Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO puts an end to worries if the Starlink Broadband Satellites will ruin the astronomy; or, if it will be considered a threat to the telecom industry; or if SpaceX is going to spin out Starlink anytime soon. His answer to all of these is a big "NO."
Musk gave his answer in all three questions during the Satellite 2020 conference held in Washington, D.C. early today. It is the main objective of the Starlink project "to put thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), to provide broadband internet access" to people who are presently underserved, as well as the U.S. military.
Additionally, flat-panel Starlink satellites are currently being produced at an average of six each day, at the SpaceX factory in Redmond wash. More so, the launches are done in batches of 60 from the Falcon 9 rocket of SpaceX.
The next batch scheduled for launch is this coming weekend, and it is joining 300 others of the same type. In relation to this, astronomers have raised their concerns over "having so many satellites flitting through the night sky."
However, Musk argued that such concerns were exaggerated. He added, once the satellites settle into their respective orbits, "they're hard to spot."
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Talks with Astronomical Groups
SpaceX has engaged in discussions with astronomical groups on the mitigation of potential interference. Relatively, Musk said, such measures can include "having the phased-array antenna of these satellites" made in black instead of white, to reduce the glare from orbit.
The company executive explained they are currently working on a sunshade since there are certain angles from which, if the sun gets just right, and there is not just a tiny sunshade, then, one can get a reflection.
Furthermore, Musk has also discussed the idea of beaming the internet virtually anywhere in the world, with "signal delay times" bellow 20 milliseconds.
The objective here is to offer enough bandwidth for the streaming of a high-definition world where Starlink might fail to offer efficient and competitive service. Additionally, what's challenging in anything that's space-based is that the cell's size is gigantic.
It is great, Musk explained, for very low to probably, medium-sparsity conditions, though it is not good for high-density situations.
Not a Threat to Telcos
In terms of telco, this company CEO explained, they'll have a small number of L.A. customers. However, he admitted that they cannot do a lot of customers in the state since the bandwidth there per cell "is to be not high enough."
Meanwhile, for high-density locations, Musk said, global 5G service might be quite more sensible. The plan, he added, is for the Starlink to mesh with global telecom services to fill in the coverage holes or spaces.
It's certainly not a huge or major threat to telcos and Musk said, he wants to be very clear about it. In fact, the big boss said, it will be beneficial to telcos as Starlink is set to serve the most-difficult-to-serve customers which telcos otherwise are struggling when dealing.
Lastly, Musk shared, the billions of dollars in revenue coming from Starlink would go toward the development of the Starship launch system for trips to Mars.
