[lozaning]

Very interesting, thanks for the follow up.

Would this issue be any way relieved with things like AWS ground station?

If you can only see a ground station from a satellite for 20 minutes, could you just add more ground stations?

Or is that 20 minutes window constrained by something other than having a ground station within receiving range?

[d_silin]

More ground stations will definitely make things better, but 24/7 connectivity to assets in LEO will take monumental, Starlink-scale level of effort.

[portillo]

You can get 24/7 connectivity to LEO right now (and 25 years ago too) using TDRSS.

The system costs a fraction of what Starlink will cost, as you only need 3 GEO satellites.

[chinathrow]

Would it be possible to use Starlink for comms if a sat is flying in a lower position?

[d_silin]

In theory, yes.

In practice, this will depend more on my negotiation skills when talking to Elon Musk and less on any technical challenge :)

[portyllo]

No, it will not be possible, no matter what Elon says.

Starlink operates in portions of the Ku and Ka bands that are reserved for Earth-to-space comms, not for space-to-space comms.

[d_silin]

My impression was that Starlink relies on inter-satellite links to route traffic. We can use the same links for our own extended network.

[portillo]

The current satellites do not have crosslinks, and in any case, in their FCC filings SpaceX talks about optical crosslinks, not RF.