SpaceX
SpaceX’s Elon Musk says Raptor will be installed on Starship prototype this week
Speaking on Friday, March 8th, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that the company’s second completed Raptor engine was already “on [its] way to [Star]hopper” to – nominally – be installed on the prototype vehicle as early as the week of March 11th (this week).
According to an official SpaceX statement, once Raptor is installed on Starhopper, the integrated vehicle will perform a combination of ground systems testing, propellant loading, static fire tests, and low-altitude hover demonstrations to prove out the brand new vehicle, engine, and facilities. Prior to the final months of 2018, the build site, launch pad, and prototype Starship now preparing for imminent hop tests were little more than empty dirt lots on the southern tip of the Texas coast.
“SpaceX will conduct checkouts of the newly installed ground systems and perform a short static fire test in the days ahead,” he said. “Although the prototype is designed to perform sub-orbital flights, or hops, powered by the SpaceX Raptor engine, the vehicle will be tethered during initial testing and hops will not be visible from offsite. SpaceX will establish a safety zone perimeter in coordination with local enforcement and signage will be in place to alert the community prior to the testing.” – James Gleeson, March 8th, SpaceX
Prior to February 3rd, barely one month ago, SpaceX’s next-generation Raptor engine had yet to even ignite in its final(ish), full-scale form. Less than two weeks after that, SpaceX’s propulsion team had pushed the engine to the point of damage, quite possibly throttling it above its nominal max thrust and main combustion chamber pressures. According to Musk, Raptor serial number 2 (SN02) will feature moderate changes to mitigate the cause of that damage.
Along the path to hop tests, it’s unclear if Raptor SN02 – following the mild problems more or less intentionally forced upon its predecessor – will be test-fired at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas development facilities before heading south to be installed on Starhopper. Given SpaceX’s methodical approach to engine and vehicle testing prior to the launch of any of its rockets, chances are good that it will have already conducted a number of basic acceptance tests in McGregor. If Musk is to be taken literally, the second
It has not yet been confirmed if Starhopper will initially perform static fire and hop tests with just one Raptor installed, but the sheer power of the fairly compact engine (upwards of 200 metric tons or 450,000 lbf of thrust at full throttle) should more than enable an extremely heavy prototype to lift off even with 50+ metric tons of propellant onboard. While it could simply be a matter of convenience and efficiency to start integrated Starhopper testing immediately instead of waiting for the completion of additional Raptor engines, the process of testing a thrust structure or integrated rocket with an increasing number of engines installed is a relatively common practice in aerospace. Regardless of its history, SpaceX itself also began its first integrated testing of a Falcon 9 first stage in the same way, starting with one Merlin engine installed and ultimately graduating to 3, 5, and the final 9 engines over the course of a few months of testing.
While Starhopper is unlikely to need more than a handful of Raptor engines to exhaust its usefulness, the first orbital Starship prototype – and, even more so, the first Super Heavy booster – will almost certainly end up going through the same process of methodical hot-fire testing before SpaceX even thinks of attempting the first orbital BFR launch. Featuring 7 and 31 Raptors respectively, Starship and Super Heavy will radically push the envelope of both SpaceX’s own experience and the aerospace industry as a whole, potentially becoming the most powerful liquid rocket ever launched if or when the vehicle begins flight tests with both stages.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX targets 150Mbps per user for upgraded Starlink Direct-to-Cell
If achieved, the 150Mbps goal would represent a significant jump from the current performance of Starlink Direct-to-Cell.
SpaceX is targeting peak download speeds of 150Mbps per user for its next-generation Direct-to-Cell Starlink service. The update was shared by SpaceX Spectrum & Regulatory Affairs Lead Udrivolf Pica during the International Telecommunication Union’s Space Connect conference.
“We are aiming at peak speeds of 150Mbps per user,” Pica said during the conference. “So something incredible if you think about the link budgets from space to the mobile phone.”
If achieved, the 150Mbps goal would represent a significant jump from the current performance of Starlink Direct-to-Cell.
Today, SpaceX’s cellular Starlink service, offered in partnership with T-Mobile under the T-Satellite brand, provides speeds of roughly 4Mbps per user. The service is designed primarily for texts, low-resolution video calls, and select apps in locations that traditionally have no cellular service.
By comparison, Ookla data shows median 5G download speeds of approximately 309Mbps for T-Mobile and 172Mbps for AT&T in the United States, as noted in a PCMag report. While 150Mbps would still trail the fastest terrestrial 5G networks, it would place satellite-to-phone broadband much closer to conventional carrier performance, even in remote areas.
