SpaceX has launched 7324 Starlink satellites to date.

Cell phones in even the most remote areas will soon be able to connect to the internet, using Starlink satellites.

In early 2014, SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Greg Wyler – founder of O3b Networks – were rumored to be working together to build a constellation of over 700 satellites. Called WorldVu, this constellation would be 10x larger than the size of the then-largest satellite constellation, operated by Iridium.

These discussions didn’t last long and SpaceX secretly filed an ITU application courtesy of the Norway telecom regulator under the name STEAM. Later renamed Starlink, the mission was to provide high-quality internet bandwidth in the area where a fiber connection is unfeasible. This includes rural and remote areas all over the globe, including oceans, and even in the air for commercial and military customers.

Now, years later, SpaceX and TMobile are promising to provide service in dead zones using the Earth-orbiting satellites, enough for texts and messaging apps to work. T-Mobile’s CEO Mike Sievert stated that operators of messaging apps like WhatsApp or iMessage will need to work with T-Mobile and Starlink for their services to recognize the satellite connection and work with it once it launches.

The move continues an aggressive debut of Starlink's service that has been making headlines around the world due to a rapid launch cadence, interventions in natural disasters, and the technology's critical role on the battlefield in Ukraine. While this article was being edited, SpaceX announced the TMobile deal, launched two Falcon 9 Starlink missions, activated the service in Norway, and announced a deal to provide Starlink on Royal Caribbean cruises.

The buzz might make it seem like Starlink is a new invention but beaming the internet using satellites isn’t a novel idea. Companies like HughesNet, Iridium, and Telesat already have satellites up in space servicing the unserviceable areas, but Starlink is fundamentally different from existing constellations. Traditional companies have just 4-5 huge satellites in geostationary orbit, where each of them services a large area of the globe. Geostationary orbit is a special orbit of Earth above 36,000 kilometers where the satellite’s orbit period is equal to the rotation of Earth, which allows the satellite to appear stationary relative to an observer on Earth.

Satellites in geostationary orbit allow planet-wide coverage with fewer satellites but the connection is usually spotty and the ping is very poor, mostly because of the large distance between the satellite and the receiver.

Starlink is attempting to fix these common issues by launching a large number of satellites — 12,000 — to Low Earth orbit. This not only significantly reduces the distance that the signal needs to travel from the receiver but also makes it easier to mitigate space debris as satellites in LEO can easily deorbit. Those in geostationary orbit are too far from the Earth to deorbit and have to be placed in a special orbit that lies away from common operational orbits, known as the graveyard orbit.

SpaceX first tested Starlink tech when they launched two identical test satellites named Tintin A and Tintin B in 2018. A year later, the company launched their first batch of 60 satellites. Used only for testing, SpaceX was able to communicate with all 60 but lost contact with 3. By October, Elon publicly tested the network when he sent his first tweet using Starlink.

The launch of the operational satellites began in November 2019. After the company placed sufficient satellites to provide internet in certain parts of the US, it introduced a paid beta service called “Better Than Nothing Beta,” charging $499 for the user terminal with an expected service of 50 to 150 Mbps and latency from 20 to 40ms. By January 2021, the beta service was extended to other countries, starting with the United Kingdom.

Washington is the home of Starlink’s research and development facility and was one of the first states to receive the beta services in the US. As part of that initiative, the Hoh Tribe became one of the first users of SpaceX’s broadband. Located in a remote part of the state, Starlink allowed the tribe of 28 households and 116 people to access a high-speed internet connection.

"It seemed like out of nowhere, SpaceX came up and just catapulted us into the 21st century," said Melvinjohn Ashue, vice chairman of the Hoh Tribe. "Our youth are able to do education online and participate in videos. Telehealth is no longer going to be an issue." At a time when the whole world was reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, reliable access to an internet connection couldn’t have come at a better time.

At the same time as schools were being closed due to the COVID outbreak, the Wise County Public Schools in Virginia received Starlink terminals to connect the students with high-speed and low-latency broadband. This enabled over 90 Wise County families to have access to online educational resources.

