Musk’s SpaceX, an incredulous spacecraft manufacturing company is distinctively known as a champion of integration – where rockets and other space-related tech is built from recycled parts, reducing wastages to increase affordability.   

SpaceX has managed to put Starlink into orbit, a massive constellation of low-altitude satellites which connects underserved areas of the world to the internet. 

Starlink and the recently launched Starship, are less of an opportunity for being notches up into SpaceX’s portfolio and more of the stepping stones and central pillars aligned to Musk’s space exploration’s ultimate dream – going to Mars. 

The tech titan has always made no secret of his dream to make human colonies on the Red Planet by 2050, envisioning the day when the world will witness his triumph of landing a rocket on the Martian surface successfully. 

“A spacefaring civilization is all about believing in the future, thinking it will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.”
– Elon Musk

SpaceX Starship Launch Progress

One of SpaceX’s most ambitious projects to fuel the dream of Mars is launching Starship – a completely reusable and repurposable rocket transportation system that takes people and goods to Earth’s orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. In the last two years, SpaceX has unfortunately delayed its starship launch innumerable times, owing to pending licensing requisites from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). 

Just weeks after firing all other engines to test the Starship launch vehicle, Musk’s latest tweets display the decision of gearing up to conduct the maiden orbital flight of the “Starship Super Heavy Rocket” as early as this week. 

The FAA also posted a notice for SpaceX’s Starship launch date buffer window for its orbital flight between April 10 – April 12, 2023, with backup dates listed as April 18 through 21. The timing frame for all dates is between 8:00 – 11:05 AM Eastern time. 

Starship fully stacked at Starbase. Team is working towards a launch rehearsal next week followed by Starship’s first integrated flight test ~week later pending regulatory approval pic.twitter.com/9VbJLppswp

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 6, 2023

This test mission marks the first launch of the fully-stacked Starship rocket system which is SpaceX’s 394-ft tall rocket sitting on top of a ‘super heavy’ first-stage booster consisting of 33 rocket engines. Starship’s Super Heavy booster is expected to be rocketed up from SpaceX’s Starbase facilities in Boca Chica, Texas and deploy the Starship second stage into space to complete its maiden orbital before reentering Earth and splashing miles off the coast of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. 

The aerospace company had fully integrated Starship with the booster and filled its fuel tank to full capacity. SpaceX’s Starship launch practice for its Super Heavy booster had survived a scintillating conclusion at the beginning of this year when as part of the Boca Chica SpaceX launch, the crew weighted the rocket with 10 million pounds of propellant. 

SpaceX And FAA: A Saga Of Launch Approvals

Although Starship’s Super Heavy booster sits on the pedestal of being powered as the world’s most powerful launch vehicle to ever be developed, the ability to hoist more than 100 metric tonnes to Earth’s orbit is privy to the FAA’s acquiescence. 

The Elon Musk-led company still seeks the launch license for its Texas-based first orbital Starship test flight from the FAA. 

Starship is ready for launch 🚀

Awaiting regulatory approval

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 9, 2023

In a statement to the press, the FAA clarified the notion of its planning notice having no influence over its licensing regulations. 

“The FAA has not made a license determination for the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy operation. FAA Command Center’s planning notice will not, and should not be interpreted as an indicator that a determination to issue a license has been made or is forthcoming.” 

Yet, reports from a source close to the issue affirm that SpaceX’s launch license for its Starship test could be granted by the FAA by today, but also cautioned that the licensing process is due to delays due to environmental compliance reviews. 

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He was speaking in a video interview from California with the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. He revealed that the company had managed partnerships with two major telco companies that would be helpful in deploying fifth-generation mobile and cellular networks.

Musk said investment costs before Starlink achieves fully positive cash flow would be $5-$10 billion.

