Starlink is a satellite internet constellation being constructed by SpaceX providing satellite Internet access. The constellation will consist of thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), working in combination with ground transceivers. SpaceX plans to sell some of the satellites for military, scientific, or exploratory purposes. The SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond, Washington houses the Starlink research, development, manufacturing, and orbit control. The cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in May 2018 to be at least US$10 billion.
Product development began in 2015. Two
prototype test-flight satellites were launched in February 2018. Additional
test satellites and 60 operational satellites were deployed in May 2019. As of September 2020, SpaceX was
launching up to 60 satellites at a time, aiming to deploy 1,584 of the 260 kg
(570 lb) spacecraft to provide near-global service by late 2021 or 2022. SpaceX started a private beta service in the Northern
United States in August 2020 and a public beta in October 2020, service
beginning at high latitudes between 44° and 52° North.
On 15 October 2019, the United
States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) submitted filings to the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) on SpaceX's behalf to arrange spectrum for 30,000
additional Starlink satellites to supplement the 12,000 Starlink satellites
already approved by the FCC.
Astronomers have raised concerns about
the constellations’ effect on ground-based astronomy and how the satellites
will add to an already jammed orbital environment. It ignited conversations
about the ethics of a single company unilaterally
changing the night sky’s appearance.
History of Starlink
2015–20171
The communication satellite network SpaceX
envisions was publicly announced in January 2015, with bandwidth to carry up to
50% of all backhaul communications traffic, and up to 10% of local Internet
traffic, in high-density cities. CEO Elon
Musk said that there is significant unmet demand for low-cost global broadband
capabilities. The opening of the SpaceX
satellite development facility in Redmond was announced by SpaceX in January
2015 with partners, to develop and build out the new communication network. At
the time, the Seattle-area office planned to initially hire approximately 60
engineers, and potentially 1000 people by 2018.
The company operated in 2,800 m2 (30,000 sq ft) of leased
space by late 2016, and by January 2017 had taken on a 2,800 m2 (30,000
sq ft) second facility, both in Redmond.
In August 2018, SpaceX consolidated all their Seattle-area operations
with a move to a larger three-building facility at Redmond Ridge Corporate
Center to support satellite manufacturing in addition to R&D.
In July 2016, SpaceX acquired a 740 m2
(8,000 sq ft) creative space in Irvine, California (Orange County). SpaceX job listings indicated the Irvine
office would include signal processing, RFIC, and ASIC development for the
satellite program.
By January 2016, the company had
publicly disclosed plans to have two prototype satellites flying in 2016, and
to have the initial satellite constellation in orbit and operational by approximately
2020.
By October 2016, SpaceX had developed
the initial satellites that they hoped to launch and test in 2017, but the
satellite division was focusing on a significant business challenge of
achieving a sufficiently low-cost design for the user equipment, aiming for
something that ostensibly can be installed easily at end-user premises for
approximately US$200. Overall, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said then that
the project remained in the "design phase as the company seeks to tackle
issues related to user-terminal cost".
Deployment of the constellation was not then projected until "late
in this decade or early in the next".
In November 2016, SpaceX filed an
application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a "non-geostationary
orbit (NGSO) satellite system in the Fixed-Satellite Service using the Ku- and Ka- frequency bands".
In March 2017, SpaceX filed plans with
the FCC to field a second orbital shell of more than 7,500 "V-band satellites
in non-geosynchronous orbits to provide communications services" in an
electromagnetic spectrum that has not previously been heavily employed for
commercial communications services. Called the "Very-Low Earth Orbit (VLEO)
constellation", it would comprise 7,518 satellites and would orbit at just
340 km (210 mi) altitude, while the smaller, originally planned group of 4,425 satellites
would operate in the Ka - and Ku-bands and orbit at
1,200 km (750 mi) altitude.
