{"id":17779,"date":"2020-02-28T20:56:47","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T12:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-ceo-elon-musk-touts-starlink-satellites-and-robotic-fighter-jets-at-air-warfare-symposium\/"},"modified":"2020-02-28T20:56:47","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T12:56:47","slug":"spacex-ceo-elon-musk-touts-starlink-satellites-and-robotic-fighter-jets-at-air-warfare-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-ceo-elon-musk-touts-starlink-satellites-and-robotic-fighter-jets-at-air-warfare-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX CEO Elon Musk touts Starlink satellites and robotic fighter jets at Air Warfare Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_550353\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-550353\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-550353\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/200228-musk-630x369.jpg\" alt=\"Elon Musk\" width=\"630\" height=\"369\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/200228-musk-630x369.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/200228-musk-1260x739.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/200228-musk-768x450.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/200228-musk-1536x900.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/200228-musk.jpg 1815w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-550353\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at the Air Force Association\u2019s Air Warfare Symposium. (USAF via DVIDS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took a rare deep dive into the workings of his company\u2019s Starlink broadband satellite operation in Redmond, Wash., today at the Air Force Association\u2019s Air Warfare Symposium in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>He also put in a pitch for robotic fighter jets \u2026 and for Starfleet Academy.<\/p>\n<p>The discussion of Starlink satellite development came during a nearly hourlong fireside chat with Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Air Force\u2019s Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX\u2019s satellite operation was established five years ago in Redmond, in part because Musk was looking for the sort of engineering expertise that was available at Microsoft and Boeing. \u201cThere\u2019s a huge amount of talent in the Seattle area, and a lot of you guys, it seems, don\u2019t want to move to L.A.,\u201d Musk told a crowd of engineers when he announced the satellite project at Seattle Center.<\/p>\n<p>It took years to get the satellites off the ground, and the road wasn\u2019t always smooth. Two prototype satellites were launched in February 2018, but just a few months later, Musk reorganized the Redmond operation. As a result, several of Redmond\u2019s top engineers left SpaceX. Some of them ended up in leading roles for Amazon\u2019s rival satellite effort, known as Project Kuiper.<\/p>\n<p>Like Project Kuiper, the Starlink operation aims to put thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit to provide new avenues for broadband internet access. But Starlink has a head start of several years: SpaceX has launched 300 of the satellites and could begin limited service later this year.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX and the Air Force have already been testing the partial Starlink network for in-the-air communication under the terms of a $28.7 million contract. And Starlink will come in for more extensive use in April during a live-fire exercise targeting drones and cruise missiles.<\/p>\n<p>The exercise will be run from bases in Arizona, New Mexico and Florida to test the Advanced Battle Management System, or ABMS, which is designed to replace and expand upon the in-air communication capabilities of the military\u2019s JSTARS surveillance airplanes.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden; width: 500px; height: 300px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dvidshub.net\/video\/embed\/741194\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In light of Starlink\u2019s military application, it\u2019s no surprise that Thompson asked about Starlink\u2019s status during today\u2019s fireside chat. Here\u2019s how Musk replied:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cStarlink production is going well, actually. That was a hard thing to get right. We had many iterations on the Starlink prototypes. Then, building the Starlink production like was, like, 1,000% harder than designing the satellite to begin with. But it is important to design for manufacture, and have a tight feedback loop between the design of the object and the manufacturing system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you design the object at first, you don\u2019t realize all the parts that are really difficult to manufacture. So having the manufacturing system and the design \u2014 you bring those up at the same time, so that you\u2019re actually, at the beginning, making a thing that you know is wrong. But you\u2019re actually figuring out what\u2019s hard to manufacture. That\u2019s the real problem.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe brought up the Starlink production line before we actually had the design finalized, which was actually the right thing to do. And then we discovered, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s all these things in the design that were very difficult to make, so therefore we must change the design.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe satellite ended up having the same capability. It just was very easy to make and launch.