Why is Elon Musk putting so many satellites into orbit?
It’s hard to keep up with Space X’s Starlink satellite launches: sometimes I wonder if there really are as many as are being talked about.
Since the first launch of two satellites on February 22, 2018, there have been no less than 15 more, the vast majority with sixty satellites each (except those of June 13 and August 18, 2020, which launched 58, and August 7, 2020, which put 57 into orbit), The most recent was on Saturday, bringing the total to 895 satellites put into orbit, which minus the 51 that have had to be deorbited due to problems of various kinds, add up to a current total of 844, for a total deployment foreseen in its first phase of 1,440 satellites in 72 orbital planes of 20 satellites each. The company’s current production which has already requested permission to put 30,000 more into orbit, is four satellites a day, and at this moment is finalizing the development of Starship, a heavier rocket that would allow it to put 400 satellites into orbit at once.
With the current number of satellites that it already has spinning around our planet, the company can now provide broadband connectivity services to villages ravaged by forest fires, to remote Native American tribes, and is even being considered as an alternative to the GPS network for geolocation. The company has closed a deal with Microsoft to provide…