Pica indicated that the upgraded system would support “video, voice, and data services, clearly,” moving beyond emergency connectivity and basic messaging use cases.
To reach that target, SpaceX plans to upgrade its existing Starlink Direct-to-Cell satellites and add significant new capacity. The company recently acquired access to radio spectrum from EchoStar, which Pica described as key to expanding throughput.
“More spectrum means a bigger pipeline, and this means that we can expand what we can do with partners. We can expand the quality of service. And again, we can do cellular broadband basically, cellular broadband use cases, like AI or daily connectivity needs,” he stated.
SpaceX has also requested regulatory approval to deploy 15,000 additional Direct-to-Cell satellites, beyond the roughly 650 currently supporting the system. The upgraded architecture is expected to begin rolling out in late 2027.
Elon Musk
Microsoft partners with Starlink to expand rural internet access worldwide
The update was shared ahead of Mobile World Congress.
Microsoft has announced a new collaboration with Starlink as part of its expanding digital access strategy, following the company’s claim that it has extended internet connectivity coverage to more than 299 million people worldwide.
The update was shared ahead of Mobile World Congress, where Microsoft detailed how it surpassed its original goal of bringing internet access to 250 million people by the end of 2025.
In a blog post, Microsoft confirmed that it is now working with Starlink to expand connectivity in rural and hard-to-reach regions.
“Through our collaboration with Starlink, Microsoft is combining low-Earth orbit satellite connectivity with community-based deployment models and local ecosystem partnerships,” the company wrote.
The partnership is designed to complement Microsoft’s existing work with local internet providers and infrastructure companies across Africa, Latin America, and India, among other areas. Microsoft noted that traditional infrastructure alone cannot meet demand in some regions, making low-Earth orbit satellite connectivity an important addition.
Kenya was cited as an early example. Working with Starlink and local provider Mawingu Networks, Microsoft is supporting connectivity for 450 community hubs in rural and underserved areas. These hubs include farmer cooperatives, aggregation centers, and digital access facilities intended to support agricultural productivity and AI-enabled services.
Microsoft stated that 2.2 billion people globally remain offline, and that connectivity gaps risk widening as AI adoption accelerates.
Starlink’s expanding constellation, now numbering more than 9,700 satellites in orbit, provides near-global coverage, making it one of the few systems capable of delivering broadband to remote regions without relying on terrestrial infrastructure.
Starlink is expected to grow even more in the coming years as well, especially as SpaceX transitions its fleet to Starship, which is capable of carrying significantly larger payloads compared to its current workhorse, the Falcon 9.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk denies Starlink’s price cuts are due to Amazon Kuiper
“This has nothing to do with Kuiper, we’re just trying to make Starlink more affordable to a broader audience,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
Elon Musk has pushed back on claims that Starlink’s recent price reductions are tied to Amazon’s Kuiper project.
In a post on X, Musk responded directly to a report suggesting that Starlink was cutting prices and offering free hardware to partners ahead of a planned IPO and increased competition from Kuiper.
“This has nothing to do with Kuiper, we’re just trying to make Starlink more affordable to a broader audience,” Musk wrote in a post on X. “The lower the cost, the more Starlink can be used by people who don’t have much money, especially in the developing world.”
The speculation originated from a post summarizing a report from The Information, which ran with the headline “SpaceX’s Starlink Makes Land Grab as Amazon Threat Looms.” The report stated that SpaceX is aggressively cutting prices and giving free hardware to distribution partners, which was interpreted as a reaction to Amazon’s Kuiper’s upcoming rollout and possible IPO.
In a way, Musk’s comments could be quite accurate considering Starlink’s current scale. The constellation currently has more than 9,700 satellites in operation today, making it by far the largest satellite broadband network in operation. It has also managed to grow its user base to 10 million active customers across more than 150 countries worldwide.
Amazon’s Kuiper, by comparison, has launched approximately 211 satellites to date, as per data from SatelliteMap.Space, some of which were launched by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Starlink surpassed that number in early January 2020, during the early buildout of its first-generation network.
Lower pricing also aligns with Starlink’s broader expansion strategy. SpaceX continues to deploy satellites at a rapid pace using Falcon 9, and future launches aboard Starship are expected to significantly accelerate the constellation’s growth. A larger network improves capacity and global coverage, which can support a broader customer base.
In that context, price reductions can be viewed as a way to match expanding supply with growing demand. Musk’s companies have historically used aggressive pricing strategies to drive adoption at scale, particularly when vertical integration allows costs to decline over time.
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