My dad says Elon needs to get off his ass and put some more sats up. They’re really fed up with viasat.
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I’m alreadiy signed up for beta test… hope to see it in 2021! If I understand it correctly, I’m at 32degN latitude and I think they at ~50degN now… maybe by summer21?
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Overheard a convo on the ferry to our holiday house this weekend. A bunch of tech guys on a field trip. One of them was super convinced that Musk is doing the starlink for automating his cars. In a way that is not relying on cell coverage, both to avoid telecom monopolies around the globe, and to ensure coverage for a self driving fleet of vehicles… time will show
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Just practicing for Mars. Combined coms and gps.
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That would be a small part of the cost, I would think. But I am sure they will be using that network at a very good cost, with high priority. In reality, the cars shouldn’t need much bandwidth. They are not remote control, they are autonomous. But if one gets stuck, they will need a remote operator to help it out.
My guess is that the schedule for their launches is not consistent. There are probably a lot of resources that are sitting idle a lot of the time. Starlink seems like a good way to fill in the gaps, and potentially make a huge future revenue stream.
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Something you don’t see every day… TWO Starships on the pad at the same time!
It appears the FAA is dragging its feet for some unknown reason… hopefully nothing political. SN9 was tested and ready to go several days ago but the FAA never gave approval to launch… even though it was fueled, ready for launch, and the countdown was in progress. What a shame for a mission to be scrubbed like that… lacking only launch approval from the FAA.
But the production line keeps humming along and now SN10 is ready to start testing… and they needed to make room in the High Bay for SN11 to finish stacking. So they wheeled SN10 on down to the launch site and now we have this incredible sight of TWO Starships – SN9 and SN10 – standing tall, next to one another. What a sight!
Hopefully, the FAA will approve the SN9 launch early next week, all else permitting? Such an impressive sight but I always gulp every time I think of SN9 launching – and landing – in such close proximity to all that expensive equipment and another Starship. Oh well… as they say, “No guts, no glory!” It’s history in the making… and, thanks to Elon and SpaceX, we’re privileged to be witnesses to such an ambitious and courageous undertaking. Unbelievable!
– David
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If there’s two things Elon seems to possess it’s vision and guts. Those two ships make me think of the ultimate Top Fuel dragsters waiting for the amber, because if you wait for the green you’re toast! 
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Several more Starlink launches since we last “talked” have helped expand and fill the constellation of satellites currently in orbit. Not sure the exact number but 1100 satellites or so have finally allowed coverage to extend down to Texas…
and I received an email YESTERDAY saying I can place my order… which I did immediately!
This is for beta test users and service should be available in our area as early as summer '21!
SN10 just performed a static fire yesterday evening as well. I think they’re gonna swap one of the three engines as it wasn’t quite up to snuff. Hopefully they’ll be able to static fire again, after the engine swap, and maybe we’ll see another 10km test flight in the next week or two. Gotta get that soft landing part down pat before we can really call it “reusable”, I should think… 
Pretty exciting stuff! – David
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I was checking out that rover panorama this morning. I was checking out the robot looking at all the details and then remembered it is actually sitting on another planet.
Prices on that starlink are not too bad even for an area with a regular connection. It seems phenomenal if you were in an area that did not have a decent or any regular connection. Should be a game changing tech internet everywhere.
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It is like a very complicated telescope. But it can also has a mass spectrometer.
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For those interested in things SpaceX (and CNC!), here’s a rather spectacular “mother of all Z-axis” builds in Boca Chica (aka “Starbase”), Texas. Under construction for the past year or so, the catching/lifting arms (“chopsticks”) and carriage assembly have now been lifted and attached to the ~400’ orbital launch tower (OLT). The carriage arms attach to roller bearings (“skates”) running on rails on three tower columns… and will soon be running up and down the tower to catch, lift, and stack the booster and starship stages of SpaceX’s “Starship” on to the orbital launch pad (OLP).
Elon Musk is not one to be timid and has come up with the idea of catching a returning earth-bound Starship booster in mid-air, rather than landing on legs… both saving weight and increasing payload. SpaceX has amply demonstrated (with its Falcon9 rocket) an amazing ability to both return and land their boosters on both land and drone-ships at sea… and apparently, they think they have enough control to maneuver the returning booster to within reach of the “chopstick” arms, where it will “hover” until the arms can move to capture and support the weight of the booster.
“Out of the box” thinking for sure and, whether successful or not, this risky maneuver promises to be at the very least “exciting”. The first orbital test launch of a Starship booster/ship stack (B4 /S20) is near ready but being delayed/hindered primarily by the FAA and others. This first orbital test launch is NOT going to try the midair capture however but will instead try to “soft land” at sea for safety reasons… the booster in the Gulf and the starship off Hawaii.
– David
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