SpaceX's plans were unusual in two ways:
- the
company intended to utilize the little-used V-band of the communications
spectrum
- they
intended to use a new orbital regime, the very-low Earth orbit regime of
~340 km (210 mi) altitude, where atmospheric drag is quite high,
which normally results in short orbital lifetimes
The March 2017 plan called for SpaceX to
launch test satellites of the initial Ka/Ku-bands type in both 2017 and 2018,
and begin launching the operational constellation in 2019. Full build-out of
the approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) constellation of around 4,440
satellites was not then expected to be completed until 2024.
The first two test satellites built were
not flown but were used in ground testing. The planned launch of two revised
test satellites was then moved to 2018.
Some controversy arose in 2015–2017 with
regulatory authorities on licensing of the communications spectrum for these
large constellations of satellites. The traditional and historical regulatory
rule for the licensing spectrum has been that satellite operators could
"launch a single spacecraft to meet their in-service deadline [from the
regulator], a policy is seen as allowing an operator to block the use of
valuable radio spectrum for years without deploying its fleet". By 2017, the FCC had set a six-year deadline
to have an entire large constellation deployed to comply with licensing terms.
The international regulator, International Telecommunication Union (ITU),
proposed in mid-2017 a guideline that would be considerably less restrictive. In September 2017, both Boeing and SpaceX petitioned
the United States FCC for a waiver of the six-year rule, but they were denied.
By 2019, the FCC had ruled that half of the constellation must be in orbit in
six years, with the full system in orbit nine years from the date of the
license.
SpaceX trademarked the name Starlink for
their satellite broadband network in 2017; the name was inspired by the book The
Fault in Our Stars.
SpaceX filed documents in late 2017 with
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to clarify their space debris mitigation
plan, under which the company was to:
"...implement an operations plan
for the orderly de-orbit of satellites nearing the end of their useful lives
(roughly five to seven years) at a rate far faster than is required under
international standards. [Satellites] will de-orbit by propulsively moving to a
disposal orbit from which they will reenter the Earth's atmosphere within
approximately one year after completion of their mission."
2018–2019
In March 2018, the FCC issued SpaceX
approval, with some conditions. SpaceX would need to obtain a separate approval
from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The FCC supported a NASA request to ask
SpaceX to achieve an even higher level of de-orbiting reliability than the
standard that NASA had previously used for itself: reliably de-orbiting 90% of
the satellites after their missions are complete.
In May 2018, SpaceX expected the total
cost of development and buildout of the constellation to approach US$10
billion. In mid-2018, SpaceX reorganized
the satellite development division in Redmond, and terminated several members
of senior management.
In November 2018, SpaceX received U.S.
regulatory approval to deploy 7,518 broadband satellites, in addition to the
4,425 approved earlier. SpaceX's initial 4,425 satellites had been requested in
the 2016 regulatory filings to orbit at altitudes of 1,110 km (690 mi) to 1,325
km (823 mi), well above the International
Space Station. The new approval was for
the addition of a very-low Earth orbit non-geostationary satellite orbit
constellation, consisting of 7,518 satellites operating at altitudes from
335 km (208 mi) to 346 km (215 mi), below the ISS. Also in November 2018, SpaceX made new
regulatory filings with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to request the ability to alter its previously
granted license in order to operate approximately 1,600 of the 4,425 Ka-/Ku-band
satellites approved for operation at 1,150 km (710 mi) in a "new lower
shell of the constellation" at only 550 km (340 mi) orbital altitude. These satellites would effectively operate in
a third orbital shell, a 550 km (340 mi) orbit, while the higher and lower
orbits at approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) and approximately 340 km (210 mi)
would be used only later, once a considerably larger deployment of satellites
becomes possible in the later years of the deployment process. The FCC approved
the request in April 2019, giving approval to place nearly 12,000 satellites in
three orbital shells: initially approximately 1,600 in a 550 km (340 mi) – altitude
shell, and subsequently placing approximately 2,800 Ku- and Ka-band spectrum
satellites at 1,150 km (710 mi) and approximately 7,500 V-band satellites at
340 km (210 mi).
