SpaceX Starlink is Full Speed Ahead
SpaceX Starlink is charging full speed ahead in the race to offer high speed internet from above. While the number of Low Earth Orbit(LEO) Satellite Internet contenders has grown over recent times, SpaceX looks well positioned to win the race to viability.
SpaceX’s Primary Advantage
SpaceX has a huge advantage with its satellite deployment capabilities. No other LEO Sat contender currently has the ability to launch their payloads on their own rockets. And for this reason it was always going to be extremely difficult to beat Elon Musk’s team to the first viable deployment.
Simply put, SpaceX can iterate much more quickly than the competition. The only major obstacles in their way are funding and regulatory approvals. Neither of which have significantly hindered them to this point.
The other contenders also have these obstacles to overcome, of course. But they do not have the in-house satellite delivery systems at their disposal.
30,000 More Satellites
SpaceX has filed paperwork to add 30,000 more satellites to its LEO Starlink constellation. This is in addition to the 12,000 already approved by the Federal Communications Commission(FCC).
It remains to be seen if SpaceX will be granted approval for the full 30,000. It is however encouraging that SpaceX Starlink is bolting full speed ahead. It’s likely there will be regulatory challenges given the scale SpaceX is targeting.
It’s going to be very interesting how the FCC and the International Telecommunication Union(ITU) resolve the competition for spectrum and satellite approvals in the coming years. Especially with other contenders such as OneWeb, TeleSat, Facebook’s Athena, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper all jockeying for space in this arena.
60 More Starlink Satellites Deployed
Roughly one week ago, November 11th, SpaceX successfully launched 60 more satellites. This is the second deployment and was launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
If all goes according to plan, we should see launches occurring with increasing frequency in the coming months. SpaceX Starlink is targeting an initial constellation of 400 to offer minor broadband coverage and 800 for more moderate coverage.
Some 12,000 to 40,000 satellites are in the long range plans. This presumably would be a full deployment and offer the ability to cover the globe with broadband connectivity.
Service Starting in 2020?
SpaceX Starlink is full speed ahead on offering broadband service in mid-2020 according to company President and COO, Gwynne Shotwell. This will require 6 to 8 launches of operational satellites, of the type just launched one week ago(Nov. 11).
There are significant challenges to meet this target however. The user terminals have yet to be fully baked and could certainly introduce delays in the ambitious mid-2020 time frame.
On a positive note though, the user terminals do not have to be launched into orbit. So it should certainly make for quicker iterations towards a robust design that works well.
It would be remarkable if SpaceX can offer broadband service to the general public, even if small in scale, in 2020. Though I would be surprised if we see this by the mid-2020 target timeframe.
But then again it’s hard to bet against Elon Musk and company given all they’ve accomplished.