SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites
SpaceX launched Tuesday its next batch of Starlink satellites, after people who have been testing the still-growing constellation recently posted online results of preliminary internet speed tests.
Fifty-eight Starlinks and three other satellites from Seattle-based Planet lifted off at 10:31 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s launch complex 41 atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
The booster for the launch has flown on five other missions and will likely be reused again because it successfully landed on SpaceX’s Of Course I Still Love You drone ship about eight minutes after liftoff.
The Earth-orbiting satellites on board will join others that SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said he hopes can start delivering fast and affordable internet to all of North America by the end of the year, and eventually to the entire planet.
With Tuesday’s mission, 653 of the 12,000 satellites the Federal Communications Commission has approved will circle the Earth.
Results from early speed tests of the system recently posted on Reddit showed that the time it takes to upload and download on the Starlink network is still far off the lighting speeds Musk has promised and considerably slower than traditional internet providers.
Participants of the Starlink testing are required to sign non-disclosure agreements, and the Reddit posts were based off anonymously reported results.
Download speeds ranged from 11 to 60 Megabits per second, compared to average download speeds in the U.S. of about 96.25 Mbps. The ultimate goal of the system is to get download speeds as high as 1Gbps, or 1000 Mbps. Internet that fast would allow users to download, for example, one episode of a television show in just 3 seconds.
However, the beta tests were conducted with another 600 satellites still needed to be deployed to provide blanket coverage for North America. And the speeds from initial testing could still be a game-changer for rural and remote areas of the country, where Starlink is expected to be a big seller.
SpaceX in an FCC filing last month said there has already been an “extraordinary demand” from potential Starlink customers, prompting the company to up the number of terminals it’s allowed to sell — the devices customers would purchase to connect to the satellite internet network — from 1 million to 5 million.
In the filing, SpaceX said although it has not yet formally advertised the Starlink system for sale, almost 700,000 people have registered to indicate that they would be interested in purchasing.