SpaceX successfully puts 26 operational Starlink V3 broadband satellites into orbit

SpaceX has this afternoon successfully launched their new Starship rocket into a proper orbit around the Earth (Flight 14) and deployed 26 fully operational commercial Starlink V3 broadband satellites (these are not temporary test samples like last time), which marks a significant achievement after several years of intense development.

Starlink now has c.11,160 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for both broadband and mobile services – mostly at altitudes of between c.340-550km. Residential users in the UK pay from £40 a month for the 100Mbps unlimited data plan, which also promises uploads of c.15-35Mbps and low latency connectivity (c.20ms). Faster packages exist at greater cost, while data capped options are also available for roaming (e.g. £55 per month for 100GB of data).

The new third generation (GEN3 or V3) satellites are much bigger and significantly more powerful than previous GEN 1 and 2 models, which means they are only commercially viable when launched on top of a massive rocket like Starship (Falcon 9 isn’t powerful enough to handle the necessary quantities). Once refined, Starship should be able to put c.60 of these into orbit per launch (here).

The V3 satellites are expected to deliver ten times the amount of broadband capacity and data density versus GEN2, potentially offering up to gigabit speeds to consumers; once there are enough of them in orbit. As we’ve previously reported, each v3 will be able to handle 1 Terabit per second (1000Gbps) of total downlink (up from 96Gbps on V2 Mini) and 160Gbps of uplink speed (shared capacity). Each satellite also features 6 x 400Gbps speed laser links for inter-satellite connectivity.

Admittedly the launch didn’t go completely according to plan, not least because one of Starship’s engines was extinguished prematurely and nearly resulted in the final orbital burn being abandoned. The good news, as per the picture above, is that the mission was able to proceed and Starship eventually released all of its 26 Starlinks to orbit and began communicating with them. After this the Starlinks will gradually raise their own orbits to the correct altitude.

The mission is also important for NASA, which intends to partly harness Starship to help return humans to the moon under their Artemis program. Industry reports also suggest that SpaceX may then discontinue all but a few Falcon 9 missions beginning in 2028 (the main workhorse rocket of SpaceX’s current fleet), which would see Starship doing all the heavy lifting from 2029 onwards.

However, SpaceX does still have a bit more work to do toward the goal of 100% reusability with Starship, which is currently some way off being as immediately reusable as Falcon 9. SpaceX has already managed to “catch” several of their booster stages (a huge step forward), but Starship itself is still ending its missions with controlled splashdowns in the ocean to collect heat shield data etc.