{"id":17769,"date":"2020-03-09T19:57:41","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T11:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-ceo-elon-musk-says-theres-nothing-to-fear-from-starlink-broadband-satellites-and-no-spin-out\/"},"modified":"2020-03-09T19:57:41","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T11:57:41","slug":"spacex-ceo-elon-musk-says-theres-nothing-to-fear-from-starlink-broadband-satellites-and-no-spin-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-ceo-elon-musk-says-theres-nothing-to-fear-from-starlink-broadband-satellites-and-no-spin-out\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says there\u2019s nothing to fear from Starlink broadband satellites (and no spin-out)"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_552186\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-552186\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-552186\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/200309-musk-630x353.jpg\" alt=\"Elon Musk\" width=\"630\" height=\"353\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/200309-musk-630x353.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/200309-musk-1260x706.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/200309-musk-768x430.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/200309-musk-1536x861.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/200309-musk.jpg 1917w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-552186\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceX CEO Elon Musk discusses Starlink and Starship during a fireside chat at the Satellite 2000 conference. (Via Satellite \/ Access Intelligence via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Will SpaceX\u2019s Starlink broadband satellite constellation ruin astronomy? Will it threaten the telecom industry? Will SpaceX spin out Starlink anytime soon?<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX\u2019s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, answered all three questions today at a fireside chat at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, D.C.: No, no and no.<\/p>\n<p>The session started late, and Musk seemed a bit tired \u2014 perhaps because he\u2019d just come from working on SpaceX\u2019s Starship super-rocket development project, which is taking shape at the company\u2019s Boca Chica test facility in south Texas. Nevertheless, his fans rushed into the conference hall and hung on his every word.<\/p>\n<p>Starlink and Starship were the prime topics of the talk with conference chairman Jeffrey Hill. Musk didn\u2019t unveil any major new initiatives, as he did during past conferences in Mexico and Australia. But he did get a chance to address some of the issues surrounding his multibillion-dollar space projects.<\/p>\n<h3>Swarms of Starlink satellites<\/h3>\n<p>The Starlink project aims to put thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit, or LEO, to provide broadband internet access to those who are currently underserved (and to the U.S. military as well).<\/p>\n<p>Flat-panel Starlink satellites are being produced at the rate of six per day at SpaceX\u2019s factory in Redmond, Wash., and are being launched in batches of 60 from Florida on SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket. The next batch is due to go up as early as this coming weekend, joining 300 others of the same breed.<\/p>\n<p>Astronomers have voiced rising concerns about having so many satellites flitting through the night sky, but Musk argued that the concerns were overblown. Once the satellites settle into their orbits, they\u2019re hard to spot, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve not yet met someone who can tell me where all of them are, not even one person.\u201d he said. \u201cIt can\u2019t be that big of a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, he promised that the satellites would be re-engineered if need be to avoid interfering with astronomical observations.&nbsp;\u201cI am confident that we will not cause any impact whatsoever in astronomical discoveries. Zero. That\u2019s my prediction,\u201d Musk said. \u201cWe\u2019ll take corrective action if it\u2019s above zero.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Elon Musk at the Satellite 2020 | The Esports Circus\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/o_f4h29Dnek?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>SpaceX has been engaged in talks with astronomical groups about mitigating potential interference. Musk said such measures could include having the satellites\u2019 phased-array antenna manufactured in black instead of white, to cut down on the glare from orbit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re working on a sunshade, because there are certain angles where if the sun gets just right, and there\u2019s not just just a little sunshade \u2026 then you can get a reflection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Musk has talked up the idea of beaming internet virtually anywhere around the globe, with signal delay times of less than 20 milliseconds. The aim is to provide enough bandwidth to stream high-definition movies or play quick-response video games. But Musk acknowledged that there were some areas of the world where Starlink might not be able to offer a competitive service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe challenge for anything that is space-based is that the size of the cell is gigantic,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s great for very low to maybe medium-sparsity situations, but it\u2019s not good for high-density situations. We\u2019ll have some small number of customers in L.A., but we can\u2019t do a lot of customers in L.A., because the bandwidth per cell is to be not high enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For high-density areas, Musk said terrestrial 5G service might make more sense. The plan is for SpaceX\u2019s Starlink to mesh with terrestrial telecom services to fill in the coverage gaps.