SpaceX, Elon Musk’s brainchild, is a privately funded space exploration company known for its ambitious and futuristic space projects. These include the colonization of Mars, making space transportation costs affordable to the common man, and various other projects that have proved time and again the success and vision of its founder.
The magnitude of its latest mission – to launch 4,425 satellites into orbit around Earth, so as to provide international Internet access – can be put into perspective by noting that, so far, only 2,271 satellites orbit our planet, accumulated over a period of fifty-nine years.
On November 15th, documents were filed with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission by SpaceX stating that the 4,425 satellites are a part of a system that “is designed to provide a wide range of broadband and communications services for residential, commercial, institutional, government and professional users worldwide.”
By deploying even 1/5th of this touted number, SpaceX will be able to provide international Internet coverage – a privilege that many visionaries, such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, have said should be a “human right.” Currently, more than four billion people in the world do not have access to the Internet, a number that leading companies such as SpaceX want to lower to zero by the end of this mission’s achievement.
However, simply providing Internet access is not where the company’s vision ends. According to SpaceX, these satellites will not only provide global broadband coverage but also “super-fast” Internet. While the plan was first announced in 2015, the regulatory filings do not highlight the financials declared at the time – tentatively around a whopping $10 billion figure.
The final destination of this project is to provide Internet access at a speed of one gigabits per second, which is wildly faster than US’ current average Internet speed of 55 megabits per second (Mbps).
While the project is currently also financially backed by the companies Google and Fidelity, similar filings have also been placed by the companies Boeing, Oneweb, Google, and Facebook.
To achieve the breadth of its coverage, SpaceX plans to allow each satellite a coverage of 2,000 km by making them orbiting between distances of 1,150 km and 1,275 km. Each satellite is assumed to be 850 pounds, and the official date of the satellites’ launch is yet to be announced.
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