Starlink offers internet to the remotest parts of the world through low orbit satellites. It will most likely be able to provide global coverage by September, according to the company’s president, Gwynne Shotwell. The network has already garnered over 500,000 preorders for its service It has more than 1,800 satellites aloft and plans to deploy another 12,000 satellites at the cost of roughly $10 billion. Currently, it offers beta services in 11 countries, adding more every month. The current customer base is 69,000.

Musk said during his video call that the company was losing money on its Starlink terminals that receive the signals from the satellites for broadband beaming.

The terminals cost $1,000 to make, and the company sells them for $500 – plus a $99 monthly subscription. The company will soon release a new model of its terminal, which will be cheaper to make, he said.

The high cost of investment is a point of worry for some analysts who fear that services are aimed at people living in remote parts of the world and they will not be able to afford the high tariffs needed to cover the costs.

According to analyst Tim Farrar, president of TMF Associates, Starlink needs a few million subscribers to pay $99 a month to recoup a $5 billion investment in a year’s time.

And to achieve the ambitious $30 billion revenue a year that Musk talks about, it would require tens of millions of subscribers to achieve.

Once it is able to give continuous internet services, the company will seek the required regulatory approvals. SpaceX has got approval from the US Federal Communications Commission this year to deploy some Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit than planned to provide high-speed broadband internet services.

There are some reservations about deploying so many satellites at such low orbits. Astronauts fear that they will obstruct observations and even create some signal interference.

SpaceX is working with NASA and other research labs to minimize the risk to the astronauts and the space observatory. Plans are to tilt the angle of the satellite and paint it black to stop reflection from the Sun. But will it be enough is yet to be seen.

The Starlink team is in talks with “several” airlines to beam internet to their airplanes, the project’s vice president Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX’s VP of Starlink and commercial sales, told a panel at the Connected Aviation Intelligence Summit.

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“We’ve successfully deployed 1,800 or so satellites and once all those satellites reach their operational orbit, we will have continuous global coverage, so that should be like September timeframe,” Shotwel said at a technology conference. “But then we have regulatory work to go into every country and get approved to provide telecoms services,” she added. Starlink plans to deploy 12,000 satellites at the cost of roughly $10 billion. Currently, it offers beta services in 11 countries, Shotwel said. The services will bring the internet to the remotest parts of the world at an affordable rate.

SpaceX has got approval from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this year to deploy some Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit than planned to provide high-speed broadband internet services.

There are some other companies that are planning to provide satellite internet services, including Amazon.com’s Kuiper, Britain’s OneWeb, venture capital-backed Planet, and Raytheon Technologies Corp’s Blue Canyon Technologies.

Starlink services are already in use as test cases. Emergency responders in Washington State used the satellite network to set up a Wi-fi hotspot for people affected by wildfires in the state. It is also being used by a remote Native American tribe for telehealth consultancy.

There are some reservations about deploying so many satellites at such low orbits. Astronauts fear they will obstruct observations and even create some signal interference.

SpaceX is working with NASA and other research labs to minimize the risk to the astronauts and the space observatory. Plans are to tilt the angle of the satellite and paint it black to stop reflection from the Sun. But will it be enough is yet to be seen.

The Starlink team is in talks with “several” airlines to beam internet to their airplanes, the project’s vice president Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX’s VP of Starlink and commercial sales, told a panel at the Connected Aviation Intelligence Summit on Wednesday. “We’re in talks with several of the airlines,” said Hofeller. “We have our own aviation product in development… we’ve already done some demonstrations to date, and looking to get that product finalized to be put on aircraft in the very near future.”

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SpaceX launched its latest batch of 60 internet-beaming Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Florida on Sunday.

This takes up the total of Starlink satellites to 835 thus far. Though not all are operational as some were test satellites. But these constellations of low-orbit satellites are strong enough ocean high-speed internet down to Earth.

Elon Musk, the CEO of the company says that the aim is to build a strong network of such satellites above Earth capable of supplying the internet to 99 percent of the globe.

“With performance that far surpasses that of the traditional satellite internet, and a global network unbounded by ground infrastructure limitations, Starlink will deliver high-speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable,” the firm’s website states.

