SpaceX Starlink satellites designed to connect directly to smartphones shine nearly five times brighter in the sky than traditional Starlinks, according to recent research.
SpaceX plans to form what it calls "a cellphone tower in space" with thousands of direct-to-cell (DTC) satellites around Earth that offer service straight to unmodified smartphones "wherever you can see the sky." The higher luminosity of these DTCs compared to regular Starlinks is partly because they circle Earth at just 217 miles (350 kilometers) above the surface, which is lower than traditional Starlink internet satellites, whose altitude is 340 miles (550 kilometers), the study reported.
