SpaceX says initial tests of its fast-growing fleet of Internet-providing satellites are yielding promising results.
Internal tests of the beta version of the Internet service of the company’s Starlink project “Super low latency and download speeds exceed 100” [megabits] Per second, “said Kate Ties, senior certification engineer at SpaceX, during a live broadcast of the Starlink launch on Thursday.
“That means our delays in playing our online video games faster are lower, and our download speeds are faster enough to stream multiple HD movies at once and still have bandwidth left,” Tais added.
The Starlink initiative ultimately aims to send thousands of broadband satellites into orbit, on Earth’s affordable, high-speed Internet. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, said he hopes Starlink will get rural and remote areas online. Already, the company has launched more than 700 satellites.
SpaceX’s Starlink-8 mission delivered the ninth batch of Internet-beaming satellites into orbit on June 13, 2020.
SpaceX via Twitter
Tice also announced that SpaceX has recently completed testing of two orbiting satellites equipped with inter-satellite links – informally known as “space lasers”. This technology enables Starlink satellites to transfer data directly into orbit with each other, rather than beaming to the ground and back.
“With the help of these space lasers, these Starlink satellites were able to transfer hundreds of gigabytes of data. Once these space lasers are deployed, Starlink will be one of the fastest options available for data transfer worldwide.”
He added that Starlink is “well” in the first phase of private beta testing, and plans to roll out a more public testing program later this year. The company has begun reaching out to people who have applied to participate in the beta program.
Thursday’s launch marks a record-breaking milestone: SpaceX has launched 180 satellites in just one month – the fastest satellite-launch rate in history.
After launching at least 300 satellites, the company plans to boot Starlink more fully.
“In order for the 2019 system to be economically viable, it is really on the order of 1000 satellites,” Musk said in May 2019.
From there, SpaceX plans to build a floating Internet backbone that will provide ultra-speed web access to most people on the planet. In all, the company has sought government approval to launch a total of 10,000,000 satellites into orbit to form a “megaconstel” around the Earth.
Dave Mosher contributed to the report.
