Over the last two years, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, has been launching more than a dozen of Starlink missions. Making Elon gain control of over a quarter of all the current satellites orbiting across the Earth.

This week, a Falcon 9 rocket will be delivering the latest batch of 60 Starlink satellites from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida into orbit as weather permits. This will make the total number of Starlinks in orbit to more than 1,000.

40,000 satellites target

The designated Starlink 17 mission is part of the latest target of SpaceX to create a constellation of up to 40,000 satellites in order to cater to the growing need for high-speed internet here on Earth.

Elon Musk, now the richest man worldwide with a net worth exceeding $200 billion, advertently created a controversy last year. Starlink’s updated Terms of Service stated that the International law on Mars will not be recognized triggered the arguments.

According to Celestrak, satellite tracker, analysis of data shows that the 946 Starlinks are currently deployed in orbit. That made up to 27.3 percent of the total 3,521 active satellites in orbit as of 1 February 2021.

At the current rate of its launching, SpaceX could be able to reach half of the total active satellites somewhere next year. As observed by Alastair Isaacs, physicist, and a former astronomer, SpaceX currently accounts for more than a quarter of all the rocket launches globally.

Starlink missions comprise a big proportion of all the launches, with only a small portion being used for launching satellites of other customers, as well as delivering cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS).

OneWeb: the closest competitor

Starlink is one of the several projects that aim to provide high-speed internet to users here on Earth. With only the OneWeb, funded by SoftBank, currently the closest competitor.

The competitor OneWeb is targeting a fleet of 648 satellites by the end of the next year 2022 that will bring a total of roughly 7,000 satellites.

SpaceX will soon cater worldwide as it targets 40,000 satellites

On the other hand, SpaceX now has been granted permission to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit. SpaceX, however, has a target of a strong 40,000 constellation over the next few years. This target is pending while waiting for approval from the UN-backed International Telecommunication Union.

The latest version of the satellites is equipped with lasers that make it possible to beam signals between satellites instead of the additional ground infrastructure.

At present, the Starlink network is already capable of serving the northern latitudes and presently providing an initial beta service to Canada, US, and UK customers. Nevertheless, with the latest launch and continuing expansion of SpaceX, it will be able to cover the whole world by this year 2021, as announced on its official website.

This project, however, invites criticism from a committee of hundreds of astronomers saying that this project could greatly affect scientific advances.

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