Satellite

Elon Musk and SpaceX are launching a military-branded version of Starlink called Starshield. According to its newly launched website, Starshield will be the military and government version of Starlink, a satellite based internet service. It will first focus on three areas: Earth observation, communications, and hosted payloads. So it will be a spy satellite, a communication platform, and will be customizable for the individual customer. The satellite bus is part of its main body and can be outfitted with different sensors depending on the user’s needs.

SpaceX has launched Starlink in Alaska. Alaskans who have signed up for the service said they’re eager to try it. Some expect Starlink to provide faster, cheaper service than GCI, the state’s largest telecommunications company. But Starlink is just one of several ongoing efforts that could transform telecommunications in the state, where more than 200 villages lack city-quality internet service. North Pole resident Bert Somers said that he’d give the service a B so far. 

The Federal Communications Commission granted the application of Space Exploration Holdings to construct, deploy, and operate a constellation of 29,988 non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellites, to be known as its “secondgeneration” Starlink constellation (Gen2 Starlink), using Ku-, Ka-, and E-band frequencies to provide fixed-satellite service (FSS). Specifically, the FCC granted SpaceX authority to construct, deploy, and operate up to 7,500 satellites operating at altitudes of 525, 530, and 535 km and inclinations of 53, 43, and 33 degrees, respectively, using frequencies in the Ku- and K

Elon Musk’s satellite Starlink technology is to be part of a UK government trial to get better internet connectivity to remote parts of the country. Starlink will initially be trialled at three remote locations—Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire Moors national park, Wasdale Head in the Lake District, and two sites within Snowdonia national park. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said it was continuing to look at the capability of the system, as well as looking at other solutions and services with different suppliers.

The Federal Communications Commission announced the agenda for its December 2022 open commission meeting. The FCC will consider:

Approximately 400,000 households now subscribe to Starlink worldwide. Perhaps a victim of their own success, Starlink download speeds dropped once again in Canada (at least 14%) and the US (at least 17%) from Q2 to Q3 2022, while speeds remained roughly the same in Chile quarter over quarter.

The list prices of Starlink communications devices have nearly doubled in Ukraine, as mobile networks have started failing under Russia’s assault on the country’s electricity grid and increased demand for the SpaceX-manufactured satellite communication device. Starlink terminals, which are made by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, will increase in price to $700 for new Ukrainian consumers, according to the company’s website.

For stock investors, a new risk is orbiting the satellite market: By trying to preserve competition, antitrust regulators could end up placing even more power in the hands of a privately-owned behemoth—Elon Musk‘s Starlink. California’s Viasat announced a $7.3 billion takeover of British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat in late 2021, making it a centerpiece in the long-awaited consolidation of the satellite market. Yet, despite the deal being cleared by the U.K.

There’s one bit of the future that Elon Musk has built and isn’t interested in using: A potential power that researchers have identified in his Starlink satellite system. For the past two years, Todd Humphreys, an Army-funded researcher at the University of Texas in Austin, and a team of researchers reverse-engineered signals sent from thousands of Starlink internet satellites in low Earth orbit to ground-based receivers, finding that the constellation could form a precise navigation sy