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by oseityphelysiol 1966 days ago
From what I gather beamforming operates only in limited range, i.e. tracking satellites as they move small fraction of a degree per second. For bigger adjustments the dishes turn mechanically. It's not clear if beamforming could handle relatively small waves, but for big ones mechanical adjustment would be needed. I'm speaking out of my ass, but if I had to guess moving the antenna mechanically would not keep the link up in wavy waters.
3 comments

The beamforming is fast enough. It can probably steer at a few kHz of steering-bandwidth, if not more.

Yes, mechanical adjustment for big waves, but that's a simple passive 2-axis gimbal and having the center of mass slightly below the gimbal axis crossing.

I have one, the dish doesn’t move after it initially sets up.
They've demonstrated 650Mbps connections between Starlink and a jet plane. Sailboat & wave motion will be trivial in comparison.
Where did they demonstrate it? Latest news was that they filed for a license [0] to install 5 user terminals on up to 5 Gulfstream planes - application that is still pending.

[0] https://fcc.report/ELS/Space-Exploration-Holdings-LLC/0955-E...