We all know how Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, loves to break the news on Twitter. Keeping up with his famous routine, he has tweeted a picture of Starlink satellites being packed into a Falcon rocket.
The tweeted picture shows 60 of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites that are getting packed into a Falcon rocket, slated for launch this week. For those who are not aware, Starlink satellites are the secret SpaceX satellites that have been developed for the satellite-based internet infrastructure.
The slated launch will be the first major test deployment of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites in the lower Earth orbit. Elon Musk has shared the news in a series of tweets where he not only shows off the Starlink satellites but also shows a picture of SpaceX’s Starman before the launch from last year to give his followers a sense of the scale.
According to Elon Musk, the Starlink satellites that had been packed into the rocket, were not prototypes as was the case with earlier tests but rather production satellites. He has also pointed out that things will not go perfectly or smoothly during the first deployment; however it will help in making the future launches more smooth and hassle-free.
Elon Musk also said that another six launches are required for achieving a minor coverage of the desired satellite network and another six for achieving moderate coverage; bringing the number of Starlink satellites to 420 and 780 respectively. SpaceX announced the satellites back in 2015 and has been working on them ever since. It has plans of introducing a total of 12,000 in two orbital shells that will operate in frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum that are commercially under-utilized.
The goal of the program is to make the satellites reachable from any place on Earth thus providing broadband internet service to all parts of the globe. SpaceX is hopeful that it will have around 40 million subscribers by 2025 for its satellite-based internet services thus bringing a total of $30 billion in terms of the revenue!
