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SpaceX Plans To Send the First of Its 4,425 Super-Fast Internet Satellites Into Space in 2019 (cnbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the going-forward dept.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has laid out a plan to create a network of internet-providing satellites around Earth. The company hopes to start launching satellites into space in 2019, and will continue to send them in phases until 2024, when the network is expected to reach capacity. From a report:On Wednesday, Patricia Cooper, SpaceX's vice president of satellite government affairs, said later this year, the company will start testing the satellites themselves, launch one prototype before the end of the year and another during the "early months" of 2018. Following that, SpaceX will begin its satellite launch campaign in 2019. "The remaining satellites in the constellation will be launched in phases through 2024," Cooper said before the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology. [...] SpaceX argues that the U.S. lags behind other developed nations in broadband speed and price competitiveness, while many rural areas are not serviced by traditional internet providers. The company's satellites will provide a "mesh network" in space that will be able to deliver high broadband speeds without the need for cables.

4 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Re:That's a lot of satellites by Guspaz · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not really, 25-35ms round trip. Not super amazing, but not all that bad. Remember, these are LEO satellites, not GEO. The round trip distance will be roughly 1/30th that of a geostationary satellite.

  2. Great, ruin all my astrophotos by jfdavis668 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I get enough astrophotoes of space junk now, I don't need 4,425 more objects to avoid taking pictures of.

  3. Re:That's a lot of satellites by jon3k · · Score: 3, Informative
    The quoted figure is actually 25-35 ms:

    SpaceX expects its own latencies to be between 25 and 35ms, similar to the latencies measured for wired Internet services. Current satellite ISPs have latencies of 600ms or more, according to FCC measurements.

  4. This is not a new Iridium by joh · · Score: 4, Informative

    Iridium was/is about satellite phones. This isn't. You will need a rather big phased array antenna and this is not a mobile setup.

    It's about replacing the last mile (or the last 10/100/1000 miles) with satellite links. It's about getting WiFi/LTE backhaul everywhere with just a small device to buy and set up instead of digging in cables or whatever.

    It's like the airplane eating railways and the airplane ate railways. Cables and everything you have set up on the ground is expensive because it's different everywhere and you have to buy real estate and do research and actually get your hands dirty. Setting up a satellite terminal is convenient and easy and it's just the same everywhere.

    I mean, this does not mean that it will work out as a business, but the logic behind it is quite convincing.