SpaceX is expanding the beta test for its ambitious Starlink satellite internet constellation, according to an email sent out this week to those would-be early adopters who expressed interest in signing up for the company’s global internet service.
According to CNBC, Starlink’s initial service will cost $99 per month, in addition to a $499 upfront cost for the Starlink kit. This will include a user terminal for connecting to satellites, mounting tripod, and Wi-Fi router. SpaceX’s Starlink project aims to create an internet network made up of thousands of satellites, which will offer high-speed internet wherever you are on the planet.
So far, SpaceX has launched close to 900 satellites, with new ones routinely deployed as part of the payload on SpaceX rocket launches. While nearly 900 satellites is pretty impressive, however, it’s still a tiny fraction of the constellation of thousands of small satellites in low-Earth orbit that will be needed for the Starlink project to live up to its promise. It began quietly beta testing this summer.
In the meantime, SpaceX tells beta participants that they shouldn’t expect a world-beating service right away. The beta is referred to as the “Better Than Nothing Beta” test. The company puts its cards on the table by acknowledging that, with this name, “we are trying to lower your initial expectations. Expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all.”
Over time, Starlink could turn out to be a big moneymaker for SpaceX. While the cost of installing the network is reportedly $10 billion or more, SpaceX believes it could earn as much as $30 billion per year. To put that figure in perspective, it’s upwards of 10 times the annual revenue of SpaceX’s world-famous and heavily publicized rocket business. It could also prove a game-changer in terms of providing internet access to rural parts of the world that currently have spotty or zero internet access.
Earlier this month, SpaceX inked a partnership with Microsoft to connect Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing network to the Starlink network.
Digital Trends has reached out for comment from SpaceX on the Starlink beta program. We will update this post when we hear back.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.