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Old 27th Jan 2023, 12:17
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petit plateau
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Originally Posted by Ninthace
There is that much orbital coverage to provide 24/7?
They've stopped showing all of the live Starlink video during the launch sequence. Until recently there was live payload video right up to and through the deployment sequence, i.e. when the individual satellites get released from the carrier/dispenser. Up until they stopped doing this one could be absolutely certain what was the configuration of the payload.

That cessation coincided with some changes to the satellites themselves that were supposedly be to allow the addition of other capabilities. Different capabilities than the initial(v1) up/down radio comms ones (mass 260kg) , and different than the subsequent addition (v1.5) of in-orbit sat-to-sat (intersat) laser comms ones (mass 295kg). The latest v2 satellites have additional functionality and mass 1250kg. They've recently started launching some of the v2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#

https://mezha.media/en/2022/12/28/sp...es-into-orbit/

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/01/fcc-...atellites.html

Given the quantities of the Starlink constellation (3,300 now) with at least 12,000 planned, and given the various orbits which include polar to at least 60N, plus some that seem to be fully polar, very soon every bit of earth will have a continuous 'stare'.

https://satellitemap.space/

There is a 'military' variant of the v2 that is known to include defence payloads, and it is known that one of those payloads is for earth observation purposes. But it has been noted that the close-up release videos seem to have stopped for all variants.

Individual sensors on these things might be relatively poor, but the cumulative effect need not be. And individual sensors have a habit of getting much better very fast when produced in high volume.

So even without considering all the various other hardware in orbit, we can pretty much be sure that either already or in the very near future, continuous observation of an interestingly useful nature is going to be available to the USA.
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