With plans by several providers to build
commercial space-Internet mega-constellations of thousands of satellites
increasingly likely to become a reality, the U.S. military began to perform
test studies in 2018 to evaluate how the networks might be used. In December
2018, the U.S. Air Force issued a US$28 million contract for specific test
services on Starlink.
In February 2019, a sister company of
SpaceX, SpaceX Services Inc., filed a request with the FCC to receive a license
for the operation of up to a million fixed satellite
Earth stations that would communicate with its non-geostationary orbit (NGSO)
satellite Starlink system.
SpaceX's plans in 2019 were for the
initial 12,000 satellites to orbit in three orbital shells:
- First
shell: 1,440 in a 550 km (340 mi) altitude shell
- Second
shell: 2,825 Ku-band and Ka-band spectrum satellites at 1,110 km (690
mi)
- Third
shell: 7,500 V-band satellites at 340 km (210 mi)
In total, nearly 12,000 satellites were
planned to be deployed, with (as of 2019) a possible later extension to 42,000.
By April 2019, SpaceX was transitioning
their satellite efforts from research and development to manufacturing, with
the planned first launch of a large group of satellites to orbit, and the clear
need to achieve an average launch rate of "44 high-performance, low-cost
spacecraft built and launched every month for the next 60 months" to get
the 2,200 satellites launched to support their FCC spectrum allocation license
assignment. SpaceX said they will meet
the deadline of having half the constellation "in orbit within six years
of authorization... and the full system in nine years".
By the end of June 2019, SpaceX had
communicated with all 60 satellites but lost contact with three; the remaining
57 worked as intended. Forty-five satellites had reached their final orbital
altitude of 550 km (340 mi), five were still raising their orbits, and another
five were undergoing systems checks before they raise their orbits. The
remaining two satellites were intended to be quickly removed from orbit and reenter
the atmosphere in order to test the satellite de-orbiting process; the three
that lost contact were also expected to reenter, but will do so passively from atmospheric
drag as SpaceX was no longer able to actively control them.
In June 2019, SpaceX applied to the FCC
for a license to test up to 270 ground terminals – 70 nationwide across the
United States and 200 in Washington (state) at SpaceX employee homes – and
aircraft-borne antenna operation from four distributed United States airfields;
as well as five ground-to-ground test locations.
By September 2019, SpaceX had gone back
to the FCC to apply for more changes to the orbital constellation. SpaceX asked
to triple the number of orbital planes in the 550 km (340 mi) orbital shell,
from 24 to 72, arguing that they could then place satellites into multiple
planes from a single launch. SpaceX argued that this change could bring
coverage to the southern United States in time for the 2020 hurricane season. The change was approved in December 2019, and
will now see only 22 satellites in each plane rather than the 66 that had been
a part of the original design. The total number of satellites in the 550 km
shell would remain the same, at around 1,600.
In October 2019, Elon Musk publicly
tested the Starlink network by using an Internet connection routed through the
network to post a tweet to social media site Twitter.
2020–2021
As of 24 March 2021, SpaceX has launched
1,385 Starlink satellites (including demo satellites Tintin A and B). They plan to launch up to 60 more per Falcon
9 flight, with launches as often as every two weeks in 2021.
In April 2020 SpaceX modified the
architecture of the Starlink network. SpaceX submitted an application to the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) proposing to operate more satellites in lower
orbits in the first phase than the FCC previously authorized. The first phase
will still include 1,440 satellites in the first shell orbiting at 550 km
(340 mi) in planes inclined 53.0 with no change to the first shell of the
constellation launched largely in 2020.
- First
shell: 1,440 in a 550 km (340 mi) altitude shell at 53.0º
inclination.
- Second
shell: 1,440 in a 540 km (340 mi) shell at 53.2º inclination.
- Third
shell: 720 in a 570 km (350 mi) shell at 70º inclination.
- Fourth
shell: 336 in a 560 km (350 mi) shell at 97.6º.
- Fifth
shell: 172 satellites in a 560 km (350 mi) shell at 97.6º.
