Starlink Broadband Seem to be Preparing a Rugged Battery Powered Mini Dish

A growing amount of evidence seems to be suggesting that SpaceX may be developing a new and more rugged mini dish (terminal) for their Starlink broadband service which, as well as being tougher, may also feature a built-in battery and USB-C charging port for power (the current mini dish requires an adapter for such access).

According to several different sources (here, here and here), information extracted from the latest Firmware releases for Starlink’s service appear to make reference to a new “MINI1_RUGGED_PROD1” product, as well as other entries for “PowerSource_USBC“, “PowerSource_BATTERY“, and “PowerSource_USBC_AND_BATTERY” (new entries also exist for monitoring the battery state).

The suggestion is that we could be looking at the future launch of a Rugged Mini Dish, which may feature a built-in battery or the option to add one. At present Starlink has not announced any such products, either officially or otherwise, although it would be a useful option for the service to have. The catch is that any battery would need to be quite beefy in order to support a good level of service performance, which might add a fair bit to the cost.

Starlink currently has nearly 10,400 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – mostly at altitudes of between c.340-550km. Residential customers in the UK previously paid from £40 a month for the ‘Residential 100Mbps’ unlimited data plan (kit price may vary due to different offers), which also promises uploads of c.15-35Mbps and low latency connectivity. Faster packages exist at greater cost, while more restrictive (data capped) options also exist for roaming users (e.g. £55 per month for 100GB of data).