Preparations are under way for a rocket test flight in Norway that could make history and give Europe greater independence from the market leader in orbital launches, the United States.
Isar Aerospace says it is planning to launch on 24 March between 12.30pm and 3.30pm CET, weather permitting.
I don’t know much about this but I think these low earth orbit satellites bump into ozone molecules occasionally so their orbits will deteriorate after 5 years or so. That is to say, you need to replenish regularly.
You are right that low orbit satellites aren’t in a stable orbit and eventually fail in a matter of years. I think it very much depends on what the intended useage would be for a european constellation:
How much coverage do we want? Global or just the continent+ a bit more?
Would it just be for critical systems or are we also looking for economic independence?
What about bandwith and latency, how much do those matter?
All that would influence how many satellites are neccesarry and which orbits would be suitable. And also to what degree cost efficiency would play a role.
I admit I don’t know much about orbital physics, but I don’t see how you can have consistent coverage of Europe 24 hours per day and low pings comparable to Starlink without also covering the entire globe. Geosynchronous or sun synchronous orbits require a minimum ping of 240ms, round trip.
If you want to be effective, you need to drift south as much as you drift north to get adequate coverage - still a circular orbit, just tilted off the equator. This causes a real problem, because northern Europe is far enough north that you have to pretty much cover the whole world, anyway. Also, the more you move from the equator, the more bands of satellites you will need to have coverage at all times. The other part in the Starlink system is the requirement for some number of base stations to connect to the internet backbones. Further iterations are reducing this need, but it will never be 0.
What this means is, it would be cheaper for Brazil or the Middle East to have local satellite internet than it is for Europe, China, or Australia. In fact, if Europe had a low-orbit satellite internet offering, it would be more cost effective to sell it worldwide because they would be close to that just covering their own needs. Which is also the position Starlink has chosen to be in.
Ooh, that’s a fascinating point, thank you