PATH —
STEP 01
The “dish” is really a steerable radio.
The flat user terminal is a phased array: many small radiating elements work together. By changing the relative phase of those elements, the terminal makes the electromagnetic wave add strongly in one direction and cancel more elsewhere. The beam moves electronically instead of the whole antenna turning.
That beam locks onto a moving satellite.
The terminal can see multiple spacecraft as they cross the sky. It forms a narrow RF link toward one of them, while the constellation keeps looking for the next viable connection. The spacecraft is moving continuously; the network does not wait for it to stop.
The network moves the link before it breaks.
LEO satellites move quickly across the sky. Starlink evaluates which satellite can provide the better usable path and switches the active link while the session continues. The important idea is continuity: the network changes the spacecraft carrying the radio connection without making you re‑point an antenna by hand.
Once in orbit, lasers can move the packet sideways.
Modern Starlink spacecraft can use optical inter-satellite links. Laser terminals point at neighboring satellites, acquire the link and send traffic through free space. That means a packet does not have to fall to Earth after every satellite hop.
The gateway is where space meets fiber.
Eventually the packet has to enter terrestrial infrastructure. A Starlink gateway talks to the spacecraft over RF, while its terrestrial side connects to Starlink's ground network and internet Points of Presence. It is the bridge between the moving orbital network and the fixed fiber world.
There is no single Starlink route.
The topology changes as satellites move, gateways become available, links congest and obstructions change. Traffic can stay in space for several hops or drop to Earth earlier when that is the better path. Think of it as a moving graph, not a permanent wire.
The dish is only the front door.
The full system is a composition: steerable user terminals, moving LEO routers, high-capacity optical links, gateways and terrestrial Points of Presence. From your laptop it looks like ordinary internet access. Underneath, it behaves much more like a distributed network whose routers happen to be flying around Earth.