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SpaceX launches the first batch of Gen2
- Zigurd 4y agoIn rough numbers, each bird has about 10X more capacity, and they plan to launch 10X more than gen 1 Starlink. That should take Starlink from what is a bent-pipe proof-of-concept that has trouble scaling past 1M subs, to something that has the theoretical ability to support around 100M subs, which puts Starlink into the league of first tier telecom providers. And it will work as a "space backbone" rather than requiring a downlink to be in range. But, with 50 birds per Falcon 9, it will take about 800 Falcon 9 launches to build the full constellation. 100 launches per year might be do-able, and the non-reusable 2nd stage will increase costs. But that's not enough to build and maintain a constellation with a lifespan of 5 years for each satellite. It looks like gen 2 really does depend on Starship. It is also not a slam dunk that there are 100X as many potential subs for this service. At the low end, geostationary and smaller LEO constellations can carry small amounts of near-real-time data, and at the high end, 5G fixed-wireless (FWA) will be competing for the same potential subs.