At a media event held during the International Astronautical Congress 2019, SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell says they expect to launch their satellite broadband services next years. He added that in order to be able to start the services, SpaceX needs to launch between six to eight different grouped payloads of the Starlink constellation.
In a previous statement SpaceX said that they will need to launch 24 batches to be able to provide a global coverage. In fact, SpaceX recently filed for 30,000 satellites in addition to it’s 12,000 approved satellites to ITU.
Shotwell also told reporters at the gathering that the company is already testing Starlink connectivity for U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory use, and while she didn’t reveal consumer pricing, did note that many in the U.S. pay $80 for service that is sub-par already.
