Space · interactive
Why does Starlink feel so fast?
Main view: you, the ground station and the satellite, with the signal’s round trip. Inset: the same orbit drawn to scale.
1 See
Every click goes up to a satellite and back down. So why does one dish lag half a second while another answers faster than a blink?
2 Change
3 Understand
Model notes and sources
Delay is light-travel time only: you → satellite → ground station and back, with you and the ground station 250 km either side of the point under the satellite. Real connections add routing, processing and queueing, so measured latency is higher (Starlink typically reports tens of milliseconds; geostationary services, over half a second).
Orbit period uses Kepler’s third law (μ = 398,600 km³/s²). “Overhead for” is a straight-overhead pass, counting the time the satellite is at least 25° above the horizon, relative to Earth’s rotation. Starlink’s shells have been around 480–570 km; SpaceX began lowering many satellites toward about 480 km in 2026. The side view is not to scale and Earth’s surface is a stylized texture; the inset is to scale.
Sources: Geostationary orbit; Starlink; Kepler’s laws.
An ExplainerTools Original. Concept inspired by Ryan Sael’s Home internet from space.