SpaceX previously had regulatory
approval from the FCC to operate another 2,825 satellites in higher orbits
between 1,110 km (690 mi) and 1,325 km (823 mi), in orbital planes
inclined at 53.8°, 70.0°, 74.0° and 81.0°. The modified plan submitted to the
FCC by SpaceX foresees Ku-band and Ka-band satellites in the next phase of the
Starlink network all operated at altitudes between 540 km (340 mi) and 570 km
(350 mi) at inclinations of 53.2°, 70.0° and 97.6°. The application covers
4,408 Starlink satellites, one fewer than envisioned under the previous
architecture. SpaceX plans to launch
another 7,500 V-band satellites into orbits around 345 km (214 mi).
In June 2020, SpaceX applied in the
United States for use of the E-band in the Gen2 constellation. The generation 2
Starlink constellation is expected to include up to 30,000 satellites and
provide complete global coverage.
By June 2020, SpaceX had filed with Canadian
regulatory authorities for a license to offer Starlink high-speed Internet
services in Canada.
By August 2020, a Falcon rocket was sent
to SpaceX's Starlink Internet network with 58 more broadband relay nodes, to
make the total of 653 satellites since May 2019. SpaceX is producing approximately 120
satellites a month.
In October 2020, SpaceX stated plans to
deorbit all 60 prototype v0.9 satellites for "on-orbit debris
mitigation". As of October 2020, 39 of 60 have reentered the Earth
atmosphere. In October 2020, Canada
granted a license to work there.
On 4 November 2020, SpaceX conducted its
one millionth Starlink test and doubled the connection speed. Starlink beta testers have been reporting
speeds over 150 megabits per second, above the range announced for the public
beta test.
On 6 November 2020, Innovation, Science
and Economic Development Canada announced regulatory approval for the Starlink
low Earth orbit satellite constellation.
The Federal Communications Commission awarded
SpaceX with nearly US$900 million worth of federal subsidies to support rural
broadband customers through the company's Starlink satellite Internet network.
SpaceX won subsidies to bring service to customers in 35 U.S. states. The Free Press advocacy group called the
award to Starlink "another Hyperloop-style boondoggle", showing
examples of territory awarded to Starlink in New York City, a strip mall near McCarran
International Airport in Las Vegas, and other
urban blocks that were labeled as underserved by the FCC. The National Rural Electric Cooperative
Association also filed a complaint about the awards to Starlink.
SpaceX released a new group of 10
Starlink satellites on 24 January 2021, the first Starlink satellites in polar
orbits. The launch also surpassed ISRO's record of launching the most of
satellites in one mission (143), taking to 1,025 the cumulative number of
satellites deployed for that telecommunications constellation so far.
In February 2021, SpaceX announced that
Starlink has over 10,000 users, and opened up pre-orders to the public.
In March 2021, SpaceX put an application
into FCC for mobile variations of their terminal for vehicles, vessels and
aircraft.
Launches
The deployment of the first 1,440
satellites will be into 72 orbital planes of 20 satellites each, with a
requested lower minimum elevation angle of beams to improve reception: 25°
rather than the 40° of the other two orbital shells. SpaceX launched the first 60 satellites of
the constellation in May 2019 into a 450 km (280 mi) orbit and expected up
to six launches in 2019 at that time, with 720 satellites (12 × 60) for
continuous coverage in 2020.
In August 2019, SpaceX expected four
more launches in 2019 and at least nine launches in 2020, but since January
2020 expectations had increased to 24 total launches in 2020.
In March 2020, SpaceX reported producing
six satellites per day.
Starlink satellites are also planned to
launch on Starship, an under-development rocket of SpaceX that will launch 400
satellites at a time.
In February 2021, Musk stated that the
satellites are traveling on 25 orbital planes clustered between 53 degrees north and south of the equator
Services
SpaceX intends to provide satellite
internet connectivity to underserved areas of the planet, as well as provide
competitively priced service to urban areas. The company has stated that the
positive cash flow from selling satellite internet services would be necessary
to fund their Mars plans.
