Elon Musk is not only a visionary, but also a man of action. SpaceX, founded by him, proved that space flights can be much cheaper. The recovery of Falcon rocket modules is extremely cost-effective. Therefore, SpaceX can afford more frequent missions and conduct various experiments. One of them is the Starlink project, which aims to provide global Internet with almost 12 000 satellites. For now, there are two satellites in orbit: Tintin A and Tintin B.
Many people disbelieve with the vision of Elon Musk regarding the colonization of Mars. However, 10 years ago no one believes that self-propelled cars are within the reach of man-made technology. SpaceX has had many successes related to space missions. The latest Falcon rocket launches are the best proof of this. Will Elon Musk implement the vision of global Internet access?
The Starlink project is designed to compete with Google balloons and Facebook drones
SpaceX is planning to launch satellites into orbit that will provide access to the Internet in every corner of our globe. 4425 of them are to be in orbit with heights from 1 150 km to 1 275 km, while 7 500 satellites will fly even lower. Some people think that it would be unnecessary clutter of space, but Elon Musk has a different opinion on this topic. There are many places in the world where the operator is not profitable to build a network infrastructure. Satellite Internet would be an ideal solution in this situation. Of course, we already have satellite connections today, but they are extremely expensive. That’s why Google is developing stratospheric balloons for the Loon project to deliver LTE Internet in problematic locations. Recently, they have been applied on the island of Puerto Rico, whose residents did not have access to the network and other means of communication due to the hurricane base stations.
A single satellite operating within the Starlink network is to operate an area of 1060 km radius and offer a 20 Gbps bandwidth and a delay of 25 – 35 ms. If these assumptions are met, SpaceX will be the largest operator in the world offering broadband Internet with the speed of 1 Gbps for a single user.
Source: Business Insider