alt Hacker NewsMaybe the starlink clocks could continuously calibrate from gps? Clock drift is usually a slow thing (like thermals). Their inter-satellite data links have all sorts of relative clocking info.
Maybe the starlink clocks could continuously calibrate from gps? Clock drift is usually a slow thing (like thermals). Their inter-satellite data links have all sorts of relative clocking info.
IIUC, GPS picks one satellite and 3 more to establish time differences between the first one and the other 3. There's only one point in universe where the set of differences would match what was observed, given the broadcast orbital data of satellites, and that gives the location of the receiver. It's like you are provided radii and center coordinates of 3 circles on a paper that intersect at 1 point and you are to math that point.
So GPS-like systems need precise orbital data and coherent clock from each satellites, or otherwise the receiver cannot figure out those radii.
Presumably you can have each sats reflect a clock from the same master ground station but that's not how GPS is implemented currently.