Of course, the Starlink satellites present their own problems. Each satellite is responsible not only for maintaining connections to the ground stations that are in view, but unlike most satellites, the Starlink ones are largely navigating themselves. When you’re launching hundreds of satellites, there’s no time to place each one into its own specific orbit; instead, ground control tasks each satellite with a place in the constellation, and the satellite steers itself into place. The Earth-side network then provides continuous updates on traffic conditions and constellation changes, while each satellite updates the ground on its planned trajectory.

“The combinatorics of the problem make scaling this system to many millions of people a challenge,” says Bohn. “When serving users, Starlink satellites need to paint the ground with data beams of different frequencies to avoid interference. We end up solving a global scale coloring and interference avoidance problem that is another one of our bigger challenges to do in real time.”