In early 2015, two space entrepreneurs
announced satellite Internet ventures in the same week. In addition to SpaceX
CEO Elon Musk announcing the project that would later be named Starlink, serial
entrepreneur Richard Branson announced an investment in OneWeb, a similar
constellation with approximately 700 planned satellites that had already
procured communication frequency licenses for their radio spectrum.
After the failures of previous
satellite-to-consumer space ventures, satellite industry consultant Roger Rusch
said in 2015, "It's highly unlikely that you can make a successful
business out of this". Musk
publicly acknowledged that business reality, and indicated in mid-2015 that
while endeavoring to develop this technically complicated space-based
communication system he wanted to avoid overextending the company, and stated
that they are being measured in their pace of development. Nevertheless, internal documents leaked in
February 2017 indicated that SpaceX expected more than US$30 billion in revenue
by 2025 from its satellite constellation, while revenues from its launch
business were expected to reach US$5 billion in the same year.
In February 2015, financial analysts
questioned established geosynchronous orbit communications satellite fleet
operators as to how they intended to respond to the competitive threat of
SpaceX and OneWeb LEO communication satellites.
In October 2015, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell indicated that while
development continues, the business case for the long-term rollout of an
operational satellite network was still in an early phase.
With the initial launch of the first 60
satellites of the operational constellation in 2019, SpaceX indicated that it
would require 420 satellites in the constellation to achieve minor broadband
coverage of Earth, and 780 of the first circa 1,600 to provide moderate
coverage.
On 17 April 2020, in documentation to
the FCC, SpaceX said lower altitude will put the satellites closer to Starlink
consumers and allow the network "to provide low-latency broadband to
unserved and underserved Americans that is on par with service previously only
available in urban areas". The change will also improve service for U.S.
government users in polar regions and allow for more rapid deployment of the
network, SpaceX said. The lower orbits will help ensure the satellites re-enter
the atmosphere in a shorter time in case of failure and will enable them to
broadcast signals at reduced power levels, because they are closer to Earth,
which SpaceX said will allow the fleet to be compliant with limits to reduce
radio interference with other satellite and terrestrial wireless networks.
SpaceX has long-term plans to develop
and deploy a version of the satellite communication system to serve Mars.
Competition and Market Effects
In addition to the OneWeb constellation,
announced nearly concurrently with the SpaceX constellation, a 2015 proposal
from Samsung outlined a 4,600-satellite constellation orbiting at 1,400 km
(870 mi) that could provide a zettabyte per month capacity worldwide, an
equivalent of 200 gigabytes per month for 5 billion users of Internet data, but
by 2020, no more public information had been released about the Samsung
constellation. Telesat announced a
smaller 117 satellite constellation in 2015 with plans to deliver initial
service in 2021. Amazon announced a large broadband internet
satellite constellation in April 2019, planning to launch 3,236 satellites in
the next decade in what the company calls "Project Kuiper", a satellite
constellation that will work in concert with Amazon's previously announced
large network of twelve satellite ground station facilities (the "AWS ground
station unit") announced in November 2018.
By October 2017, the expectation for
large increases in satellite network capacity from emerging lower-altitude
broadband constellations caused market players to cancel some planned
investments in new geosynchronous orbit broadband communications satellites.
Light pollution
The planned large number of satellites
has met with criticism from the astronomical community because of concerns for light
pollution. Astronomers claim that the
number of visible satellites will outnumber visible stars and that their
brightness in both optical and radio wavelengths will severely impact
scientific observations. Because the Starlink satellites can autonomously
change their orbits, observations cannot be scheduled to avoid them. The International Astronomical Union (IAU), National
Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and Square Kilometre Array Organization
(SKAO) have released official statements expressing concern on the matter.
On
20 November 2019, the four-meter Blanco telescope of the Cerro Tololo
Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) recorded strong signal loss and the
appearance of 19 white lines on a DECam shot (left image). This image noise was
correlated to the transit of a Starlink satellite train, launched a week
earlier.
