Spacex has asked the federal government for permission to begin testing on an ambitious project to beam Internet service from space, a significant step forward for an initiative that could create another major competitor to Comcast, AT&T and other telecom companies.
The plan calls for launching a constellation of 4,000 small and cheap satellites that would beam high-speed Internet signals to all parts of the globe, including its most remote regions.
Google and Fidelity recently invested $1 billion into SpaceX, in part to support the satellite broadband Internet project.
Musk’s FCC filing proposes tests starting next year. If all goes well, the service could be up and running in about five years.
Elon Musk has proposed a network of some 4,000 micro-satellites to provide broadband Internet services around the globe. SpaceX is partnering with Google and Fidelity Investments, which are investing $1 billion for a 10 percent stake in the endeavor. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Qualcomm, meanwhile, are investing in a competing venture called OneWeb, which aims to build a similar network of micro-satellites.
Satellite technology has advanced, bringing the cost of deployment down significantly. Toaster-sized micro-satellites can be launched dozens at a time, and don’t have to operate at very high orbits, reducing launch costs, but they can deliver performance comparable to larger, older satellites at higher altitudes.
The speed of light is 40 per cent faster in the vacuum of space than it is for fiber. Elon plans to use optical lasers to communicate between the micro-satellites.
Elon will have 60 people working on the space Internet project initially and that could rise to 1,000 in a few years.
“You’ve got large swaths of land where there is a relatively low density of users,” Musk told an audience at the opening of SpaceX’s new satellite development center in Seattle last week. “Space is actually ideal for that.”
Musk and Branson are not alone in recognizing the market potential. Besides investing in Musk’s project, Google is working on a high-altitude balloon-based Internet delivery system called Loon. And Facebook is developing high-altitude, high-endurance drones to deliver Internet capability to remote areas. The Google and Facebook projects would be similar in concept to the space-based systems, while operating within the Earth’s atmosphere.
OneWeb is a supercharged version of O3b. Instead of dozens of satellites, Wyler plans to put up hundreds—648, to start with.
The satellites will be in a low-earth orbit 750 miles up, much closer than even O3b’s machines. Engineers expect data to travel between space and the surface in 20 milliseconds, which would provide a state-of-the-art Internet service capable of handling any application.
Musk’s plan is to build thousands of satellites at a SpaceX factory, launch them with his own rockets, and use them to handle much of the world’s Internet traffic. “We want a satellite that is an order of magnitude more sophisticated than what Greg [Wyler of OneWeb] wants,” he says. “I think there should be two competing systems.”
According to Musk, SpaceX will focus on making satellites for itself for the time being, rather than competing with its customers, although that may change over time. “I think we would consider building satellites for ourselves and for other people,” he says. “We’ll start by building ones that address the specific application that we are working on, and then we will be more than happy to sell to other people.”
Musk said it will take many, many years to have his Internet service up and running. “People should not expect this to be active sooner than five years,” he said. And it’ll be expensive: Around $10 billion to build, he says. “But we see it as a long-term revenue source for SpaceX to be able to fund a city on Mars.”
SOURCES – Bloomberg business week, youtube, Technology Review, Washington Post,
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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