Watching Starlink
On the 11th November 2024 I had the pleasure to witness Starlink satellites coming over the horizon from West to East. It occurred around 19:20 hours GMT. Some of the photos are shown below where you can see the string of pears as it stretched out across the sky. I would see a satellite come up, then another and they would spread out as they came over. What was unusual for me however was seeing the dispersal. Some of the satellites split up from the string and began to head South and it was quite a site to see.
There was a Starlink launch on November 9th that launched 20 satellites from a Falcon 9 launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 06:14 hours EST. There was also a launch of 24 satellites from Cape Canaveral SLC-40 on 11th November 2024 at 21:28 EST. I am unsure what cluster I was seeing and whether they were associated with the launch on the 9th or the 11th, but given they seem to be dispersing into their orbits I would guess I was seeing the satellites from the 9th which were dispersed into an orbit of 535 km or 332 miles altitude with an inclination of 53 degrees.
Each Starlink satellite carries a Hall-effect thruster powered by Krypton to allow them to raise their orbit and also de-orbit at end of life. They each carry four phased array antennas and two parabolic antennas to provide increased capacity.
This brings the total number of Starlink satellites in orbit to around ~7,400 in total. It is common to see Starlink satellites a day or two after they have been launched but once they achieve their final orbital altitude and the Sun reflects off their individual solar panels and that is when they are easy to spot. The observations occurred between 19:20 hours to 19:27 hours GMT.