The word from Virginia spread and a similar effort took place in the Appalachian Region in the US as the Appalachian Council for Innovation raised capital through a public-private partnership to connect students in the American Central Appalachian Mountains who were underserved by the terrestrial internet providers.

As the company iteratively improved their services and increased its coverage area with every launch, they prioritized extending the beta service to the emergency responders and areas without internet. In September 2020 as west coast wildfires wrecked numerous rural areas, Starlink helped both locals and emergency workers. One of the towns was Malden in Washington, where Starlink was supporting emergency responders who helped rebuild the scorched town.

The impact was not limited to the US. Starlink partnered with the Brazilian Government to operate satellites in the Amazon rainforest to connect over 19,000 unconnected schools in rural areas and monitor the forest. SpaceX’s satellite internet was also introduced in Tonga in February of this year when the teams provided emergency relief during the Hunga Tonga-Hunga eruption and tsunami disaster.

Starlink’s capability to provide internet isn’t limited to the ground. In 209, US Air Force Research Laboratory demonstrated that Starlink was able to clock over 610 Mbits/s of data rate onboard the Beechcraft C-12 Huron flight. They also successfully tested the terminal on a Lockheed AC-130 aircraft. In 2020, the Air Force used Starlink during a live-fire exercise to support their advanced battlefield management systems by connecting it to a variety of aerial and terrestrial assets, including the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker.

Starlink became a critical asset in Ukraine as the Russians invaded, demonstrating how satellite internet can be used in a modern conflict. SpaceX was in talks to bring Starlink to Ukraine well before the war to improve connectivity in the vast rural regions, however, the war accelerated the process significantly when the vice prime minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, tweeted a request for Starlink terminals and the service to be activated in the country. In around 10 hours, Elon confirmed that the service was active in Ukraine with the first batch of terminals arriving after just 2 days.

SpaceX continued to upgrade its services to better suit the war. A firmware update enabled terminals to be powered by a car’s cigarette lighter. The company also devised a solution to Russian attempts to interfere with the Starlink signals. Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare at the Pentagon, praised the speed with which SpaceX evaded that jamming with a software update. “How they did that was eye-watering to me,” he said at a conference on defence technology, lamenting that US military equipment was not so flexible. “We need to be able to have that agility.”

This speedy, widespread rollout of Starlink had been an unplanned experiment in providing connectivity to people suffering the privations of war or an authoritarian government. According to Fedorov, the fighting in the Chernihiv region northeast of Kyiv destroyed 10 kilometers of cable, however, a local ISP was able to bring all the people in the area online with a single Starlink terminal.

By April, SpaceX sent over 50k terminals to Ukraine to replace the internet services destroyed by Russia. Starlink played a key role in Ukraine’s new artillery fire coordination systems which gave Ukraine a surprising superiority in the initial months of the War. What enabled such reliable and low-latency high-speed service in remote and war-torn areas is the sheer number of Starlink satellites in orbit and SpaceX’s ability to get them to orbit as fast as possible.

Out of this, only 2822 of them are operational or slowly raising themselves in the desired orbit. The launch of so many Starlink satellites in such a short amount of time is possible because of SpaceX’s high launch cadence and low turnaround time of its workhorse rocket: The Falcon 9.

On average, SpaceX is launching a Falcon 9 every 6.4 days, most of them being Starlink missions. In the first quarter of this year alone, SpaceX has placed nearly 1.16 tonnes of cargo in orbit, most of them being Starlink satellites.

The company aims to set up the Starlink constellation in two phases. Under phase 1, the satellites will be placed at 4 different altitudes — varying between 540 kilometers to 570 kilometers — with different inclinations to provide worldwide coverage, aiming to complete it by March 2027. The next phase will see Starlink satellites being launched to a lower orbit of around 330 - 340 kilometers, with an estimated time of completion being November 2027.

V2 Mini (Starlink Second-Generation)

In February 2023, SpaceX launched the second-generation Starlink satellites.

SpaceX calls them “V2 Mini”. They represent a step forward in Starlink capability. V2 minis include key technologies—such as more powerful phased array antennas and the use of E-band for backhaul—which allows Starlink to provide ~4x more capacity per satellite than earlier iterations. This means Starlink can provide more bandwidth with increased reliability and connect millions of more people around the world with high-speed internet.

