WATCH: Elon Musk's SpaceX To Launch First Experimental Starlink Internet Satellites Today
Elon Musk wants to create a constellation of thousands of satellites to beam internet down to Earth.
Today, he should get one step closer to that goal as SpaceX gears up for the launch of two prototype Starlink satellites.
Due to launch yesterday, the lift of off one of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets was delayed by strong winds. The rocket is now set to launch from Vandenberg Air Base during a window opening at 9.17 a.m. ET.
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If the weather is more forgiving this morning, you'll be able to watch the launch live in the video below:
Credit: SpaceX
Starlink could one day beam high-speed internet worldwide using an orbiting network of satellites. The plan has been in the public eye since at least 2014, when Musk tweeted, “SpaceX is still in the early stages of developing advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations.”
He confirmed the purpose of these satellites in Twitter comments, saying the company’s internet would be “unfettered certainly and at a very low cost.”
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Just yesterday, Musk wrote the Starlink system will “serve the least served.” This name, he added, was inspired by John Green’s novel, The Fault in Our Stars.
According to a Business Insider analysis of a SpaceX Federal Communications Commission filing, the first 800 satellites deployed could provide broadband coverage worldwide.
With thousands more satellites planned, Starlink will eventually increase bandwidth capacity and availability around the equator and at the North and South Pole.
Read more: Spacex Starlink: Elon Musk Could Be Running Your Internet
SpaceX has received support from Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai. He recently stated: “Satellite technology can help reach Americans who live in rural or hard-to-serve places where fiber optic cables and cell towers do not reach.”
The Starlink prototypes are piggy-backing on the launch of PAZ, a Spanish radar-imaging satellite.
This will be the second outing for the Falcon 9’s first stage, which launched the Earth observation satellite FORMOSAT-5 for Taiwan’s National Space Organization last August.