Starlink
Starlink is a satellite internet constellation being constructed by SpaceX providing satellite Internet access. The constellation will consist of thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit, working in combination with ground transceivers. As of September 2020, SpaceX was launching up to 60 satellites at a time, aiming to deploy 1,440 of the 260 kg spacecraft to provide near-global service by late 2021 or 2022.
About Starlink in brief
Starlink is a satellite internet constellation being constructed by SpaceX providing satellite Internet access. The constellation will consist of thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit, working in combination with ground transceivers. SpaceX plans to sell some of the satellites for military, scientific, or exploratory purposes. The cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in May 2018 to be about US$10 billion. Two prototype test-flight satellites were launched in February 2018. Additional test satellites and 60 operational satellites were deployed in May 2019. As of September 2020, SpaceX was launching up to 60 satellites at a time, aiming to deploy 1,440 of the 260 kg spacecraft to provide near-global service by late 2021 or 2022. The communication satellite network SpaceX envisions was publicly announced in January 2015, with bandwidth to carry up to 50% of all backhaul communications traffic, and up to 10% of local Internet traffic, in high-density cities. CEO Elon Musk said that there is significant unmet demand for low-cost global. communications services. SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission for a non-geostationary orbit satellite system in the Fixed-Satellite Service using the Ku and Ka frequency bands. In March 2017, SpaceX filed plans with the FCC to field a second orbital shell of more than 7,500 V-band satellites in non- geosynchronous orbits to provide communications services in an electromagnetic spectrum that has not previously been heavily employed for commercial communications.
Called the Very-Low Earth Orbit constellation, it would comprise 7,518 satellites would operate in 1,200 altitude and orbit at just 340 km altitude, while the smaller, originally – originally – group of 4,425 satellites would operate at 1,300 km. The company planned a private beta service in the Northern United States and Canada by August 2020 and a public beta in November 2020, service beginning at high latitudes between 44° and 52° North. By January 2016, the company had publicly disclosed plans to have two prototype satellites flying in 2016, and to have the initial satellite constellation in orbit and operational by approximately 2020. By October 2016, SpaceX had developed the initial satellites that they hoped to launch and test in 2017, but the satellite division was focusing on a significant business challenge of achieving a sufficiently low- cost design for the user equipment, aiming for something that ostensibly can be installed easily at end-user premises for approximately US$200. The March 2017 plan called for SpaceX to launch the initial test satellites of the Ka-bands type of type in both 2017 and 2018, and begin the operational constellation in 2019, launching the initial operational in 2018 and launching the full operational in 2019. In August 2018, SpaceX consolidated all their Seattle-area operations with a move to a larger three-building facility at Redmond Ridge Corporate Center to support satellite manufacturing in addition to R&D. SpaceX acquired a 740 m2 creative space in Irvine, California in July 2016.
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This page is based on the article Starlink published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 10, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
