Starlink Video Update Filmed at the launch site in Texas, before (and after) the January 16th launch of Starship flight test seven. Starship’s “Pez Dispenser” Deployment System SpaceX's "Pez Dispenser" will spit out satellites from a hatch on the side of Starship. One key goal of Starship's seventh test flight was to be the first test of the innovative "Pez Dispenser" satellite deployment mechanism, which would allow Starship to deploy a stack of up to 54 Starlink V3 satellites, one at a time, out of a side hatch. Since this was slated to be an intentionally sub-orbital test flight, it wouldn't make sense to deploy a real Starlink V3 satellite since the rocket and any deployed payloads would return to Earth in the Indian Ocean. This test flight was the first to carry this deployment system and ten dummy payloads the size and weight of an operational Starlink V3 satellite. The dummy satellites would test the deployment system and then burn up - and the Starship itself would have ideally made a pin-point soft landing on the ocean, carefully observed by remote cameras. Unfortunately, Starship had a major failure well before then and disintegrated spectacularly over the Caribbean long before any satellite deployment testing could be completed. SpaceX will likely want to repeat this sub-orbital test before moving forward with an actual Starlink V3 orbital deployment. Starlink V3 - A Massive Upgrade! Starlink congestion is a very real issue - and we are seeing more and more reports of people seeing speeds falling below 10 Mbps. The V3 satellites should do a LOT to address this. SpaceX's 2024 annual Starlink progress report revealed the first details of Starlink V3 satellite capabilities. The capability increase is huge, thanks to the physically larger (approximately 1900 kg vs. 575 kg) satellites, which have more solar and computing power available. Here are the details - comparing each launch of Starship and Starlink V3 to the existing Falcon 9 and Starlink V2 Mini: Payload Mass: Starship can carry a 100-ton Starlink payload to orbit per launch versus 17 tons for Falcon 9. Satellites Per Launch: Starship should be capable of carrying 54 V3 satellites, more than twice the 20-23 V2 Mini satellites that recent Falcon 9 launches have been carrying. Bandwidth Per Launch: Each Starship launch will bring 60 Tbps per second of Starlink bandwidth into orbit—20 times what each Falcon 9 launch is capable of. Cost Per Launch: Ultimately, when full reusability is achieved, Starship launches should actually cost less than a Falcon 9 launch! Comparing the individual V3 satellites with the V2 Mini - SpaceX has said that each V3 Starlink satellite will have 1 Tbps of user downlink speeds and 160 Gbps of uplink capacity. Compared to the V2 Mini, which was already a 4x upgrade over the first generation of Starlink satellites: Total User Downlink Bandwidth: 1 Tbps vs 96 Gbps Total User Uplink Bandwidth: 160 Gbps vs 6.7 Gbps Ground Station & Laser Interconnect Bandwidth: 4 Tbps vs 1.3 Tbps Overall - this is 10x the downlink and 24x the uplink capacity of the V2 Mini Starlink satellites. This means that each satellite will be able to serve more customers without experiencing congestion - hopefully, end-user speeds might increase too. Starship Seven’s Spectacular RUD Elon Musk shared this video of remains of Starship S33 coming down spectacularly over the Turks & Caicos. It was absolutely amazing to witness the Starship 7 launch in person, and it seemed to go perfectly from the launch site. Watching (and feeling the rumble!) as the largest flying object in history lifts off is absolutely awe-inspiring, and the Super Heavy booster performed perfectly. Returning a few minutes after launch, it was accompanied by a sonic boom as it was caught by two "chopsticks" arms on the very tower it had just lifted off from. Unfortunately - the Starship itself had a "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly," or RUD, and it came down in a million pieces over the Caribbean before any satellite deployment testing could be conducted. SpaceX has shared an update: "Following stage separation, the Starship upper stage successfully lit all six Raptor engines and performed its ascent burn to space. Prior to the burn’s completion, telemetry was lost with the vehicle after approximately eight and a half minutes of flight. Initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship, leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly. ... As always, success comes from what we learn, and this flight test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary. Data review is already underway as we seek out root cause. We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests. The ship and booster for Starship’s eighth flight test are built and going through prelaunch testing and preparing to fly as we continue a rapid iterative development process to build a fully and rapidly reusable space transportation system." Depending on the outcome of the investigation into the loss of Starship, it may only be a month or two before SpaceX is ready to repeat the test flight. Concluding Thoughts Each Starship launch with Starlink V3 satellites will bring 20x the bandwidth to orbit of a Falcon 9 launch, so expect this graph to get even steeper in the future. A failure like this could lead to an extensive delay with more traditional companies. But SpaceX has a company culture where "failure is an option," and it has already demonstrated an amazing ability to learn from and move past even the biggest setbacks. Elon Musk is already hoping for another launch as soon as next month. If Starship flight test 8 goes well, it is conceivable that flight test 9 or 10 might be orbital - and test deploy some actual Starlink V3 satellites. And unless things go horribly wrong in the test campaign - it still seems likely that by the end of 2025, the Starlink V3 constellation should be on its way to commercial deployment. Things are pretty exciting in the mobile internet space race—excitement is guaranteed! Stay tuned for our annual satellite industry update, coming soon, where we'll recap all that is happening in this exciting time! Get a Free Month of Starlink!