Microsoft Director and Kymeta board member, Tren Griffin, asked about my estimation of active SpaceX Starlink capacity. Here is my clarification of my process and analysis using an estimation of theoretical orbital communication capacity as a metric for snapshot analysis of the Starlink network and global user capacity.
There are 5147 work Starlink Satellites in orbit. There are about 880 of those are V2 mini. This would be about 4267 V1.5 or earlier Starlink satellites. Each satellite has accessible communication footprint on the ground of perhaps 800 miles by 800 miles. The various antennas and arrays can target different segments inside that theoretical footprint.
There are 4530 Starlink satellites are active. 4267 v1.5 and V1 Starlink satellites. 4200 V1.5 Starlink have a total of about 63000 total Gbps and 266 active V2 mini each with 60 Gbps is 15800 Gbps. The total activated SpaceX Starlink capacity is about 76,000 Gbps.
It will take about 2-3 months for the currently in orbit V2 mini satellites to get in location and activate. This will be about 200-300 per month. Perhaps 100 v2 mini-satellites could activate by Dec 31, 2023. This would be another 6000 Gbps to 82,000 Gbps.
The total Starlink satellite bandwidth is a theoretical number, that I use for snapshot approximations.
SpaceX can approach using 10-15% of this capacity.
The US has 1.87% US of the Earth surface area, but 60% of the total global Starlink customers. Starlink satellites up to 400 miles outside borders of the US can still service the US. A satellite over Kamloops can still service Seattle. SpaceX is using about 3-4% of its global capacity.
There are 1.3 million US customers and 1 million in the rest of the world currently.
The SpaceX goal should be to get 5X as many customers in the rest of the world as their US customers. IF at the end of February 2024, all currently in orbit V2 mini are activated then the orbital capacity would be 4260 V1.5 for 63000 Gbps and 880 V2 mini for 52000 Gbps for a total of 115000 Gbps. In 2024, there should be about 120 launches with each carrying 22 V2 mini which will add 158,400 Gbps orbital Starlink capacity for a total of 270,000 Gbps when fully active. This would be about three times the 76,000 Gbps currently active even with 230,000 Gbps active by the end of 2024.
The US is at or near maximum usage 2% of the global fleet able to service the USA. The 2% of satellites serve 1.3 million customers with 2% of 76,000 Gbps or 1,500 Gbps. By the end of 2024, US can go to 3.9 million customers and rest of world can be 5X that with 19.5 million. If the available usable capacity was filled out with Asia, Europe etc… customers. Other calculations limit the usage to about 10% of the orbital satellite capacity. This would limit the rest of world to 4X US levels at 15.6 million. The 4X makes more sense if the assumption is absolutely no customers are allowed in China, Russia, Iran and some other countries. A super-successful rest of world product push or some new services, like maybe with backhaul revenue or other activity) could possibly do more to boost the rest of world utilization satellite capacity utilization rates.
“The total activated SpaceX Starlink capacity is about 90,000 Gbps.”
Is this correct? Is this usable or theoretical capacity? To get credit for your answer, show your work.
Extra credit question: are shipworms actually a clam? https://t.co/zhxBn8MVqL
— Tren Griffin (@trengriffin) December 22, 2023
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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