SpaceX representatives and Musk have
claimed that the satellites will have minimal impact, being easily mitigated by
pixel masking and image stacking. Many
professional astronomers have disputed these claims based on initial
observation of the Starlink v0.9 satellites on the first launch, shortly after
their deployment from the launch vehicle.
In later statements on Twitter, Musk stated that SpaceX will work
on reducing the albedo of the satellites and will provide on-demand orientation
adjustments for astronomical experiments, if necessary. As of March 2020, only one Starlink satellite
(Starlink 1130 / DarkSat) has experimental coating to reduce its albedo. The
reduction in g-band magnitude is 0.8 magnitude (55%). Despite these measures, astronomers found
that the satellites were still too bright thus making DarkSat essentially a
"dead end."
On 17 April 2020, SpaceX wrote in a Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) filing that it would test new methods of
mitigating light pollution, and also provide access to satellite tracking data
for astronomers to "better coordinate their observations with our
satellites". On 27 April 2020, Musk
announced that the company would introduce a new sunshade designed to reduce
the brightness of Starlink satellites. As
of 15 October 2020, over 200 Starlink satellites have a sunshade. An
October 2020 analysis found them to be marginally fainter than DarkSat.
Space debris
The large number of satellites employed
by Starlink also creates a long-term danger of space debris resulting from
placing thousands of satellites in orbit and the risk of causing a satellite
collision, potentially triggering a phenomenon known as Kessler syndrome, which
is like a pinball effect between all of the satellites on Earth that can cause
all of the satellites to become inoperable.
SpaceX has said that most of the satellites are launched at a lower
altitude, and failed satellites are expected to deorbit within five years
without propulsion; however, failed satellites still pose a significant threat
even if only in orbit for five years and just a small percentage fail as they
can collide with other debris or defunct satellites, creating debris that
lingers much longer as momentum transfers shift them into higher orbits. Early
in the program, a near-miss occurred when SpaceX did not move a satellite that had
a 1 in 1000 chance of colliding with a European one, ten times higher than ESA's
threshold for avoidance maneuvers. SpaceX subsequently fixed an issue with its
paging system that had disrupted emails between ESA and SpaceX. ESA said it
plans to invest in technologies to automate satellite collision avoidance
maneuvers.
Federal funding
SpaceX was challenged regarding Starlink
in February 2021 when the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA)
pressured the U.S.Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to "actively,
and aggressively, and thoughtfully vet" the subsidy applications of SpaceX
and other broadband providers. SpaceX had previously been approved to receive
US$886 million for a commitment to provide service to 642,925 locations in 35
states as part of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).
The NRECA criticized the funding
allocation because Starlink will include service to locations — such as Harlem and
terminals at Newark Liberty International Airport and Miami International
Airport — that are not rural, and because SpaceX will build the infrastructure
and serve any customers who request service with or without the FCC subsidy. Additionally, Jim Matheson, chief executive
officer of the NRECA voiced his concern about technologies that have not been
proven to meet the high speeds required for the award category. Starlink was
specifically criticized for being still in beta testing and an unproven
technology.
Similar or competitive systems
Main articles: Satellite internet
constellation and Satellite constellation § Two-way communication
- Globalstar
– an operational low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation for
satellite phone and low-speed data communications
- Iridium
satellite constellation – an operational constellation of LEO satellites
for global satellite phone service
- Kuiper
Systems – a planned 3236 LEO satellite Internet constellation being built
by an Amazon subsidiary
- O3b
MEO – Medium Earth orbit constellation that covers the equatorial region
- OneWeb
satellite constellation – a competitor for a low Earth orbit internet
constellation
- Orbcomm
– an operational constellation used to provide global asset monitoring and
messaging services from its constellation of 29 LEO communications
satellites orbiting at 775 km
- Project
Loon – former concept to provide internet access via balloons in the
stratosphere
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