SpaceX Set to Launch 2 Starlink Satellites to Test Gigabit Broadband

Rocket company SpaceX will on Saturday launch a pair of small Low Earth Orbit (LEO) test satellites for their proposed Starlink service, which could in theory deliver ultrafast broadband speeds of up to 1Gbps and low latency times of just 25-35ms (milliseconds) across the world.

The Microsat-2a and Microsat-2b satellite(s) – measuring just 1.1m x 0.7m x 0.7m each with a mass of 400kg – will piggyback on a Falcon 9 rocket as part of a secondary payload, which according to this official FCC document will be used to “validate the design of a phased array broadband antenna communications platform.” The planned launch would be roughly in keeping with SpaceX’s originally announced 2017/18 time-line for the prototypes (here).

Assuming all goes to plan and the test spacecraft work as expected then SpaceX hopes to deploy a vast constellation of 4,425 satellites operating in 83 orbital planes (at altitudes ranging from 1,110 km to 1,325 km) by the end of 2024, which they claim could support “affordable … fiber-like speeds” almost anywhere in the world.

In this setup end-users would need to install “relatively small” flat panel terminals (the size of a laptop) on their homes, which will use phased array technologies to allow for highly directive, steered antenna beams. The first customers could then be live by 2020, long before the full rollout is completed.

This sounds like an ideal solution, not least for tackling the digitally disadvantage parts of our world (e.g. remote rural parts of the UK), although creating such a huge network of many small spacecraft (note: each LEO platform could handle an aggregate download capacity of up to 23Gbps) will not happen without some challenge or controversy.

Aside from the sheer complexity of managing such a huge “mesh network” via optical inter-satellite links and ground links, there are also separate concerns about the rising levels of “space junk” in orbit and ensuring that SpaceX’s LEOs decay out of orbit correctly so that they don’t add to the growing problem.

SpaceX’s rocket will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 6:17AM PT on Saturday (February 17th), which is about 2:17pm UK time.