Despite the concern of some astronomers that the night sky could become way too crowded for space research, SpaceX is determined to send all the 12,000 Starlink satellites into orbit. The goal is to provide internet access for remote regions across the world, with an even possible extension to 42,000 Starlink satellites.
It may seem incredible for most of us who live in Europe and the States, but a fair amount of today’s world population still lacks internet access. In 2019, for instance, Internet access became available to just 51 percent of the planet’s population.
700 more Starlink satellites sent into orbit
SpaceX sent today, September 3rd, 700 more Starlink satellites to provide internet access for more people across the planet. Kate Tice, who is the senior program reliability engineer at SpaceX, declared the following:
The Starlink team has been collecting latency statistics and performing standard speed tests of the system,
This means that we’re checking how fast data travels from the satellites to our customers, and then back to the rest of the internet. Initial results have been good.
Both Tice and the official Twitter account of SpaceX declared that the download speeds were around 100 megabytes per second.
SpaceX itself declares that it’s building a staggering amount of 120 Starlink satellites each month. The space agency also declares for the Federal Communications Commission that it has invested over $70 million for developing thousands of consumer user terminals for each month.
Chris Quilty, who is the Quilty Analytics founder, declared that Starlink manufacturing is happening at an unprecedented speed. He declared:
To put it in perspective, Iridium, which previously held the record for the largest commercial satellite constellation, was manufacturing satellites at the rate of about six satellites per month at the peak of production,
Surely the internet is something that many of us can’t live without nowadays, and the operators of SpaceX know it very well.
