Do you remember the four thousand satellites of Elon Musk? Last year, SpaceX requested FCC permission to start testing, but some delays arose that included competitors trying to block the authorization. Through a new application, we know that the constellation of 4,425 satellites will have the capacity to provide a high-speed connection (on the order of one gigabit per second) with low latency, and it will take about five years to put all the units into orbit. As for costs, there are no solid numbers, but the original figure of ten billion dollars is still being speculated.
Electric cars, batteries, solar panels, advanced transportation systems, Mars colonization, reusable rockets, and Internet for the whole world. All these things have a common name: Elon Musk. Some already see him as a kind of "Tony Stark without the armor", while others accuse him of aiming too high. Several of his projects are already definitely real, and then come those that will need decades of work, not to mention billions of dollars. The idea of bringing satellite Internet to the entire planet fits into the second category. The first time we talked about that was in September of last year, but it has been dancing in Musk's mind for a long time. The objective is ambitious from every angle: 4,425 satellites, more than three times the number of active satellites orbiting the Earth today, sending one gigabit per second links with latencies that embarrass similar solutions.
Technical details from the FCC application
The new application, presented to the FCC last Tuesday, shares several relevant technical details. The satellites, which no longer fit under CubeSat parameters, will have a mass of 385.5 kilograms, and their minimum altitude will be 1,150 kilometers. The launch of the massive constellation will be divided into two parts: the first will be composed of 800 satellites, which will take care of providing connectivity to the US territory and other countries, while the second will continue adding capacity until the configuration is complete. The petition to the FCC has no firm commercial availability data, but technically 2019 is suggested as the year to start launching satellites.
Challenges and outlook
Obviously, this depends on how the new FCC takes it, which with the change of government on the other side of the pond will not function the same way it did before. Even so, Musk has very strong cards to put on the table, starting with the lack of infrastructure that affects many rural areas of the United States, courtesy of providers that "don't see the business" in installing new networks. Nor should we forget that SpaceX already received one billion dollars from Google for this project. It will take time, but it is necessary. And if SpaceX succeeds, well...
