SpaceX launched another 60 of its Starlink broadband-by-satellite craft into orbit at 8.25am Florida time on October 18th. This was the 14th batch of Starlink launches and takes the delivered total of Low Earth orbiting satellites to 835 (although some have been deorbited). The 60 satellites on board were deployed into a near-circular orbit some […]
HBO has commissioned a 6-part drama series about SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk. The episodic drama is based on a book Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance. The series, according to trade magazine Variety, will document how Musk handpicked a group of like-minded engineers to work […]
Facebook is now operating its own satellite. The single craft was launched back on September 2nd on an Arianespace Vega rocket which carried 53 small satellites. The Facebook “experimental” vehicle weighed just 138 kgs and was built by Maxar technologies. Facebook is not saying much about the mission other than that the satellite has “broadband […]
Russia is to invest $800 million on a new rocket system to compete directly with SpaceX and its reusable Falcon 9 launchers according to Russian news agency TASS. The Russian rocket system, called Amur, was signed with a contract between Russia’s Space Agency Roscosmos and the Progress Space Rocket Center on the conceptual design of […]
Elon Musk, in a tweet after the latest Starlink launch, said that once this batch of 60 satellites are in their correct orbital positions then a test broadband service will start. “We will be able to roll out a fairly wide public beta [service] in northern US & hopefully southern Canada,” Musk said. “Other countries […]
Three important rocket launches from Florida’s Space Coast were delayed over the past two weeks prompting Elon Musk, in a Tweet, to admit that further improvements will need to be made to the Falcon-9 rocket system if his SpaceX business has a chance of completing a planned 48-launch schedule in 2021. Musk said he was […]
Bad weather at the Florida launch site has played havoc with SpaceX’s 13th Starlink launch plans over the past 10 days. A new launch date is set for today, October 1st. SpaceX has a launch window that opens at 09.17am EDT for the launch of 60 Starlink craft. Assuming the weather permits the launch this […]
Financial analysts from consultancy firm Cowan have looked at the prospects for Elon Musk’s Starlink mega constellation and the claims that Starlink could serve 485,000 users simultaneously with 100 Mb/s broadband service. It also emerged in a Tweet from Musk that an IPO for the Starlink project is under consideration “but several years in the […]
SpaceX, now that the various hurricanes have passed by, is preparing to launch its 13th batch of Starlink broadband satellites from Florida on September 27th. The launch is currently set for 10.33am Eastern US time on one of its Falcon 9 reusable (‘pre-flown’) rockets, and – as always – subject to the weather and last-minute […]
A study into global broadband retail prices from New BroadbandNow finds that Elon Musk’s Starlink highly-disruptive broadband-by-satellite system could see significantly lower broadband prices for consumers. The US-focused report suggests that Musk’s prices could undercut many rivals by as much as 20 per cent where the satellite system is competing with three or more rival […]