News & Media, page-2870

It must make potential investors must think twice about funding SAS when they see articles like this.

https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-24-starlink-launches-next-year/

SpaceX plans 24 Starlink launches next year

SpaceX hopes to launch 24 Starlink missions in 2020 as the company builds out a broadband megaconstellation that could ultimately number close to 12,000 satellites, a company executive said Sept. 10. SpaceX’s Starlink launch cadence will likely average “two a month,” in addition to customer launches, Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, said at the World Satellite Business Week conference here.

When and with what coverage Starlink begins service may hinge on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s decision on a filing SpaceX made in late August. SpaceX asked the FCC to allow it to triple the number of orbital planes, or pathways, for Starlink satellites at 550 kilometers. By using 72 orbital planes instead of 24, Starlink can reach lower latitudes more quickly and with fewer launches, SpaceX said.

In May, prior to the filing, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that Starlink will have consistent partial coverage with 400 satellites, and should be “economically viable” at 1,000 satellites.

Mark Juncosa, SpaceX’s vice president of vehicle engineering, said in May that 30 Starlink launches would be sufficient for global coverage based on the company’s deployment plans at the time.

From the Starlink website:
SpaceX is developing a low latency, broadband internet system to meet the needs of consumers across the globe. Enabled by a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites, Starlink will provide fast, reliable internet to populations with little or no connectivity, including those in rural communities and places where existing services are too expensive or unreliable.

Starlink is targeted to offer service in the Northern U.S. and Canadian latitudes after six launches, rapidly expanding to global coverage of the populated world after an expected 24 launches. SpaceX is targeting two to six Starlink launches by the end of this year.

Apparently, Starlink isn't perfect at this stage. SAS satellites have the inter-vehicle links (if they ever get up there):
The biggest omission with these early Starlink satellites is the lack of inter-vehicle laser communication links, which means each satellite will have to relay everything through ground stations. In other words, if a Starlink satellite wants to send data to one of its peers, it will have to send it down to a ground station which then routes the information over the terrestrial Internet to another ground station that’s in range of the recipient. This not only increases latency, but requires a large number of ground stations located all over the globe.To solve this problem, Elon says later versions of the Starlink satellites will use laser communications to form interconnected links, creating a mesh network in space.