The network is already live and is being tested by some users in the US and Canada.

Emergency responders in Washington State used the satellite network to set up a Wi-fi hotspot for people affected by wildfires in the state.

It is also being used by a remote Native American tribe for telehealth consultancy.

A wider beta testing is expected after the latest launch.“Once these satellites reach their target position, we will be able to roll out a fairly wide public beta in northern US and hopefully southern Canada,” he tweeted. “Other countries to follow as soon as we receive regulatory approval.”

There are reservations from astronauts about these low-orbit satellites, which they say will obstruct observations and even create some signal interference.

SpaceX is working with NASA and other research labs to minimize the risk to the astronauts and the space observatory. Plans are to tilt the angle of the satellite and paint it black to stop reflection from the Sun.

But a report by the Satellite Constellations 1 (Satcon1) workshop, which was signed by hundreds of astronomers, said: “no combination of mitigations can completely avoid the impacts of satellite trails on the science programs of the coming generation.”

The latest launch also included a successful controlled landing and recovery of the first-stage booster. One of the fairing halves though it was slightly damaged as a catching net gave way on the recovery barge. SpaceX says the recovery crew is fine.

There is another launch planned for October 21. SpaceX this year has focused mostly on delivering its own Starlink satellites to orbit. The company has already launched almost 300 new Starlink satellites since June.

In related news, Nokia’s industrial research and scientific development arm, Bell Labs, has secured $14.1 million in funding from NASA to build and deploy the first wireless network on the moon, starting with 4G/LTE technologies and moving to 5G later on.

The system could support lunar surface communications at greater distances, increased speeds, and provide more reliability than current standards.

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California-based rocket builder SpaceX successfully launched a new batch of Starlink internet satellites into orbit late on Wednesday. A group of 60 satellites were launched and also nailed a rocket landing at sea to top off the mission. The launch is the second event in five days for SpaceX.

On Saturday, a separate Falcon 9 rocket sent NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard a Crew Dragon capsule to the ISS. This kicked off the SpaceX’s landmark Demo-2 mission. The two astronauts docked with the orbiting lab around 19 hours later and will remain in the ISS for 1-4 months. The Falcon 9, whose first stage had already flown four times before, lifted off at 9:25 p.m. EDT from the Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rocket used in the satellite launch is the second Falcon 9 first stage to fly five times. The booster previously launched two other Starlink missions as well as a batch of Iridium NEXT satellites and a Canadian communications satellite.

The first attempt at flying a booster by SpaceX’s did not go as planned. That early stage, which launched 60 Starlink satellites this past March, experienced an engine anomaly as it climbed into the sky. Though the satellites launched into orbit, the booster missed its landing on a drone ship at sea and was successfully destroyed. An investigation revealed that some residual cleaning agent was trapped in the engine, which caused the anomaly.

The recent satellite launched rocket landing involved the drone ship ‘Just Read the Instructions.’ The ship, which was initially based on the West Coast, was moved to the East Coast last year. This is the first mission it was used since the shift. This is because SpaceX’s first drone ship, “Of Course I Still Love You,” was busy bringing the Demo-2 booster back to port. This is the first time that SpaceX has had both of its drone ships operational in the same ocean.

The latest flight is the eighth 60-satellite mission for SpaceX’s Starlink project, which brings the total number of satellites launched for the nascent broadband network to 482. The launch was initially planned to take off in mid-May but was duly postponed due to poor weather and schedule conflicts.

SpaceX plans to build a constellation of Starlink satellites 12,000 strong. The project is designed to provide high-speed internet service to customers worldwide, especially to people in remote areas. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk stated that at least 400 Starlink crafts are needed before SpaceX can roll out minimal internet coverage. The company requires at least 800 satellites to provide moderate coverage. That service could start later in 2020.

With the considerable number of satellites in orbit, SpaceX is operating the most extensive satellite fleet ever in orbit. However, ever since the first launch, SpaceX company is always under fire from astronomers as well as scientists over concerns that the constellation’s apparent brightness will disrupt astronomical observations.

