Alternatives for satellite constellations.

This rocket that you are seeing in the image is the first of many launches that China is going to launch to create its constellation of G60 satellites, which will not be 60 but will be about 15,000; The rocket in the images carries the first 18 satellites. If they go at this rate, they will need many launches, at this rate there would be more than 833, quite a few more, because also not all the satellites will end up being placed in the appropriate orbit, there are losses. As Elon Musk well knows, he has his Starlink satellite constellation that currently totals about 6,000 satellites, although another 6,000 are needed to complete the Starlink constellation.

To this constellation, the Chinese one and that of Elon Musk, but we must add others such as the one that Jeff Bezos wants to create and there are some more India and other private companies that want to create constellations in a few years we will have tens of thousands of satellite in low Earth orbit, astronomers will be very happy with this invasion, it will be tremendous, but apart from that we will also have the problem of space debris. Although the idea is that they offer us services from both Starlink and this Chinese constellation intends to offer internet services on a global level, let's see how things end, I hope they begin to fix the issue of space debris and the problems that the astronomers to now be able to capture images of the Cosmos with so many satellites.

I wonder what the limit of satellites that can be in orbit will be, we are talking about a very specific orbit, the low Earth orbit that reaches up to 2000 km, it is the most saturated of all, all of these constellations are going to go there, the stations Space junk is going to be there and most of the space junk is also there, it is logical as it is the closest to Earth. I hope that they end up developing stratospheric solar airships and planes at once, which would be the alternative to all these constellations. The advantage that these stratospheric planes or airships have is that since they are solar, they can be nourished by the energy of the Sun, without having to carry fuel. They can be flying for months, the most advanced is the one from Airbus called Cefir, which is an airplane with solar panels.

Another advantage it has is that for an astronomer it would only be a point, or a flash point of that plane, there would not be hundreds of crossing lines because the problem with satellite constellations is that they are constantly in motion, they are not like satellites. geostationary satellites that are more than 35,000 km away and are in a single stationary position with respect to the surface of the Earth, the satellites of the constellations I am talking about have to be in constant motion and that is why so many streaks appear in many photos of them. astronomers are taking now, however, a plane of this stratospheric type would be at a single point in that territory, there would only be that point, there would be no need for anything else. It has other advantages: they are closer to the Source because these satellites are around 300 km to 400 km high and the stratospheric plane would be about 50 km at the speed of light. That seems little, but in practice when transmitting data it is a sensible advantage and then there are other advantages such as for the States, it is an advantage for the States because then they would not have satellites above their territory, they could control better.