SpaceX says more than 500,000 people have ordered or placed a deposit for its Starlink internet service

Posted on : 05/04/2021
SpaceX says more than 500,000 people have ordered or placed a deposit for its Starlink internet service
Science 
  • More than 500,000 people have placed an order or a deposit for SpaceX’s Starlink internet service. 
  • The service is currently in a beta stage with more than 10,000 participants. 
  • SpaceX launched 60 more Starlink satellites into orbit on Tuesday to power the product.
  • See more stories on Insider’s business page.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite-internet service has raked in more than 500,000 orders and deposits from customers, the company said Tuesday. 

“To date, over half a million people have placed an order or put down a deposit for Starlink,” said Siva Bharadvaj, a SpaceX space operations engineer, during a broadcast of SpaceX’s latest launch of Starlink satellites. “With every launch, we get closer to connecting more people across the world.”

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the exact figure. 

In a Tuesday tweet, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that all 500,000 people will “most likely” receive service, but delivering internet to large numbers of users in urban areas complicates things. 

Starlink aims to use its fleet of more than 40,000 satellites to beam high-speed internet down to rural and remote areas where traditional service is poor or not available. SpaceX also plans to deliver internet to ships, planes, cars, and RVs.

Read more: I tried Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite-internet project, for 3 weeks after moving to rural Vermont. It’s a game changer.

The company on Tuesday launched 60 more Starlink satellites into orbit using one of its Falcon 9 rockets, completing its 10th Starlink mission of 2021 and its 26th mission overall. The latest launch brings the total number of Starlink satellites sent into orbit to somewhere around 1,500, though some of those have been deorbited. 

SpaceX began offering Starlink as a beta service in October and has since amassed more than 10,000 beta testers, according to a February filing with the Federal Communications Commission. Starlink is currently available to a limited number of users in a given area, and customers can place refundable, $99 deposits to join a waitlist.

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