Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Constellation

A Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation is a network of many satellites at roughly 500 to 2,000 km altitude that together give continuous coverage as each spacecraft passes quickly overhead. The short range cuts latency to tens of milliseconds, against about 500 to 600 ms round-trip for geostationary links, and supports high broadband rates. Maritime LEO services include Starlink, OneWeb, and the Iridium constellation. Constellations need hundreds to thousands of satellites and ground or inter-satellite links because each one is in view of a given vessel only briefly.