite. There are four physical characteristic
settings used to ensure that the antenna is configured correctly at the satellite, which are:
azimuth, elevation, polarization, and skew. The combination of these settings gives the outdoor
unit a L-O-S to the chosen satellite and makes data transmission possible. These parameters are
generally set at the time the equipment is installed, along with a beam assignment (Ka-band
only); these steps must all be taken prior to the actual activation of service. Transmit and receive
components are typically mounted at the focal point of the antenna which receives/sends data
from/to the satellite. The main parts are:

 Feed – This assembly is part of the VSAT receive and transmit chain, which consists of
several components with different functions, including the feed horn at the front of the
 unit, which resembles a funnel and has the task of focusing the satellite microwave
signals across the surface of the dish reflector. The feed horn both receives signals
reflected off the dish's surface and transmits outbound signals back to the satellite.
 Block upconverter (BUC) – This unit sits behind the feed horn and may be part of the
same unit, but a larger (higher wattage) BUC could be a separate piece attached to the
base of the antenna. Its job is to convert the signal from the modem to a higher frequency
and amplify it before it is reflected off the dish and towards the satellite.
 Low-noise block downconverter (LNB) – This is the receiving element of the terminal.
The LNB's job is to amplify the received satellite radio signal bouncing off the dish and
filter out the noise, which is any signal not carrying valid information. The LNB passes
the amplified, filtered signal to the satellite modem at the user's location.

Indoor unit (IDU)

The satellite modem serves as an interface between the outdoor unit and customer-provided
equipment (i.e. PC, router) and controls satellite transmission and reception. From the sending
device (computer, router, etc.) it receives an input bitstream and converts or modulates it into
radio waves, reversing that order for incoming transmissions, which is called demodulation. It
provides two types of connectivity:

 Coaxial cable (COAX) connectivity to the satellite antenna. The cable carrying
electromagnetic satellite signals between the modem and the antenna generally is limited
to be no more than 150 feet in length.
 Ethernet connectivity to the computer, carrying the customer's data packets to and from
the Internet content servers.
 Consumer grade satellite modems typically employ either the DOCSIS or WiMAX
telecommunication standard to communicate with the assigned gateway

Chapter 6: Limitations
1. Signal latency[edit]
Latency (commonly referred to as "ping time") is the delay between requesting data and the
receipt of a response, or in the case of one-way communication, between the actual moment of a
signal's broadcast and the time it is received at its destination.

A radio signal takes about 120 milliseconds to reach a geostationary satellite and then 120
milliseconds to reach the ground station, so nearly 1/4 of a second overall. Typically, during
perfect conditions, the physics involved in satellite communications account for approximately
550 milliseconds of latency round-trip time.

The longer latency is the primary difference between a standard terrestrial-based network and a
geostationary satellite-based network. The round-trip latency of a geostationary satellite
communications network can be more than 12 times that of a terrestrial based network.[21][22]

Satellite latency can be detrimental to especially time-sensitive applications such as on-line

gaming (although it only seriously affects the likes of first-person shooters while many MMOGs
can operate well over satellite Internet[23]), but IPTV is typically a simplex operation (one-way
transmission) and latency is not a critical factor for video transmission.

The effects of this delay may be mitigated using data compression, TCP-acceleration, and HTTP
pre-fetching.

2. Medium and Low Earth Orbits

Medium Earth orbit (MEO) and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations do not have such
long delays, as the satellites are closer to the ground. For example:

 The current LEO constellations of Globalstar and Iridium satellites have delays of less
than 40 ms round trip, but their throughput is less than broadband at 64 kbit/s per
channel. The Globalstar constellation orbits 1,420 km above the Earth and Iridium orbits
at 670 km altitude.
 The O3b constellation orbits at 8,062 km, with RTT latency of approximately 125
ms.The network is also designed for much higher throughput with links well in excess of
 1 Gbit/s (Gigabits per second). The forthcoming O3b mPOWER constellation shares the
same orbit and will deliver from 50Mbps to multiple gigabits per second to a single user.
 A study in 2021 showed that the Starlink satellites orbit at 550 km altitude, with an
average RTT latency of 45 ms.Another study in 2022 showed that the latency of the
Starlink network is 1.8 ms to 22.8 ms more than the latency of terrestrial networks
according to a measurement study conducted in the Metro Vancouver area. Note that the
exact measurement results can differ as the deployment of Starlink infrastructure varies
across time and locations.
Unlike geostationary satellites, LEO and MEO satellites do not stay in a fixed position in the sky
and from a lower altitude they can "see" a smaller area of the Earth, and so continuous
widespread access requires a constellation of many satellites (low-Earth orbits needing more
satellites than medium-Earth orbits) with complex constellation management to switch data
transfer between satellites and keep the connection to a customer, and tracking by the ground
stations.

MEO satellites require higher power transmissions than LEO to achieve the same signal strength
at the ground station but their higher altitude also provides less orbital overcrowding, and their
slower orbit speed reduces both Doppler shift and the size and complexity of the constellation
required.

Tracking of the moving satellites is usually undertaken in one of three ways, using:

 more diffuse or completely omnidirectional ground antennas capable of communicating

with one or more satellites visible in the sky at the same time, but at significantly higher
transmit power than fixed geostationary dish antennas (due to the lower gain), and with
much poorer signal-to-noise ratios for receiving the signal
 motorized antenna mounts with high-gain, narrow beam antennas tracking individual
satellites
 phased array antennas that can steer the beam electronically, together with software that
can predict the path of each satellite in the constellation.
In May 2022, Kazakhstani mobile network operator, Kcell, and satellite owner and operator, SES
used SES's O3b MEO satellite constellation to demonstrate that MEO satellites could be used to
provide high-speed mobile internet to remote regions of Kazakhstan for reliable video calling,
conferencing and streaming, and web browsing, with a latency five times lower than on the
existing platform based on geostationary orbit satellites

3. Line of sight

Fresnel zone. D is the distance between the transmitter and the receiver, r is the radius of the
Fresnel zone.

Two objects are said to be within line of sight if a straight line between the objects can be
connected without any interference, such as a mountain. An object beyond the horizon is below
the line of sight and, therefore, can be difficult to communicate with.

Typically, a completely clear line of sight between the dish and the satellite is required for the
system to work optimally. In addition to the signal being susceptible to absorption and scattering
by moisture, the signal is similarly impacted by the presence of trees and other vegetation in the
path of the signal. As the radio frequency decreases, to below 900 MHz, penetration through
vegetation increases, but most satellite communications operate above 2 GHz making them
sensitive to even minor obstructions such as tree foliage. A dish installation in the winter must
factor in plant foliage growth that will appear in the spring and summer

4. Fresnel zone
Even if there is a direct line of sight between the transmitting and receiving antenna, reflections
from objects near the path of the signal can decrease apparent signal power through phase
cancellations. Whether and how much signal is lost from a reflection is determined by the
location of the object in the Fresnel zone of the antennas.
5. Ultralight atmospheric aircraft as satellites
A proposed alternative to relay satellites is a special-purpose high altitude platform stations
aircraft, which would fly along a circular path above a fixed ground location, operating under
autonomous computer control at a height of approximately 20,000 meters.

For example, the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Vulture project
envisaged an ultralight aircraft capable of station-keeping over a fixed area for a period of up to
five years, and able to provide both continuous surveillance to ground assets as well as to service
extremely low-latency communications networks. This project was cancelled [by whom?]
in 2012
before it became operational.[citation needed]

Onboard batteries would charge during daylight hours through solar panels covering the wings
and would provide power to the plane during night. Ground-based satellite internet dishes would
relay signals to and from the aircraft, resulting in a greatly reduced round-trip signal latency of
only 0.25 milliseconds. The planes could potentially run for long periods without refueling.
Several such schemes involving various types of aircraft have been proposed in the past

STARLINK
  The “Starlink” is a SpaceX project to build a broadband network to provide space internet
(i.e satellite-based) to the remotest corner of the world.
 This project is the most ambitious of three active initiatives to begin beaming data
transmissions from space.

