SPACEX has fired dozens of satellites into space that will one day beam hyper-fast internet to people across the globe. The private rocket company, bankrolled by eccentric billionaire Elon Musk, wants to set up a mega-constellation of thousands of satellites that it calls Starlink. Flying 310 miles above the Earth’s surface, the network will supposedly […]
SPACEX has fired dozens of satellites into space that will one day beam hyper-fast internet to people across the globe.
The private rocket company, bankrolled by eccentric billionaire Elon Musk, wants to set up a mega-constellation of thousands of satellites that it calls Starlink.
Flying 310 miles above the Earth’s surface, the network will supposedly boost web speeds 40-fold.
The first 60 Starlink satellites were deployed from an unmanned SpaceX rocket in the early hours of Friday morning.
The Falcon 9 spacecraft launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
It’s the first of at least 12 Starlink missions planned by SpaceX as it looks to set up a global network.
Starlink is designed to beam the internet to people around the world using an enormous network of satellites.
In total, SpaceX hopes to send up 12,000 – six times more than the total number of satellites currently orbiting Earth.
Musk, 47, said Starlink’s first launch was “one of the hardest engineering projects I’ve ever seen done.”
The South African cautioned that much could go wrong in the project’s early phases.
Despite the successful launch, SpaceX remains a long way off beaming a Wi-Fi connection back to Earth.
Six more Falcon launches will be needed before minor broadband coverage is achieved.
At least a dozen launches are required for moderate coverage.
Earlier this month, a space expert warned that Musk’s project could inadvertently “trap humanity on Earth”.
A catastrophic clutter of space debris left behind by the satellites could block rockets from leaving Earth, an effect known as “Kessler syndrome”.
“The worst case is: You launch all your satellites, you go bankrupt, and they all stay there,” European Space Agency scientist Dr Stijn Lemmens told Scientific American.
“Then you have thousands of new satellites without a plan of getting them out of there. And you would have a Kessler-type of syndrome.”
In other SpaceX news, one of the firm’s Crew Dragon capsules was destroyed in an explosive test failure earlier this month.
CEO Elon Musk wants to wire the internet to our brains via computer chips in a bizarre bid to “save the human race.”
Over Easter, a grocery rocket blasted off to deliver Easter goodies to International Space Station crew.
Are you excited by Starlink? Let us know in the comments!
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