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String of lights over night sky in Waco believed to be SpaceX satellites

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Posted at 6:38 PM, Sep 13, 2022
and last updated 2022-09-13 22:35:46-04

BELL COUNTY, Texas — If you live in Central Texas, you might have seen some strange lights in the sky Monday night as one 25 News viewer did.

The viewer said he took the video around 9 p.m. Monday night and that lines right up with when SpaceX said their Starlink satellites would be visible in Waco.

According to Aviation at Texas A&M University-Central Texas that is exactly what the lights in the video appear to be.

“The video is showing the release of a string of SpaceX Starlink satellites,” said Carson Pearce, associate lecturer of Aviation Science at Texas A&M University-Central Texas. “This is easy to identify, as there is a string of them, in a straight line. You are looking at many of them having just been ejected into low earth orbit.”

Satellites SpaceX is using to provide faster and more reliable internet access to more people around the world.

”What we call satellite Internet access for any certain population in any particular country and as of right now I believe Starlink provides 40 plus countries with Internet access,” said Abhijit Nag, assistant professor of Computer Information Systems at Texas A&M Central Texas.

The satellites provide wireless internet access that requires multiple satellites to be as reliable as possible.

”It can be captured by multiple of those satellites so that there is less signal distortion through the communication process,” said Nag.