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| Science & Technology |
| How Elon Musk's plan to launch ONE MILLION satellites could make him the most terrifyingly powerful man on the planet |
| 2026-04-16 |
| This extraordinary feat has been achieved thanks to the success of his pioneering aerospace company SpaceX and its groundbreaking reuseable rockets, which have cut the cost of launching a satellite by more than 90 per cent. Starlink’s parent company now accounts for 95 per cent of all spacecraft launched into orbit in the US and 50 per cent of the world total. If this didn’t make his space business pretty much indispensable, his imposing satellite constellation’s ability to provide high-speed internet connections almost anywhere you care to mention has certainly done so. As the company strikes ever more deals with governments, the number of satellites grows by the week. There are now around 10,000 Starlink spacecraft up there – two-thirds of all 14,500 satellites in orbit – and he plans many, many more. Musk, who owns 40 per cent of Starlink but 80 per cent of the voting rights, recently lodged an application with the US regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to launch a constellation of up to a million satellites – yes, a million - that will be sun-powered orbital data centres for Artificial Intelligence computing power. Satellites are increasingly vital in fields such as navigation, climate research and earth observation but nowhere are they more critical than when it comes to communications. And the Starlink system is as user-friendly as it gets. All a subscriber needs is a small receiver with an electronically-controlled antenna, which automatically steers toward the satellites as they pass overhead. The portable terminals, which are about the size of a pizza box, receive signals from these satellites and transmit them to a nearby router, which supplies the broadband internet connection. As is being demonstrated in conflicts across the globe, especially Ukraine, Starlink has given Musk – a private citizen – geopolitical powers that many agree are historically unprecedented. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
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| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2026-04-16 14:07 |
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| Posted by: Skidmark 2026-04-16 12:43 |
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| Posted by: Skidmark 2026-04-16 06:12 |