Free Access

Table 1.

Orbit configurations.

Altitude Inclination nsat nplane nsat × nplane
Starlink Generation 1 11 926 satellites
550 km 53° 22 72 1584
540 km 22 72 1584
570 km 70° 20 36 720
560 km 58 6 348
560 km 43 4 172
335.9 km 42° 60 42 2493
340.8 km 48° 60 42 2478
345.6 km 53° 60 42 2547
Starlink Generation 2 30 000 satellites
328 km 30° 1 7178 7178
334 km 40° 1 7178 7178
345 km 53° 1 7178 7178
360 km 50 40 2000
373 km 75° 1 1998 1998
499 km 53° 1 4000 4000
604 km 148° 12 12 144
614 km 18 18 324
Amazon Kuiper 3236 satellites
630 km 34 34 1156
610 km 42° 36 36 1296
590 km 33° 28 28 784
OneWeb Phase 1 1980 satellites
1200 km 55 36 1980
OneWeb Phase 2 revised 6372 satellites
1200 km 49 36 1764
1200 km 40° 72 32 2304
1200 km 55° 72 32 2304
GuoWang GW-A59 12 992 satellites
590 km 85° 60 8 480
600 km 50° 50 40 2000
508 km 55° 60 60 3600
1145 km 30° 64 27 1728
1145 km 40° 64 27 1728
1145 km 50° 64 27 1728
1145 km 60° 64 27 1728

Notes. The table includes all the satellite constellations considered in this paper, totaling almost 60 thousand satellites, providing the orbital altitude and inclination, number of satellites within an orbital plane nsat and the number of orbital planes nplane making up the constellation (consisting of nsat × nplane satellites). These are the constellations for which supporting information is available. These constellations are therefore to be considered as representative of a plausible situation by ∼2030, but the exact details of the distribution of satellites may be different.

Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.

Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.

Initial download of the metrics may take a while.