What are Starlinks?

 The Starlink project by SpaceX aims to create a broadband network using a collection of
thousands of circling spacecrafts.
  The Starlink satellites are equipped with Hall thrusters, which are used to maneuver in
orbit, maintain altitude, and guide the spacecraft back into the atmosphere after their
missions. Hall thrusters generate an impulse using electricity and krypton gas.

Starlink Project

 The goal of the project is to create a low-cost, satellite-based broadband network that can
provide global internet access. 42,000 satellites will eventually be part of the Starlink
network.
 In Low Earth Orbit, the Starlink satellites will be placed in an altitude range between 350
km and 1,200 km (LEO). Up to 2,000 kilometers are covered by the LEO.
 Reduced latency between a user seeking data and the server transmitting that data is the
key benefit of placing satellites in LEO for space-based Internet.
 However, LEO has a significant drawback. They are less tall; therefore their signals only
reach a small region. To send signals to every corner of the world, a lot more satellites
are therefore required.
 SpaceX says it can start services on a small scale once 400 satellites join the network.
 Once operational, space-based Internet networks are expected to change the face of the
Internet.

Significance of Space Internet

 Uninterrupted Internet: To guarantee that Internet services are dependable, unbroken,

and capable of providing a wide range of public services to people all over the world that
are globally accessible.
 Access to the Internet: Due to existing methods of distributing the internet via fibre
optics and wireless networks, which cannot convey it everywhere on the earth, around
half of the world’s population lacks access to dependable Internet networks.
  Geographical barrier: In many remote areas, or places with difficult terrain, it is not
feasible or viable to set up cables or mobile towers.
 Industrial revolution: The Internet of Things (IoT) may be incorporated into practically
any household, whether urban or rural and is predicted to revolutionise services like
autonomous vehicle driving

Chapter 7: Services of Starlink

1. Satellite internet

Starlink provides satellite-based internet connectivity to underserved areas of the planet,

as well as competitively priced service in more urbanized areas.

In the United States, Starlink charged[when?] a one-time hardware fee of $599 for a user terminal
and $120 per month for internet service at a fixed service address location. [full citation needed]
An
additional $25 per month allows the user terminal to move beyond a fixed location (Starlink For
RVs) but with service speeds deprioritized compared to the fixed users in that area. Fixed users
are told to expect typical throughput of "50 Mbps to 150 Mbps and latency from 20 ms to 40
ms".A higher performance version of the service (Starlink Business) advertises speeds of 150 to
500 Mbps in exchange for a more costly $2,500 user terminal and a $500 monthly service
fee.Another service called Starlink Maritime became available in July 2022 providing internet
access on the open ocean, with speeds of 350 Mbps, requiring purchase of a maritime-grade
$10,000 user terminal and a $5,000 monthly service fee.

Sales are capped to a few hundred fixed users per 20 km "service cell area" due to limited
wireless capacity. Starlink alternatively offers a Best Effort service tier allowing homes in capped
areas to receive the current unused bandwidth of their cell while they are on the waiting list for
more prioritized service. The price and equipment are the same as the residential service at $110
per month. To improve the service quality in densely populated areas, Starlink introduced a
monthly 1TB data cap for all non-business users which became enforced in 2023.

In August 2022 SpaceX lowered monthly service costs for users in select countries. For example,
users in Brazil and Chile saw monthly fee decreases of about 50%.