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Musk immediately amended that statement, saying that the task of making and launching the satellites is still \u201csort of hard, but it\u2019s being done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He noted that the satellites are now being produced at a rate faster than they can be launched, and that the cost of manufacturing the satellite has dropped below the per-unit cost of transporting them to orbit.<\/p>\n<p>In their current configuration, the Starlink satellites are launched in bunches of 60, and deployed in such a way that they spread out in low Earth orbit and maneuver into their intended orbital positions using krypton ion thrusters. Astronomers have become increasingly worried about the satellite constellation\u2019s effect on night-sky observations. In response, SpaceX says it\u2019s experimenting with technologies that could cut down on the satellites\u2019 glare. However, Musk indicated that SpaceX doesn\u2019t intend to slow down its launch rate. In fact, he expects the rate to increase dramatically once SpaceX\u2019s Starship super-rocket goes into operation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe satellite\u2019s in a good situation, and the cost of that satellite will keep coming down as we ramp up rates and make design improvements,\u201d Musk said. \u201cSo we really need Starship to carry Starlink in order to get the total delivered cost to orbit to be much better than it is today \u2014 which is still very good.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>\u2018The fighter jet era has passed\u2019<\/h4>\n<p>On another topic, Musk said there needed to be a competitor to the Air Force\u2019s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is built by Lockheed Martin and has been the subject of controversies over cost overruns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not good to have one provider,\u201d Musk said. \u201cIt\u2019s good to have competition, where that competition is meaningful and somebody can actually lose.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Musk also said \u201clocally autonomous drone warfare is where the future will be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fighter jet era has passed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>After the talk, Musk expanded upon his comments in a tweet. \u201cThe competitor should be a drone fighter plane that\u2019s remote controlled by a human, but with its maneuvers augmented by autonomy,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe F-35 would have no chance against it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The concept that Musk described sounds similar to the \u201cLoyal Wingman\u201d system that Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Kratos have been working on. Such a system would team up pilotless, armed drones with piloted control planes. Boeing and the Navy recently demonstrated the concept using EA-18G Growler aircraft.<\/p>\n<h4>Other highlights from today\u2019s chat<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Musk said fully reusable rockets like Starship will be key to maintaining America\u2019s primacy in space. \u201cIt will definitely require radical innovation,\u201d he said. \u201cOne can\u2019t get there by incrementally innovating expendable boosters.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>If the United States doesn\u2019t continue to innovate in space, \u201cit will be second in space, as sure as night follows day,\u201d Musk said. Who would be first? Musk pointed to China. Because China\u2019s population is more than four times greater than America\u2019s, \u201cthe Chinese economy is going to be at least twice as big as the U.S. economy,\u201d he said.<\/li>\n<li>He said economic disparity will have implications for defense policy: \u201cThe foundation of war is economics, so if you have half the resources of the counter party, then you\u2019d better be real innovative. If you\u2019re not innovative, you\u2019re going to lose. \u2026 In the absence of radical innovation, the U.S. will be militarily second.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>In response to Thompson\u2019s lightning-round questions, Musk said that artificial intelligence will be the \u201cmost fundamentally transformative\u201d technology over the next five years, and that he considered computer science and physics to be the most valuable academic degrees.<\/li>\n<li>Musk said he thought creating a U.S. Space Force was a great idea, but he insisted that there should be \u201ccool uniforms, cool spaceships.\u201d He said the general public wanted to see the Star Trek vision of Starfleet Academy become a reality. \u201cJust try to make Starfleet happen as soon as humanly possible, and definitely while we\u2019re still alive,\u201d Musk told the uniformed audience. \u201cI\u2019m not sure about warp drive, but the other stuff can be done.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at the Air Force Association\u2019s Air Warfare Symposium. (USAF via DVIDS) SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took a rare deep dive into the workings of his company\u2019s Starlink broadband satellite operation in Redmond, Wash., today at the Air Force Association\u2019s Air Warfare Symposium in Florida. He also put in a pitch [&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":[39,437,1045,439,316,440],"class_list":["post-17779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aerospace","tag-air-force","tag-elon-musk","tag-military","tag-spacex","tag-starlink"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779"}],"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=17779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}