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posted by on Friday May 05 2017, @05:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the wireless-everything dept.

SpaceX today said its planned constellation of 4,425 broadband satellites will launch from the Falcon 9 rocket beginning in 2019 and continue launching in phases until reaching full capacity in 2024.

SpaceX gave the Senate Commerce Committee an update on its satellite plans during a broadband infrastructure hearing this morning via testimony by VP of satellite government affairs Patricia Cooper. Satellite Internet access traditionally suffers from high latency, relatively slow speeds, and strict data caps. But as we reported in November, SpaceX says it intends to solve these problems with custom-designed satellites launched into low-Earth orbits.

SpaceX mentioned 2019 as a possible launch date in an application filed with the Federal Communications Commission in November and offered a more specific launch timeline today.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @06:48PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @06:48PM (#505076)

    Imagine we did want to make an alien invasion shield. How many turrets do you think we'd need to have to provide complete coverage? If each turret can cover a square mile of land securely, you'd need 3.8 million of them just to cover an area the size of the US. And in terms of collisions, a square mile is uncomfortably close - but not still far away from a collision. The mobile nature of things make collisions vastly more likely of course, but I'm not using this so much as an analog of the math but an analog of the scale. Like most things with big numbers we, humans that is, tend to be just awful at actually grasping how big it really is - even given the exact numbers. 4,425 more things in space is a fraction of the impact you'd get by adding 4,425 more cars on US roads.

  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday May 06 2017, @04:46AM

    by driverless (4770) on Saturday May 06 2017, @04:46AM (#505327)

    Imagine we did want to make an alien invasion shield. How many turrets do you think we'd need to have to provide complete coverage?

    And what would you have to arm them with to be able to stop the f'Znt'rks-lTh'n Fleet when it finally arrives?