As of December 2022, Starlink has over one million active subscribers. In February 2023 it was
reported that Starlink had 95,000 subscribers in Australia

2. Satellite cellular service

For a future service, T-Mobile US and SpaceX are partnering to add satellite cellular
service capability to Starlink satellites. It will provide dead-zone cell phone coverage across the
US using existing midband PCS spectrum that T-Mobile owns. Cell coverage will begin with
messaging and expand to include voice and limited data services later, with testing to begin in
2023. T-Mobile plans to connect to Starlink satellites via existing mobile devices, unlike
previous generations of satellite phones which used specialized radios, modems, and antennas to
connect to satellites in higher orbits. Bandwidth will be limited to approximately 2 to 4 megabits
per second total, split across a very large cell coverage area; so limited to approximately 1,000
voice callers in a cell. The size of a single coverage cell has not yet been publicly released, but
the satellites are 7 meters long, and the antenna would fold out to be "roughly 25 square meters".

In March 2023, SpaceX confirmed that they remain on track to begin testing the service in 2023

3. Star shield program

In December 2022, SpaceX announced Star shield, a program to incorporate military or

government entity payloads on board a customized satellite bus (potentially based on Starlink
Block v1.5 and v2.0 technologybetter source needed]). These satellites are heavier, with twice the area as
a single Starlink v1.5 and have two pair of solar arrays as opposed to one on Starlink Block
v1.5.While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Star shield is designed for US
government use, with an initial focus on three areas, namely, earth observation, communications
and hosting payloads.

Designed to meet diverse mission requirements, Star shield satellites are advertised as capable of
integrating a wide variety of payloads, offering unique versatility to users. Star shield satellites
will be compatible with, and interconnect to, the existing commercial Starlink satellites via
optical inter-satellite links.

In January 2022, SpaceX deployed four national security satellites for the US government on
their Transporter-3 rideshare mission. In the same year they launched another group of four U.S.
satellites with a single on-orbit spare Globalstar FM-15 satellite in June. Their purpose was not
disclosed at the time of launch, but was considered likely either technical demonstration,
communications, earth observation or signals intelligence.
It is suspected[by whom?] the four SpaceX-built Space Development Agency Tranche 0 Tracking
Layer satellites due to launch in Q1 2023 are also based on the Star shield satellite bus

4. Military communications
In 2019, tests by the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) demonstrated
a 610 Mbit/s data link through Starlink to a Beechcraft C-12 Huron aircraft in flight.
Additionally, in late 2019, the United States Air Force successfully tested a connection with
Starlink on an AC-130 Gunship.

In 2020, the Air Force utilized Starlink in support of its Advanced Battlefield management
system during a live-fire exercise. They demonstrated Starlink connected to a "variety of air and
terrestrial assets" including the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker

Chapter 8: Features of Starlink

1. Star tracker

A star tracker is an optical device that measures the positions of stars using photocells or a
camera.[1] As the positions of many stars have been measured by astronomers to a high degree of
accuracy, a star tracker on a satellite or spacecraft may be used to determine the orientation (or
attitude) of the spacecraft with respect to the stars. In order to do this, the star tracker must obtain
an image of the stars, measure their apparent position in the reference frame of the spacecraft,
and identify the stars so their position can be compared with their known absolute position from
a star catalog. A star tracker may include a processor to identify stars by comparing the pattern of
observed stars with the known pattern of stars in the sky.

2. Autonomous Collision Avoidance

Spacecraft collision avoidance is the implementation and study of processes minimizing the
chance of orbiting spacecraft inadvertently colliding with other orbiting objects. The most
common subject of spacecraft collision avoidance research and development is for human-made
satellites in geocentric orbits. The subject includes procedures designed to prevent the
accumulation of space debris in orbit, analytical methods for predicting likely collisions, and
avoidance procedures to maneuver offending spacecraft away from danger.

Orbital speed around large bodies (like the Earth) is fast, resulting in significant kinetic energy
being involved in on-orbit collisions. For example, at the Low Earth orbital velocity of ~7.8
km/s, two perpendicularly colliding spacecraft would meet at ~12.2 km/s. Almost no known
structurally solid materials can withstand such an energetic impact. Most of the satellite would
be instantly vaporized by the collision and broken up into myriad pieces ejected at force in all
directions. Because of this, any spacecraft colliding with another object in orbit is likely to be
critically damaged or completely destroyed.

