Elon Musks space company SpaceX wants to offer fast internet with the help of 42,000 satellites around the world. You need to know this about the Starlink project.
“I am sending this tweet via a Starlink satellite,” Musk wrote on October 22. More than an hour later, he followed the message with a somewhat surprised sounding text: “Wow, it works!”
Plans for this satellite network came out at the beginning of January 2015. With Starlink, the space company SpaceX is developing a broadband internet system of thousands of satellites to provide paying customers all over the world with fast internet.
This should in particular provide a solution in areas where there are currently hardly any internet connections. On its site, SpaceX speaks of “rural communities and places where existing services are too expensive or unreliable”. Aircraft and cruise ships must also be able to use the Starlink connection.
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A Falcon 9 rocket with sixty satellites on board is launched. (Photo: Reuters)
Faster internet and fewer interruptions
The idea for an internet connection that runs via satellites is not new. There have been communication satellites for a long time, but there are disadvantages to this. For example, internet satellites often achieve a slower speed than via cable and delays occur faster.
Starlink does something different than the existing communication satellites, which hover at a height of at least 1,000 kilometers (and often many kilometers higher). Of the twelve thousand Starlink satellites approved by the American trade watchdog FCC, eight thousand will be at 550 kilometers altitude and four thousand at approximately 1,200 kilometers.
In addition to the twelve thousand approved satellites, SpaceX applied for an additional permit in October 2019. With this, the company wants to add another thirty thousand satellites to the network, bringing the total to 42,000.
The satellites are relatively close to the earth and are connected to each other. The network can send large amounts of data to users quickly. from early tests The US Air Force found that the internet could connect at 610 megabits per second to the cockpit of a transport aircraft.
Starlink is starting this year
SpaceX has now brought 240 satellites into orbit around the earth. The devices are about the size of a table and weigh around 260 kg. They are launched by dozens at a time. At least nine launches are planned for 2020.
Elon Musk said he needed about four hundred satellites last year to achieve “low coverage”. “Average coverage” is possible with eight hundred satellites. The network must be available in the United States and Canada before the end of 2020. That is just the beginning, because global coverage is planned for 2021.
Astronomers expressed their concerns about the project. The International Astronomical Union (IAU), a professional organization of astronomers, says it is afraid that the thousands of low-hanging satellites will obscure the view of telescopes. That can stand in the way of future discoveries.
According to Musk, that is all with it. “Helping possibly billions of disadvantaged people is in the public interest. That said, we ensure that Starlink does not get in the way of astronomy. We are deeply committed to science.”
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