Elon Musk needs no introduction in the world of technology as he spearheads one of the most forward-thinking and futuristic companies in the whole world – SpaceX which is all set to potentially disrupt and revolutionise the high-speed industry as well.
Starlink, as it is called, is a bold venture of Elon Musk which hopes to provide high-speed, low latency internet. He is trying to pull it off by launching multiple satellites in forms of small devices which would eventually blanket the earth completely to beam broadband globally.
Musk has planned to launch up to 30,000 of these small devices which would act as satellites networking together and has reportedly submitted the paperwork for that to International Telecommunication Union. Up until now a total number of 240 satellites have been launched in the Earth’s orbit.
Last year Elon Musk had said that Starlink would serve as a major and new revenue stream to support his Space Exploration Technologies company based out of California and therefore there have been mentions of Starlink offering an IPO, giving potential investors a chance, at last, to buy into his ‘to be profitable’ budding space internet business while his primary company SpaceX still remains privately held.
Gwynne Shotwell, Cheif Operating Officer of SpaceX has reportedly mentioned to a news outlet they find Starlink to be the right kind of business to be taken ahead as public while confirming that SpaceX would still continue to be a privately held company. By 2025, SpaceX hopes to be earning as much as $22 billion annually from this project or business and therefore surpass their earnings from launching satellites for others in the orbit.
However, this brand new and bold project of Elon Musk has lately been getting a lot of criticism from one specific scientific community – the astronomers. They fear it will make scientific research for more difficult for them as it would blot out the night sky as reported by an astronomer named Krzysztof Stanek to a news outlet.
What does this mean for us?
While this grandiose plan of Elon Musk seems bold and exciting especially now that he’s almost halfway there to have accomplished it, it can still take a few more years until we get reap the benefits of the proposed service. It is important to notice that there have been previous attempts to build similar services but at the end, no company could comprehend how to turn such a mammoth system in a global business opportunity and therefore it would certainly be a challenge to Elon Musk and SpaceX as well. Although with the kind of feats that Elon has pulled off previously, this could well as be considered ‘cake-walk’ for a man of his capabilities.
Now the question remains how many people will be open and willing to pay for this ambitious project of his when it gets done. Only time will tell how things will unfold with this venture of his but nonetheless it has obviously started garnering a lot of attention, both positive and negative globally. We will definitely keep you posted on any further developments in this story. Do let us know about your thoughts on this in the comments.
