The American company SpaceX plans to launch three more batches of mini-satellites into orbit by the end of May to replenish the orbital grouping of the global Internet coverage network Starlink.
This follows from the data of the specialized publication Spaceflight Now.
In May, SpaceX has already launched two Starlink Internet satellites. The last one was performed on May 10 using a Falcon 9 rocket.
It was the 84th launch of Internet satellites since May 2019 as part of the Starlink project and the 15th since the beginning of this year. With the current launch, SpaceX has already launched almost 4.4 thousand such satellites into orbit. Some of them have failed or have fallen out of orbit. More than 4 thousand vehicles remain in orbit in working order.
The company is now the largest satellite operator in the world. Starlink’s Internet network is available to users in 53 countries, including North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. According to the Pentagon, the US military is also actively using the services of these satellites.
In the future, SpaceX plans to deploy an orbital grouping of 12 thousand spacecraft (and later – 30 thousand) to create a full-scale network that will provide the world’s inhabitants with broadband Internet access anywhere in the world. The total investment in the project is estimated at $10 billion.