2.1 Collision prediction methods

Most impact risk predictions are calculated using databases of orbiting objects with orbit
parameters like position and velocity measured by ground-based observations. The United States
Department of Defense Space Surveillance Network maintains a catalog of all known orbiting
objects approximately equal to a softball in size or larger. Information on smaller articles of
space debris is less accurate or unknown.[4]

Once the exact orbit of an object is accurately known, the DoD's SSN publishes known
parameters for public analysis on the DoD's space-track.org and NASA's Space Science Data
Coordinated Archive. The object's orbit can then be projected into the future, estimating where it
will be located and the chance it will have a close encounter with another orbiting object. Long-
term orbit projections have large error bars due to complicated gravitational effects that
gradually perturb the orbit (akin to those of the Three-body problem) and the measurement errors
of ground tracking equipment. For these reasons, methods for more precise measurement and
estimation are an active field of research.

NASA conducts orbital projections and assesses collision risk for known objects larger than 4
inches (10 cm). For critical assets like the International Space Station, evaluations are made for
the risk that any object will traverse within a rectangular region half a mile (1.25 km)
above/below and 15 miles (25 km) ahead/behind in orbit and to either side of the spacecraft. This
high-risk zone is known as the “pizza box" because of the shape it resembles.[4]

2.2 Collision avoidance methods

o Spacecraft with onboard propulsion

o Docking aborts
o Spacecraft without onboard propulsion
 o Complicating factors
o Effects on launch windows

3. Solar Array

Space solar arrays must survive in the hostile space environment. The most dangerous space
solar array environmental interaction is spacecraft charging, which can lead to potentially
disabling arcing. In this chapter we discuss why solar arrays are often the spacecraft components
most likely to arc and how this is related to electrical charging of the spacecraft. The basic
charging equations are given. Factors involved in charging and arcing are enumerated. How
charging is related to the space plasma environment is discussed. The different types of charging
are given, and how they may lead to arcing on the solar arrays. Transient arcs and sustained arcs
are differentiated. We describe the effects of arcing and give examples. Standards related to
charging and arcing are listed and described, and mitigation strategies (both passive and active)
are surveyed. Because charging and arcing are driven by the space environment, models of the
space plasma environment and charging models are listed and described. Finally, we make the
case for the necessity of laboratory measurements of arcing voltage thresholds, both for primary
and sustained arcs.

Chapter 9: Major Criticism

1.Light Pollution

 The planned large number of satellites has met with criticism from the astronomical
community because of concerns for light pollution
  Astronomers claim visible stars and that their brightness in both optical and radio
wavelength will severely impact scientific observations
 Because the Starlink satellites can autonomously change their orbits, observations cannot
be scheduled to avoid them.

2.Space debris

 Space debris or Space junk is a term for defunct human made objects in space – primarily
in Earth orbit – which no longer serve a useful function
 The first batch of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites had at least 5% “dead” or unresponsive
units that were expected by the company to deorbit naturally and burn up in the
atmosphere
 Once thousands of these satellites rise to a higher orbit, it's reasonable to assume that a
number of them will malfunction

Chapter 10: Competitors in the field

 OneWeb satellite constellation – a satellite constellation project that began operational

deployment of satellites in 2020.
 China national satellite internet project – a planned satellite internet offering for the
Chinese market.
 Kuiper Systems – a planned 3,276 LEO satellite Internet constellation by an Amazon
subsidiary.
  Hughes Network Systems – a current broadband satellite provider providing fixed,
cellular backhaul, and airborne antennas.
 Viasat, Inc. – the current broadband satellite provider providing fixed, ground mobile,
and airborne antennas.
 O3b – Medium Earth orbit constellation that provides access to mobile phone operators
and internet service providers. It covers only the equatorial region.

References

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[5] J. Foust, "SpaceX's space-Internet woes: Despite technical glitches, the company plans to
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