SpaceX, the world’s leading private company in space technology, last week fired a spray of 60 satellites into orbit to eventually evolve into a constellation of nearly 12,000 satellites aimed at providing low-cost and reliable space-based Internet services to the world.
Starlink network:
The Starlink network, as the project is called, is one of several ongoing efforts to start beaming data signals from space, and also the most ambitious.
SpaceX announced the satellite Internet constellation in January 2015, and launched two test satellites in February 2018. Following last week’s launch, the company has now deployed 122 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The LEO extends up to 2,000 km above the Earth’s surface.
Starlink aims to start space-based Internet service in the northern United States and Canada in 2020, and expand to cover the whole world by 2021.
Other initiatives:
Several other private companies too, have plans for space-based Internet services.
These include Amazon, OneWeb and O3B (apparently named for the ‘Other Three Billion’), each involving large constellations of satellites in lower and middle Earth orbits.
But these projects are very small compared to Starlink.
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