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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The Federal Communications Commission approved an application by Space Exploration Holdings, doing business as SpaceX, to provide broadband services using satellite technology in the United States and around the world. With this action, the Commission takes another step to increase high-speed broadband availability and competition in the United States.
This is the first approval of a U.S.-licensed satellite constellation to provide broadband services using a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellite technologies. SpaceX proposed a satellite system comprised of 4,425 satellites and was granted authority to use frequencies in the Ka (20/30 GHz) and Ku (11/14 GHz) bands to provide global Internet connectivity.
From Techcrunch:
The company has already launched test versions of the satellites, but the full constellation will need to go out more than two at a time. SpaceX eventually plans to launch 12,000 of the things, but this authorization is for the high-altitude group of 4,425; a separate authorization is necessary for the remaining number, since they'll be operating at a different altitude and radio frequency.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:04AM (3 children)
Geostationary sats [wikipedia.org] orbit at 35,786 km. The Starlink [wikipedia.org] fleet would orbit at 340 km and 1100-1200 km.
Now we're talking. Even less latency for the 340 km satellites.
Funnily enough, SpaceX just launched 10 new satellites for Iridium yesterday. They have 50 total and those orbit at 670 km. Iridium has flown on Falcon 9 rockets. If SpaceX flies their own sats on cheaper, fully reusable BFRs (and no markup since they will own them) that can lift bigger payloads, Iridium will have paid many times more than what SpaceX will need to in order to establish its own sat network.
Many may just be reading about Starlink for the first time, but SpaceX projects that it will be the dominant revenue source for the company in 10 years.
With this recent development over here [soylentnews.org], there is a potential to put satellites in even lower orbits.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:17AM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday March 31 2018, @09:37PM
Actually I went through the Starlink wikipedia article and it says:
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Spamalope on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:26AM
Also interesting: Iridium launches paying for the development of reusable launch vehicles SpaceX uses to undercut them on price.