Late last night, SpaceX launched its first rocket of 2024 out of Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. On top, in addition to the Starlink V2 mini satellites were used to, were six Starlink satellites capable of connecting directly to standard 5G cellphones. These satellites are the first following a partnership with T-Mobile announced back in 2022 to feature the connectivity, and are a major step forward for SpaceX’s satellite internet constellation.
Starlink-to-cellphone connectivity
SpaceX first announced the partnership specifically for satellites to be launched on their Starship Superheavy rocket. With significant delays to the rocket’s development, however, Starlink V2 mini began to be launched on the company’s workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9.
The satellites are expected to provide direct-to-cellphone 5G connectivity for T-Mobile customers. Initially, this would be limited to text messages, but the two companies hope to expand it to voice calls and eventually true data connections.
This will certainly take some time, as SpaceX initially said the the data connection will be limited to between two and four megabits per second total per cellular zone. Elon since shared this speed to be 7Mb per cell zone. While very slow, this amount of connection could be enough to compete with Apple’s SOS-via-satellites services powered by the company’s partnership with Globalstar. This connectivity has already proved to be lifesaving on multiple occasions. While the two connection types will compete in some ways, they are very different, with Apple’s reliant on a proprietary communication method with additional hardware integrated into iPhones, while SpaceX’s will use the more standard 5G signal.
When Elon Musk took the stage to announce the partnership in August of 2022, he said the earliest connectivity was expected to be active in late 2023. In case you haven’t checked your calendar in a bit, we are officially in the new year.
Nonetheless, it’s a promising step forward for global connectivity. SpaceX’s website currently shows that the company anticipates texting becoming available in 2024, with voice, data, and IOT applications following in 2025. As of now, SpaceX has carrier partners in the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland, and Chile. Working with these partners allows SpaceX to make use of 5G wavelengths that are dedicated to them in those specific countries. If more cell carriers around the world sign agreements with SpaceX’s Starlink, reciprocal roaming could provide this basic connectivity in even more areas around the globe to provide lifesaving connectivity to any standard 5G cell phone wherever you are.
Starship
SpaceX attempted two launches of Starship Superheavy last year. During the first orbital flight test on April 20th, the two stages failed to separate, with numerous Raptor engines failing during flight, with the flight termination system eventually terminating both stages.
During IFT-2 in November, SpaceX’s improvements to the pad and rocket allowed the flight to perform much better. The water deluge system helped prevent damage to the raptor engines as the first stage lifted off, but after the stages separated the booster’s flight termination system fired, and before Starship’s second stage could reach orbital velocity its flight termination system fired as well. IFT-2 made it much further in flight than IFT-1, but Starship is still a long way from being able to successfully deploy Starlink V2 satellites into orbit.
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