Congrats SpaceX And Musk For Starlink!

[enjoythemusic]

Remember back in the late 1990's Bill Gates proposed having web of satellites to provide Internet all around the world. We must remember having Internet in the late 90s wasn't as 'fluid' back then as it is today. Fast-forward 20 years to 2019 and am elated that Musk took up the proverbial torch.

Here's the video from last night's very successful launch of 60(!) satellites within one payload.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riBaVeDTEWI


For those curious from Wiki:
Starlink is a satellite constellation development project underway by American company SpaceX, to develop a low-cost, high-performance satellite bus and requisite customer ground transceivers to implement a new space-based Internet communication system. SpaceX also plans to sell satellites that use a satellite bus that may be used for military, scientific or exploratory purposes.


Starlink constellation, phase 1, first orbital shell: approximately 1,600 satellites at 550 km altitude.

SpaceX has plans to deploy nearly 12,000 satellites in three orbital shells by the mid-2020s: initially placing approximately 1600 in a 550-kilometer (340 mi)-altitude shell, subsequently placing ~2800 Ku- and Ka-band spectrum sats at 1,150 km (710 mi) and ~7500 V-band sats at 340 km (210 mi). The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build and deploy such a network is estimated at nearly US$10 billion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starli..._constellation)

[Abdullah71601]

Not impressed. Satellites are not that great for data. Fiber is the fastest, most reliable technology available. And doesn’t require a space shuttle to repair.

How is your Space X stock working for you? Are you at all concerned that Elon will lose his clearance and be excepted from DoD contracts?

[enjoythemusic]

100% agree about latency as had to 'live off of' Hughs for a few years for bandwidth. Of course the lower orbit Starlink sats will have less of that. Have no SpaceX stock, and his clearance either way won't change anything really in the Big Picture.

Have a feeling few realize how little Internet there is in some parts of the world. We're spoiled in Europe, USA, Asia, etc with gig-bit speeds, fiber, etc. Yet travel outward to remote locations and the game changes. Naturally commercial aviation will benefit with Starlink too.

But yeah, if we could have 5G / WiFi6 speeds covering 100% of land masses in high and medium density populations... yet we're not there... yet.