Among other enhancements, V2 minis are equipped with new argon Hall thrusters for on orbit maneuvering. Developed by SpaceX engineers, they have 2.4x the thrust and 1.5x the specific impulse of our first gen thrusters.

Credit: SpaceX

Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond.

Falcon 9 is the world’s first orbital-class reusable rocket.

Stats

Total launches: 395

Total landings: 351

Total reflights: 326

The Falcon 9 has launched 52 humans into orbit since May 2020

Specs

Height: 70 m / 229.6 ft

Diameter: 3.7 m / 12 ft

Mass: 549,054 kg / 1,207,920 lb

Payload to Low Earth Orbit (LEO): 22,800 kg / 50,265 lb

Payload to Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO): 8,300 kg / 18,300 lb

Payload to Mars: 4,020 kg / 8,860 lb

On January 24, 2021, Falcon 9 launched the first ride-share mission to Sun Synchronous Orbit. It was delivering a record-setting 143 satellites to space. And while this was an important mission for SpaceX in itself, it was also the moment Falcon 9 overtook United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V for the total number of consecutive successful launches.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 had become America’s workhorse rocket, launching 31 times in 2021. It has already beaten that record this year, launching almost an average of once a week. While most of the launches deliver Starlink satellites to orbit, the company is still launching the most commercial payloads to orbit, too.

Falcon 9 is a medium-lift launch vehicle, with the capability to launch over 22.8 metric tonnes to low earth orbit. Unlike any other rocket, its first stage lands back on Earth after separating from its second stage. In part, this allows SpaceX to offer the cheapest option for most customers with payloads that need to reach orbit.

Under its ride-share program, a kilogram can be placed in a sun-synchronous orbit for a mere 1.1 million dollars, far cheaper than all other currently operating small satellite launch vehicles.

The reusability and fast booster turnaround times have made Falcon 9 the preferred choice for private companies and government agencies. This has allowed SpaceX to capture a huge portion of the launch market.

Photo courtesy of Jenny Hautmann for Supercluster.

Space Launch Complex 4 (SLC-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base is SpaceX’s west coast launch and landing facility, with its launch pad designated SLC-4E (the eastern-most of the two areas). Originally built in the early 1960s for Atlas-Agena rockets, the pad served that rocket line until 1967, when it was taken offline and rebuilt for Titan IIID rockets. From 1971 to 1988, SLC-4E launched Titan IIID rockets, after which it was reconfigured for Titan IV missions, which continued between 1991 and 2005.

In 2011, SpaceX leased SLC-4E and spent two years rebuilding the pad for its Falcon 9 rocket. From 2013 to 2019, the pad exclusively supported Falcon 9 polar missions. However, in 2020, SpaceX began splitting polar launches between Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral, after the Air Force lifted a 51-year ban on Florida-based polar launches, previously imposed due to the risk of overflying Cuba during launch. Despite these new opportunities from Florida, SpaceX plans to continue utilizing Vandenberg, with many more launches scheduled from this location.

Photo courtesy of SpaceX

"Of Course I Still Love You" (OCISLY) is one of SpaceX’s Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ships used to recover Falcon 9 rocket boosters from the ocean. Like its sister ships, "Just Read the Instructions" (JRTI) and "A Shortfall of Gravitas" (ASOG), OCISLY plays a crucial role in SpaceX’s reusability program, which aims to make spaceflight more cost-effective and sustainable.

The name "Of Course I Still Love You" is inspired by science fiction author Iain M. Banks' Culture series, known for its imaginative and whimsical ship names. This naming theme extends to SpaceX's other drone ships.

OCISLY originally operated in the Atlantic Ocean, primarily from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It has since been retired and replaced by ASOG in the Atlantic, with its operations shifting to the Pacific Ocean.

Equipped with advanced navigation systems and thrusters for precise positioning, OCISLY featured a large landing platform designed for recovering rocket boosters at sea. It was instrumental in supporting missions where boosters couldn’t return to solid ground, enabling SpaceX to reuse rocket stages and contribute to lowering costs and improving the sustainability of space missions.

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