A resident of the Netherlands tracked the movement of SpaceX satellites and filmed them against the background of the night sky.
On May 24, a Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Cape Canaveral launch site and successfully launched 60 satellites into orbit at an altitude of 440 kilometers. These satellites are part of SpaceX's program to cover the entire planet with an internet signal. A resident of the Netherlands named Marco Langbroek calculated the speed of the satellites, filmed them on camera and posted the video on his website.
Langbrook used a Watec WAT-902H3 monochrome camera with a Canon FD 50 mm f / 1.8 lens. According to him, he knew the deployment altitude of the satellites and the inclined orbit, which allowed him to determine exactly where the satellites would appear in the night sky.
“Here is the video I made, be prepared for your brain to explode! My calculations turned out to be not so useless: the satellites passed close to the calculated place and appeared even three minutes earlier. It was an amazing sight. I screamed wow when I saw this glowing train. It turned out to be brighter than I expected,”said Marko Langbrook.
© Marco Langbroek
The Dutchman counted 56 objects. They flew one after another across the night sky with luminous points, similar to a necklace of pearls. SpaceX brought satellites to an altitude of 440 kilometers, but gradually they themselves, using engines operating on the Hall effect, will rise to an altitude of 550 kilometers. Langbrook also noted that later there will be thousands of satellites (SpaceX plans to put 12,000 into orbit), and he is worried about how the sky will change, because the satellites shine with bright lights.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that so far the operation is going well. He explained that the launch of krypton engines that raise the orbit of satellites occurs every 90 minutes.
As a reminder, SpaceX is not the only company looking to deploy a global satellite internet system. Last month, the American corporation Amazon announced that it was going to launch 3,236 communications satellites into low-earth orbit. They must provide access to the Internet for tens of millions of people.