SpaceX to Launch Worldwide Internet Network of 4,000 Satellites

Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, has submitted a formal request to the Federal Communications Commission for permission to launch a 4,000-strong fleet of satellites to provide internet coverage to the entire world. Musk first muted the plan back in January during a SpaceX event, which involves one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets deploying thousands of satellites to orbit the Earth – but only requested permission for launch late last month.

The request that SpaceX has made to the FCC is to merely to test the technology in space, to discover if it can generate a signal strong enough to transmit wireless internet signals to the entire globe, ahead of full-scale implementation. SpaceX is projecting for testing to begin by 2016, with the satellite network online within five years, if successful.

During the SpaceX event in January, Musk proclaimed the project to “be a real enabler for people in poorer regions of the world” and add welcome competition to the US market, “where people are stuck with Time Warner or Comcast.”

Musk seems to have a head start on fellow entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Bill Gates, who have both expressed an interest in large-scale satellite internet, and Google and Facebook, with the two companies recently binning their own airborne and spaceborne wireless ideas.

Thank you International Business Times for providing us with this information.