A number of 60 SpaceX Starlink satellites float in orbit above the Earth.
SpaceX
SpaceX updated the website for its Starlink parasite internet project on Friday, as the company continues to move closer to its goal of offering direct-to-consumer broadband from room later this year.
“Get updates on Starlink news and service availability in your area,” the website reads, with a capitulation form for an email address and zip code. The form allows prospective customers to apply for updates and access to a public beta proof of the Starlink service.
The main page for SpaceX’s Starlink website on June 12, 2020.
SpaceX
Starlink is the company’s ambitious script to build an interconnected network of about 12,000 small satellites, to beam high-speed internet to anywhere in the world. In counting up to getting the satellites in orbit, SpaceX will need to build a vast system of ground stations and affordable couplers if it is going to connect consumers directly to its network.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell in 2018 said that “it discretion cost the company about $10 billion or more” to build the Starlink network. Since the beginning of 2019, SpaceX has instituted nearly $1.7 billion in capital.
Those who enter their email address and zip code on the Starlink website hear a confirmation email, saying the service “is designed to deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been weak, expensive, or completely unavailable.” The email said that a private beta test is planned for “later this summer, supported by public beta testing.”
SpaceX told the FCC in April that Starlink “will begin offering commercial usage in the northern United States and southern Canada” before the end of this year, “and then will rapidly expand to away global coverage of the populated world in 2021.” Additionally, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has declared that Starlink’s internet shoot will rival existing Earth-bound services, saying in March that the network will have a “latency downstairs 20 milliseconds, so somebody could play a fast-response video game at a competitive level.”
The Starlink update end up the day before SpaceX is set to launch its ninth Starlink mission, launching 58 more satellites to orbit. To date SpaceX has put 482 Starlink dependants in orbit.
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