Featured Image Source: The Ocean Cleanup / Steven Bink @sbink via Twitter
The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization that is working to clean up 90% of Earth’s floating ocean plastic pollution. The bold endeavour was set in motion in 2013 by The Ocean Cleanup founder Boyan Slat, an engineer who designed sea-going machines to clean up trash around the world. The organization also operates ‘Interceptor’ vessels that collect trash in rivers before it reaches the oceans. To date, The Ocean Cleanup has cleaned over 2 million kilograms of trash and says it expects to achieve cleaning up 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
Ten years ago today, the largest cleanup in history officially began. pic.twitter.com/x0FSTffm0q
— The Ocean Cleanup (@TheOceanCleanup) February 15, 2023
A The Ocean Cleanup IT representative, Steven Bink, shared via Twitter that he installed SpaceX Starlink antennas on two vessels for maritime internet access. “Finished installing Starlink Maritime yesterday on our The Ocean Cleanup vessels! Now we are much better connected for our metric and media data during our cleanup operations in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” he wrote on March 10. Mr. Bink shared photographs of the flat high-performance Starlink Maritime antenna and Wi-Fi router installed on the vessels, pictured below. He also performed an online internet speed test, the Starlink satellite network provided an internet speed of 310 Mbps (Megabits per second). In total he installed four antennas, two on each vessel.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a massive cluster of floating trash located in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California. It covers an approximate surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers, which is an area twice the size of Texas. The Ocean Cleanup announced last year that it successfully cleaned up over 100,000 kilograms (kg) 0f plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and its machine is still working to pick up all trash in the region. “[...] If we repeat this 100,000 kg haul 1,000 times – the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be gone,” said founder Boyan Slat in a July 2022 blog update.
Some more photos pic.twitter.com/4WpfFL7rt1
— Steven Bink🎯 (@sbink) March 10, 2023
Starlink has demonstrated to be useful in remote regions where internet service is unreliable. The network will be useful for The Ocean Cleanup operations in remote waters. As of today, SpaceX operates a constellation of around 3,754 Starlink satellites in Low Earth Orbit that provide internet to over one million subscribers globally. “Our maritime service is now global, providing connectivity to the vast majority of the Earth’s oceans and seas,” states SpaceX on its Starlink.com website. The Starlink antenna for maritime service is designed to withstand “extreme cold, heat, hail, sleet, heavy rain, and gale force winds, Starlink also holds up against rocket engines. Starlink is currently being used to get high-quality video of SpaceX rocket landings at sea, providing continuous coverage in the face of engines capable of generating up to 190,000 lbs of force,” says the company.
Picked up #Starlink Maritime equipment yesterday. Now on my way to Victoria 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/IpZezDi23R
— Steven Bink🎯 (@sbink) February 27, 2023
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Featured Images Source: The Ocean Cleanup / Steven Bink @sbink via Twitter
About the Author
Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo
Evelyn J. Arevalo joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover news as a Space Journalist and SpaceX Starbase Texas Correspondent. Evelyn is specialized in rocketry and space exploration. The main topics she covers are SpaceX and NASA.