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not some huge threat to telcos,\u201d Musk said. \u201cI want to be super-clear: It is not. In fact, it will be helpful to telcos, because Starlink will serve the hardest-to-serve customers that telcos otherwise have trouble dealing with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Musk has said the billions of dollars in revenue from Starlink would go toward developing the Starship launch system for trips to Mars. More recently, SpaceX\u2019s president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, floated the idea of spinning out Starlink as a publicly traded company. Today Musk played down that idea.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re thinking about that zero,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to make the thing work. \u2026 It\u2019s real important to just set the stage here for LEO communications constellations. Guess how many LEO constellations didn\u2019t go bankrupt? Zero.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Musk said he wanted to make sure that Starlink didn\u2019t follow in the footsteps of Teledesic (the telecom venture backed by Bill Gates that fizzled out two decades ago) or Iridium (which went bankrupt but was restructured). \u201cThat would be a big step, to have more than zero in the not-bankrupt category,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<h3>Speeding ahead with Starship<\/h3>\n<p>Going not-bankrupt is also a motivator in the Starship development effort, which is focusing on developing and testing prototype rocket components in quick succession. One stainless-steel Starship prototype, known as SN1, burst apart at Boca Chica less than two weeks ago. SpaceX is already moving on to SN2.<\/p>\n<p>Cost concerns were among the reasons why Starship prototypes are being built so quickly, and being built out of steel rather than, say, carbon composite.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt may sound like some great insight, but it actually happened because we were moving too slowly on composite,\u201d Musk said. \u201cI was like, we cannot move this slowly or we\u2019ll go bankrupt. So do this with steel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Starship is being designed for a turnaround time of as little as an hour between landing at the end of one mission and launching to start the next mission. \u201cWe want to aim toward a capability of three flights a day for the ship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Musk is targeting this year for the start of limited Starlink service, and for the first orbital launch of a Starship spacecraft. Those aspirational goals aren\u2019t motivated merely by a fear or going bankrupt, but also by a fear of not going where Musk wants to go.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we don\u2019t improve our pace of progress, I\u2019m definitely going to be dead before we go to Mars,\u201d the 48-year-old billionaire said. \u201cI would like to not be dead by the time we go to Mars. That\u2019s my aspiration here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>On other topics:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Musk said he was glad that SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon space capsule will play a role in transporting astronauts to and from low Earth orbit, but he also sounded wary about focusing too much on LEO operations. \u201cI think we need to be very careful of getting stuck in a local maximum,\u201d he said, using a mathematical term. \u201cThe space shuttle was something that was really stuck in a local maximum for a long time, and we don\u2019t want to be in that situation.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Musk said reusable rockets and in-space refueling will be essential for getting to Mars, but he didn\u2019t think going to the moon or making use of lunar resources was all that necessary. \u201cThe moon is neither here nor there,\u201d he said. \u201cUsing the moon would be like, OK, if you want to cross the Atlantic, maybe you want to go to Iceland, probably not. To visit, sure, but it\u2019s not a mandatory step.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>In response to a student\u2019s observations about how hard it was to get the education required for jobs in the satellite industry, Musk provided an unconventional perspective. \u201cYou don\u2019t need college to learn stuff,\u201d said Musk, who dropped out of Stanford to launch a startup. \u201cYou can learn anything you want for free. \u2026 There is a value that colleges have, which is seeing whether somebody can work hard at something, including a bunch of annoying homework assignments \u2026 and get it done.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX CEO Elon Musk discusses Starlink and Starship during a fireside chat at the Satellite 2000 conference. (Via Satellite \/ Access Intelligence via YouTube) Will SpaceX\u2019s Starlink broadband satellite constellation ruin astronomy? Will it threaten the telecom industry? Will SpaceX spin out Starlink anytime soon? SpaceX\u2019s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, answered all three questions today [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1045,4590,316,4328,440],"class_list":["post-17769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-elon-musk","tag-satellite-conference","tag-spacex","tag-spacex-starship","tag-starlink"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}