A month back I had written about Elon Musk's plans to launch a constellation of satellites around Earth's orbit that would beam down internet that would be affordable as well as faster than anyone else.
This project of his, called Starlink, serves to provide broadband internet services to the entire planet, especially to remote places that do not have access even today. To achieve this, SpaceX is going to be sending around 2200 satellites over the course of the next 5 years.
There have been many skeptics of Elon's plans (as usual) stating that this would never be feasible and so on. But as history stands proof, that doesn't deter Musk in the slightest.
In fact, everything is going according to the plan. Last year's test satellites were proven to be successes with SpaceX engineers easily streaming 4K videos and playing multiplayer games over the test satellites network. And today, SpaceX finally launched the first batch of the 2200 satellites.
Global Satellite Internet
When you really think about it, if you want to have a global internet, then satellites are the way to do it. The current internet infrastructure relies on large under sea cables that cross the oceans to connect different parts of the world.
Well, it seems that in the distant future, we might go completely wireless thanks to satellites beaming internet down to the planet, or partially wireless with both systems working in tandem.
Anyways, with the launch of 60 satellites (out of the 2200) SpaceX has officially entered production mode for the Starlink project and over the next couple years, with more and more satellites having being launched, the broadband service could start being offered to the public.
Although satellite internet is nothing new, it feels like a revolution with Elon involved because for the first time there will be a true global internet, exactly something we can imagine a futuristic civilisation having.
If all goes, well, a future version of the project is planned to be deployed over to Mars connecting the two planets. It's an interesting time to be alive folks!!