SpaceX, officially Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, is an American company that works in the field of astronautics and space flights. Founded by billionaire businessman Elon Musk, SpaceX is one of two private contractors to whom NASA has awarded a contract Orbital Transportation Commercial Services to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the COTS program.
A few months ago, SpaceX had achieved power in orbit its first fleet of 60 Starlink Constellation satellites (Elon Musk's project to provide high-speed Internet from space around the world) in low Earth orbit and now seek authorization by the International Telecommunication Union to operate 30,000 additional satellites at a specific frequency, power level, and position in space. The announcement was made last Tuesday by SpaceNews.
This number of additional satellites is in addition to the 12,000 satellites already approved by the US Federal Communications Commission.
According to the documents presented on October 7 to the International Telecommunication Union, which allocates the radio spectrum and satellite orbits, the additional 30,000 satellites would operate “at altitudes between 328 km and 580 km.
A SpaceX spokesperson said it's a statement that the company is taking steps to "responsibly size" the total network capacity and data density to meet the growing needs of users. In addition, the company announced its intention to provide gigabit speeds and 25 ms latency, but did not disclose the cost of the service.
However, the company faces large-scale technical challenges in the construction of high-tech components of this satellite at an affordable cost for users, with a level of reliability that can place it above the competition on the ground and in the future in space.
The company that derives revenue from launching satellites for commercial and government customers faces competition in the nascent market for low-speed satellites from OneWeb, Space Norway, Telesat and Amazon.
"SpaceX is counting on Starlink to increase its revenue," said Laura Forczyk, owner of the space consulting company Astralytical.
"They have a lot of ambitious projects underway that they need funding for," "the greater the global coverage, the larger the market, and to increase revenue with Starlink, SpaceX should increase their coverage."
The broadband provided by this type of satellite dIt should offer faster speeds and delay times than traditional satellites, which gravitate at very high altitudes.
Musk said in May that SpaceX had not hired a client because it wanted to wait for the system to work properly but that the company was interested in a partnership with governments or telecommunications companies. The contractor added that it does not believe that Starlink would replace the telecommunications companies.
To use the additional 30,000 satellites, SpaceX must seek clearance from the FCC and provide more technical details, including plans to minimize debris and avoid collisions.
And is that By January 2019, about 8,950 satellites had been placed in orbit Earth since 1957 and around 5,000 of them were still in space, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).
Only 1.950 of them still work. Global coverage could follow shortly thereafter if SpaceX's predictions prove to be accurate. In fact, the company recalled this week that it could provide full coverage of the world just after 24 launches and that it could make 24 Starlink launches in 2020.
Before this announcement, SpaceX was already under review to determine if you really needed a mega constellation of thousands of satellites to run Starlink.
“The need for more satellites depends on what you are trying to do and what your satellites need, what capacity you have, and your use case. Each Starlink satellite is optimized to serve a defined number of users, ”says the company's Ted Muelhaupt.