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by barbazoo 1890 days ago
Do they really "fly" those satellites over areas where they don't provide service and if so, do they have to?
2 comments

Yes, the way these orbits work, in order to cover one area, they orbits cover the entire globe up at least to that latitude. A geostationary orbit can "fly" above one specific spot, but that's limited to being above equator and very, very far compared to these orbits (~35000 km vs ~1000 km) which makes it worse for communications.

Here's an illustration of the coverage - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#/media/File:Starlink_...

Yes and yes. The stated goal of Starlink is to provide entire world coverage.

https://satellitemap.space/