Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Titusville - SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites.

 

Going up!

Today we had a relatively rare daylight launch from Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX put up another 60 satellites for their Starlink constellation. This is only the first step to complete the 1440 satellites needed for step one. Eventually, Starlink will have over 41,000 satellites and it will serve the entire world. 

Into space once again! Almost routine

The service is now in beta stage and costs $500 for the antenna and $100/month for the service. The present speeds are around 150 Mbps but it's due to double in speed by the end of the year. The big attraction is that it's available anywhere in the world, a boon for those out in the boonies. Plus, it's always nice to have a little competition for the local providers. 

Meanwhile, it's a great attraction for the Kennedy Space Center with so many launches. Each launch only puts up 60 satellites so there's a lot of launches. Musk is financing all this on spec - on the belief that there will be demand for the service worldwide. I think it's a good bet.

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