On April 29th, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral carrying another 60 Starlink satellites into orbit. This was Flight 24 for the Starlink mission and the 12th flight this year. SpaceX used a booster rocket which had already flown six times and Elon Musk, speaking a few […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted Elon Musk permission to lower the orbital heights of its Starlink broadband satellite system. “Specifically, we modify the license by reducing the number of satellites from 4,409 to 4,408; modifying the primary operational altitude specified for 2,814 satellites, to change it from the 1,100-1,300 km range to the […]
SpaceX is taking over a facility in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles, that was once used by rocket-launching enterprise Sea Launch to assemble its cargoes and moor its rocket platform. Sea Launch went bust in 2009. . Officials at the Port of Long Beach say they have approved a scheme for SpaceX to move […]
Elon Musk is getting closer to winning FCC approval to fly some of his Starlink low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites at even lower heights. Acting FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel has asked her board colleagues to formally vote on the plan having herself endorsed the idea. SpaceX is already licensed to operate 1,584 of its Starlink […]
Local reports in India say that its government will demand that SpaceX applies for the relevant permits and to show compliance with India’s telecom rules before it starts offering its satellite broadband Starlink service. India’s telecoms regulator TRAI and Dept. of Telecommunications (DoT) say they are asking SpaceX to outline its plans in order that […]
A few days ago the press was full of stories of a near collision between two orbiting satellites, one from SpaceX’s Starlink and the other from OneWeb. There was talk of barely 60 metres between the two satellites. “Not so,” stated SpaceX in a submission to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), insisting that there was […]
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, reports that the past week had seen two of Elon Musk’s Starlink craft have re-entered the atmosphere and burned up. McDowell says two Starlinks – which were already ‘retired’ from the fleet – came down at about 14.30 UTC on April 17 and another at […]
Just hours before NASA awarded a massive $2.9 billion contract to restart human flights to the Moon – and back – Elon Musk, in one of his Tweets, told an enquirer that SpaceX’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite service would be transitioning out of a widespread beta-programme into conventional usage “probably by this summer”. Moreover, Musk answered another […]
Elon Musk might well mount an IPO for his SpaceX business somewhere down the line, but for the moment he seems happy to raise cash by issuing new equity. In a regulatory filing, SpaceX says it has raised a total of $1.164 billion over the past few weeks. The company had already reported raising some […]
The demand for broadband connectivity over both fixed and mobile broadband networks is increasing dramatically. However, despite network expansions and upgrades, only half of households worldwide currently have access to fixed broadband services. With the rollout of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations, satellite broadband services will improve broadband penetration significantly. Global tech market advisory firm […]