How Do Starlink Satellites Navigate To Their Final Operational Orbits

When SpaceX deploy batches of Starlink satellites they drop them off in lower orbits and expect the satellites themselves to navigate towards their final operational orbits. This is quite a complex process and one that's worth discussing, the satellites need to be able to reach the target orbital plane, raise the orbit to operational altitude, and then finally maneuver to a specific slot within that plane before they become operational.

Satellite Orbital Maps by Celestrak

Starlink Map by Mike Puchol

Deployment plots by Elias Eccli

[Nar]

Scott, that graphic/animation you made for showing the sats rising into their respective orbital planes is BEAUTIFUL. Absolutely great work.

[charlie]

On many of the space YouTube channels I often get the feeling that the guy doesn’t know any more than me about rockets and space flight. Or worse less. On Scott’s videos I don’t get that feeling 🙂

[ThatGuy-sdzl]

Considering the chaotic deployment of these satellites, each one should have a “fly safe” decal on them.

[upslope]

The acquisition of Xenon is also an issue for some of the next-generation dark matter experiments. The 20 ton detectors would need about 5 months worth of worldwide Xenon production to fill the detector. There has been consideration of simply building a Xenon production plant in order to obtain all the Xenon needed for these detectors.

[keithplymale]

I moved from an urban area where I had high speed, broad band cable to a rural area in September, 2017. Since then I have learned all about how snow, ice, rain, lightning and general atmosphere effects can degrade or block satellite down link. Plus the simple fact that if there is enough traffic the signal get laggey to the point of being like dial up which I'm old enough to remember. I continue to wonder how wonderful and amazing Starlink is going to handle all this.

[slickstretch]

In KSP I got 3 satellites to orbit equally spaced around Kerbin. I thought that was hard. Mad respect to the guys who organized all that.

[faustin]

Imagine casually doing a script to simulate the orbits of Starlink satellites. For me, when i manage to patch together a script to rename files in my folder in bulk I celebrate. The contrast is staggering!

[astronichols]

Writes his own script to draw the orbits.
Still finds a use for industry standard engineering tools 5:08

[Slim-Pickens]

Welp, how Starlinks get to their positions was my only real question. So now I know everything. Thanks.

[MoritzvonSchweinitz]

Geez. Imagine coming up with this whole scheme from scratch. Genius!
The control software must be incredible, maintaining the constellation, filling in gaps, etc.

[neogator]

I love how we went from about 260 to about 280 electric propulsion spacecraft between 2010 and 2018. Then came this crazy guy with an idea to get the internet to everyone on Earth on the cheap and BAM! now we have almost 2000! lol

[itsmebillo]

This is the clearest explanation I have seen about how the Starlink satellites work. Thank you!

[scoremat]

Phenomenal presentation
Thanks Scott Manley! 🚀

[kevman]

It is hard to overstate how valuable your videos are. Thank you.

[DRisThor]

I really appreciate you taking the time to put these crazy rocket scientist plans into laymen’s terms for us common fold to understand. This is fascinating.

[maf]

It’s not perfect but as someone watching this video and posting this comment from Starlink internet, the technology is already a wonder.

[burntpotatoes]

Could you share that Python script used to generate the orbit lines? Would love to look at it

[richwaight]

Wow man! That felt like drinking from a fire hose!! 🤯🙌🙌

[JeffreyBue_imtxsmoke]

Scott... you make me feel lazy as I'm genuinely interested in the topics that you present and I'm pretty sure I could research and find out the information for myself. This video is a perfect example. I've always wondered how SpaceX "gets" the Starlink satellites to their proper orbit and voila... Scott's got a vid for that. Thank you sir.

[greytrunk]

Hey Scott Manley, Mike Tronson here, just want to say I like the way your mind thinks. You seem to wonder about the same stuff as I do but are much more capable of achieving understanding, so thanks for thinking for us and for sharing what you conclude. Fly Safe!