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Comment by Reason077 | Hacker News Reader

> "Slow and intermittent Internet access."

Hmm, how long until Starlink (or similar) reaches the South Pole?

The only Starlink satellites that can hope to reach the north pole are the satellites that reach 82.4 degrees north/south (orbits at inclination of 97.6 degrees) and there's currently only 187 of those operating so very few will be in view at any one time and the Starlink dish needs to pick an orientation so you will only see some of them at any given time (FOV is only part of the direction it's facing, missing at least the other half of the satellites, if not at least 2/3 of the satellites in view).

Whether that makes service impossible, I'm not sure. US government may work with SpaceX to make a customized 360 degree antenna that can reach them. Or they may mount it on a tower. I think a customized antenna would be needed anyway to survive the temperatures there. Starlink is technically only rated down to -30C though people do use it below that temperature and it seems to work. I doubt it'd work at those -60C temps however.

Maybe just put the antenna under a heated dome?

Once inter-satellite links are operational, presumably. Looking at [1], there are already some polar orbit satellites, but without these links, that doesn't help Antarctica much. (I'm also not sure if the polar satellites are operational for regular traffic yet.)

[1] https://satellitemap.space/

The laser links are active, have been for a few months now

Can someone explain to me how you can have geostationary orbit around the poles?

> Can someone explain to me how you can have geostationary orbit around the poles?

You can't. For high latitudes you use highly-elliptical orbits, like tundra or Molniya.

Or you can use polar orbits, which is what Iridium does! I believe that‘s what the antarctic stations are currently using.

You can't. Starlink satellites are in LEO, not geostationary orbit.

The inter satellite links are working now, with present high inclination satellite density, starlink service uptime to terminals in Nunavut is about 80% right now and increasing. A number of people with "RV" plan and maritime starlink terminals also now report them working in the middle of ocean crossings.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/14/spacex-satellite-internet-...

There are polar orbits that make that possible since McMurdo is out of view of the standard starlink orbits. It should work at the South Pole just as well.

Starlink isn't sending many satellites into the polar orbits because there are basically no customer there to make the extra cost worth it. To make the whole network cover the poles you'd need even more satellites to cover the tiny fraction of additional customer it would bring.

Also until recently there wasn't a way to downlink from polar sats even if they were lofted. Most Starlink data is immediately downlinked instead of being sent to neighboring satellites so you need a downlink relatively close to the customer which isn't possible on the poles.

Now with the intra=constellation lasers online, though I think they're still around 50% of satellites only, it could in theory be done but the required extra birds makes it really tough economically.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-internet-service-antar...

Edit: as someone pointed out this is McMurdo.

That's McMurdo, not the South Pole, a orbit a lot easier to achieve.

I thought that Starlink satellites wouldn't orbit that far on the poles, but looking on trackers [1] it does look like there a few stragglers up there (or down there in this case, he). Maybe there are some special talks with the military and other countries on getting some good internet. I don't believe polar orbits would be commercially viable otherwise

[1]: https://satellitemap.space/?norad=48119

McMurdo is served by the polar orbits. They cover the South Pole just as well.

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