Another month, another project taken on by billionaire and serial entrepreneur Elon Musk.
The Space X founder recently took to Twitter to confirm rumors published in the Wall Street Journal that his company was actively working on an internet-via-satellite project.
Specifically, he said his team is “in the early stages of developing advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations.”
As you can see by the latter half of the tweet, additional information on the status of the project wont’ be available for another few weeks. But given that the rumors have been confirmed, another detail worth noting is the suggestion that Musk is working with Greg Wyler, formerly of Google / O3b Networks.
What’s more, the total number of satellites projected to be launched is somewhere in the neighborhood of 700, about 10 times more than the largest currently in orbit, and they’ll be small — much smaller, in fact, than anything currently used for communications.
If ALL of these rumors prove true, then in terms of what will likely follow after Musk’s formal announcement of the project at the start of 2015 will be another bidding war between states to produce this technology, followed by an outright open competition between SpaceX’s satellites, Google’s satellite / balloon project, and Facebook’s drones program to provide the world with Internet from above.
Via Engadget
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