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Satellite Internet Constellations
A satellite internet constellation is a constellation of artificial satellites providing satellite internet service. In particular, the term has come to refer to a new generation of very large constellations (sometimes referred to as megaconstellations ) orbiting in low Earth orbit (LEO) to provide low-latency, high bandwidth (broadband) internet service. As of 2020, 63 percent of rural households worldwide lacked internet access due to the infrastructure requirements of underground cables and network towers. Satellite internet constellations offer a low-cost solution for expanding coverage. History While more-limited satellite internet services have been available through geosynchronous commsats orbiting in geostationary orbit for years, these have been of quite limited bandwidth (not broadband), high- latency, and provided at such a relatively high price that demand for the services offered has been quite low. In the 1990s, several LEO satellite internet constel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Earth Orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, peaking in number at an altitude around , while the farthest in LEO, before medium Earth orbit (MEO), have an altitude of 2,000 km, about one-third of the Earth radius, radius of Earth and near the beginning of the Van Allen radiation belt#Inner belt, inner Van Allen radiation belt. The term ''LEO region'' is used for the area of space below an altitude of (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites. No human spaceflights other than the lunar missions of the Apollo program (1968-1972) have gone beyond L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
