Tesla CEO and tech billionaire Elon Musk have revealed new plans for the next-gen Starlink satellites at the recent SpaceX all-hands meeting. Musk shared the company's current priorities, along with the first official renders of a few future projects.
Growing and Thriving
Musk shares that SpaceX's satellite internet constellation has secured almost half a million customers in 32 countries. Currently, there are 2,400 working satellites in orbit, and 1,800 are operational.
Deck from SpaceX all-hands update talk I gave last week pic.twitter.com/ApsdPjjukh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2022
Furthermore, the CEO shares that SpaceX has delivered over 15,000 Starlink dishes to Ukraine and announced their first airline connectivity partnerships within the last few months.
Next-Gen Satellites
SpaceX's second-gen satellites are meant for low-Earth orbit, but just recently, it was reported that they're big to launch for now. The next-gen satellites are bigger by more than 2,500 than the Starlink satellites now orbiting 340 miles above the Earth's surface.
Musk said that the Gen2 satellites are 22 feet long and weigh 2,755 pounds.
"A lot of people talk a lot about how many launches per year there are to orbit, but this is not really what matters. I think what really matters is what's the total useful payload to orbit per year. Cause otherwise you could say if this were ocean ships, you'd be like comparing a dinghy to a supertanker," Musk said.
The SpaceX's Starship vehicle will be the one to deploy the next-gen satellites. In fact, it will be the biggest and most powerful space transportation system ever built.
The Starship is being developed to take people and cargo to the moon and Mars and for various spaceflight tasks, but it will also include the deployment of the next-gen version of its Starlink internet satellites.
In a recent interview with Tim Dodd of Everyday Astronaut, Starship "is the only thing that can carry the Starlink 2 satellites. Falcon has neither the volume nor the mass-to-orbit capability required for Starlink 2."
The company aims to conduct a first orbital test flight in the next few months from Starbase in South Texas. However, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) should review the Starbase first, which will likely happen this month.
Also Read: Is Elon Musk Partnering with Schools? One Starlink Internet Enough for Hundreds of Students
The Growing Demand for Starlink
Starlink has already brought high-speed internet to a lot of rural communities out of reach of broadband. With the help from the US government, Starlink was also able to provide internet access to 150,000 Ukrainians in the midst of a war.
Besides that, there is a growing demand in different parts of the world for Starlink. During the fourth quarter of 2021, the company delivered 100 Mbps speeds to 15 additional countries.
Related Article: SpaceX Starlink Launch is a Success! 50 New Satellites in Orbit-How Far is Elon Musk From His Goal?
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Written by April Fowell