SpaceX has been rigorously experimenting with different ways of reducing the satellites’ brightness. Musk and SpaceX stated that they would add unique sunshades to the upcoming Starlink satellites. These sunshades would act as a visor of sorts that would limit the craft’s reflectivity. The first such visor-equipped Starlink craft took flight on the recent mission.

To get Starlink started and running, SpaceX needs more than just satellite launches. It also requires user terminals. In March 2020, SpaceX was approved for up to one million user terminals as part of a blanket license. The hardware used will be simple enough that anyone can install it, and according to Musk, who stated that the terminals look like a “UFO on a stick.” The terminals would be available with two simple instructions — the plugin and point at the sky instruction— and would be equipped with actuators that ensure they’re pointing where they should be at all times. Following the satellite launch successful liftoff, the veteran Falcon 9 booster landed on a floating platform at sea, marking the company’s 53rd successful recovery. SpaceX has two more flights on the pipeline for June, another batch of Starlink satellites, and an upgraded GPS satellite for the U.S. Space Force.

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SpaceX is seeking approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconfigure its satellites to beam Starlink broadband from space.

SpaceX, the commercial space company founded by Elon Musk, plans to deploy a constellation of internet-providing satellites called Starlink. By the end of 2020, we might see the commercialization of Starlink broadband across the southern United States.

“This adjustment will accelerate coverage to southern states and U.S. territories, potentially expediting coverage to the southern continental United States by the end of the next hurricane season and reaching other U.S. territories by the following hurricane season,” SpaceX said in an application filed on Aug. 30 and accepted last week.

If SpaceX follows the schedule, Starlink could be available across 48 contiguous US states by November 2020, when next year’s hurricane season ends.

A report published by Morgan Stanley on Tuesday estimates that SpaceX broadband would turn the company into a $52 billion giant. Starlink would add about $20 billion to its current valuation, and potentially making SpaceX the most valuable private company in the US.

Starlink Plan

Over the past week, SpaceX has laid out plans to launch a “much higher” number of rockets in 2020 than this year’s projected max of 18. The space company is currently seeking permission from regulators to rearrange its planned constellation, dubbed Starlink, in a way that it would allow fewer satellites to cover more territory.

Starlink could grow to include US territories, such as Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. One of the key benefits of this technology is that internet access doesn’t get knocked offline due to bad weather. Ground-based services still don’t reach Americans who live in rural or hard-to-reach places.

According to the FCC, more than 24 million Americans lack access to speedy broadband (at least 25Mpbs in download speed and 3 Mbps for upload speed). While half of the global population lacks internet access entirely.

An innovative service like Starlink’s could translate into billions of dollars in SpaceX’s pocket each year.

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SpaceX will lay off 10 percent of its 6,000-workforce in pursuit of becoming “leaner,” the company announced on Friday.

Even with SpaceX’s increasing its satellite launches – 21 in 2018, up from 18 the year before, the aerospace manufacturer has occasionally cut its workforce. Last year, the company fired some senior managers at the Redmond office over disagreements arising from the developing and testing of its Starlink satellites.

Earlier this month, the Hawthorne, California-based company raised $273 million through preferred stock, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company’s valuation rose to $31 billion after initiating a $500 million equity sale.

“To continue delivering for our customers and to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space-based internet, SpaceX must become a leaner company,” the Hawthorne-based company said in a statement. “Either of these developments, even when attempted separately, have bankrupted other organizations. This means we must part ways with some talented and hardworking members of our team.”

SpaceX makes most of its money from commercial and national security satellite launches. In its kitty are two NASA contracts – a multibillion-dollar deal to deliver cargo to the International Space Station and a $2.6 billion deal to develop a capsule that will deliver astronauts to the space station.

SpaceX is offering a minimum of 8 weeks of pay along with other benefits to laid-off workers. The company will also offer assistance in the form of career coaching and job searches.

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