SpaceX puts up 60 internet satellites
- by BBC
- Dec 13, 2023
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before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.
Accept and continue The company launched a couple of technology demonstrators, Tintin-A and Tintin-B, in February 2018, but the "first production spacecraft" that went up on Thursday look very different.
These have a "flat-pack" design.
Who is Elon Musk? Meet the meme-loving magnate behind SpaceX and Tesla...published in 2021
Each satellite weighs 227kg, has multiple high-throughput antennas and a single solar array, the SpaceX CEO explained in a briefing last week.
The platforms are also equipped with electric propulsion - a system that expels electrically charged atoms of krypton to provide thrust.
The engine is needed to lift a Starlink from its drop-off altitude of 440km to its operational height of 550km.
The propulsion system will also act to maintain the satellite's correct position in the sky, and to bring it down at the end of its service life.
Mr Musk said the newly launched Starlinks were an iterative design and later platforms would have a higher specification, featuring for example inter-satellite links.
It was "one of the hardest engineering projects I've ever seen done," he said, and cautioned that much could go wrong in the early phases of the roll-out.
Is there room up there for all these satellites?
There is increasing unease about the number of satellites that could be launched in the next few years - for many purposes, not just broadband delivery - and how this might potentially clog up the space environment.
To give context to what is about to happen - there are just 2,000 operational satellites in orbit today, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists' database. SpaceX's ambitions alone, if fully realised, would dwarf this population.
The great fear is that congested orbital highways will result in collisions and the production of debris that then initiates further destructive encounters.
SpaceX said it intended to be a responsible actor and had given its satellites the ability themselves to track orbital debris and to autonomously avoid it.
What is more, it added, all the Starlinks were 95% constructed from components that would burn up rapidly on re-entry to the atmosphere when decommissioned - exceeding all current safety standards.
It will be some time before SpaceX can actually offer connections to the internet.
For that it must launch many more than the 60 spacecraft on Thursday's Falcon.
Six further rocket flights will have to take place before minor broadband coverage is achieved. A dozen launches are required for moderate coverage, says Mr Musk.
He hopes ultimately that revenue from the telecommunications network can fund some of his other ideas: "We think this is a key stepping stone on the way towards establishing a self-sustaining city on Mars and a base on the Moon."
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos
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