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SpaceX wants to offer Starlink internet to consumers after just six launches
SpaceX has created a brand new website dedicated to its Starlink satellite constellation, a prelude to offering Internet service to consumers after as few as six launches.
Additionally, Starlink.com reiterated CEO Elon Musk’s estimate that SpaceX will conduct 2-6 dedicated Starlink launches – carrying at least 60 satellites each – in 2019 alone. In other words, a best-case satellite deployment scenario could mean that SpaceX will be able to start offering Starlink service to consumers “in the Northern U.S. and Canadian latitudes” as early as this year, while commercial offerings would thus be all but guaranteed in 2020. A step further, SpaceX believes it will be able to offer coverage of the entirety of the populated world after as few as 24 launches (~1500 Starlink satellites).
“Starlink is targeted to offer service in the Northern U.S. and Canadian latitudes after six launches, rapidly expanding to global coverage of the populated world after an expected 24 launches. SpaceX is targeting two to six Starlink launches by the end of this year.” — SpaceX, Starlink.com
This quiet announcement of SpaceX’s expected initial operational capability (IOC) confirms that the company’s plans to offer communications services to consumers are just as ambitious as its 60-satellite, 18.5 ton (~40,000 lb) Starlink launch debut. Assuming an average of 60 Starlink satellites per launch, SpaceX wants to begin serving customers in the US and Canada as soon as ~360 spacecraft are in orbit, a milestone that could occur as early as late 2019. Sometime in the first half of 2020 is arguably far more likely, but the fact alone that service could be offered in 2019 illustrates just how far SpaceX is ahead of its competitors, of which only OneWeb seems to pose an actual threat.
On February 27th, OneWeb launched its first six satellites – down from a planned ten, already ~20 satellites short of a ‘full’ launch – as a mix between its first orbital test and the first launch of operational spacecraft. OneWeb’s initial constellation will feature 648 satellites, potentially rising to 900 and eventually ~2000 in the years to come, pending commercial success and investor interest. The company currently has plans to begin a monthly launch campaign of ~20 Soyuz rockets no earlier than than August or September 2019, likely completing the first phase of its constellation sometime in 2021.
“OneWeb and its satellite manufacturing partner Airbus Defence and Space have crammed 10 gigabits per second of capacity into spacecraft the size of dishwashers. Tom Enders, Airbus Group’s outgoing CEO, said Feb. 14 that OneWeb satellites cost $1 million each to produce, and that the companies will be able to complete 350 to 400 satellites annually from their joint venture OneWeb Satellite’s $85 million Florida factory opening in April. The first batches of Florida-built satellites should be delivered to OneWeb toward the end of the third quarter, Airbus spokesman Guilhem Boltz said.”
SpaceNews, March 2019
Assuming SpaceX aims to launch one dedicated 60-satellite Starlink mission every 6-8 weeks, the company could easily have a constellation of more than 600 satellites in orbit by the end of 2020. Compared to OneWeb, each Starlink satellite weighs about 40% more (~150 kg vs. ~230 kg) but also offers almost double the usable throughput (~17-20 Gbps vs. OneWeb’s ~10 Gbps). In short, SpaceX should be able to offer the same capacity of coverage and service as soon – if not far sooner – than OneWeb, while constellation hopefuls like Telesat, LeoSat, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper are likely 2-5 years away from launching their first satellites, let alone offering service.
SpaceX’s foray into satellite design
Aside from revealing SpaceX’s tentative schedule for its Starlink service offerings, Starlink.com included excellent, surprisingly detailed renders of satellite hardware, ranging from Dragon-heritage star trackers to the world’s first flightworthy ion thrusters powered by krypton. These renders simply confirm what was already clear: SpaceX has gone against the grain of traditional satellite design at almost every turn, producing a bus (the general structure and form factor) that is unlike almost anything that came before it.
As a complete layperson to spacecraft design, it’s hard to describe SpaceX’s first internally designed satellite bus as anything less than elegant. Thanks to their uniquely flat form factor, the satellites can be packed into a Falcon 9 fairing with extreme efficiency, making SpaceX’s first dedicated Starlink launch the company’s heaviest payload ever at more than 18.5 tons (~40,000 lb). For comparison, OneWeb plans to launch approximately 30×150 kg satellites per Soyuz 2.1 launch with a traditional cylindrical adapter, itself weighing ~1000 kg.
For Starlink, the method the 60 satellites use to securely attach to each other remains a minor mystery, only hinted at by photos and renders that show three metal rings/connectors per satellite. However it works, it appears that SpaceX has found a way to launch and deploy dozens of fairly large spacecraft while wasting little to no mass on a dedicated dispenser. Altogether, it appears that SpaceX has already begun to surpass the technological capabilities of its competitors, while also taking large risks with highly innovative, largely unprecedented design choices. All of those characteristics will help as SpaceX pushes to deploy Starlink and begin serving customers as quickly as possible.
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News
Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’
“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026.”
Tesla Full Self-Driving’s newest model is coming very soon, and from what it sounds like, it could be “the last big piece of the puzzle,” as CEO Elon Musk said in late November.
During the xAI Hackathon on Tuesday, Musk was available for a Q&A session, where he revealed some details about Robotaxi and Tesla’s plans for removing Robotaxi Safety Monitors, and some information on a future FSD model.
While he said Full Self-Driving’s unsupervised capability is “pretty much solved,” and confirmed it will remove Safety Monitors in the next three weeks, questions about the company’s ability to give this FSD version to current owners came to mind.
Musk said a new FSD model is coming in about a month or two that will be an order-of-magnitude larger and will include more reasoning and reinforcement learning.
He said:
“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026. We’re gonna add a lot of reasoning and RL (reinforcement learning). To get to serious scale, Tesla will probably need to build a giant chip fab. To have a few hundred gigawatts of AI chips per year, I don’t see that capability coming online fast enough, so we will probably have to build a fab.”
NEWS: Elon Musk says FSD Unsupervised is “pretty much solved at this point” and that @Tesla will be launching Robotaxis with no safety monitors in about 3 weeks in Austin, Texas. He also teased a new FSD model is coming in about 1-2 months.
“We’re just going through validation… https://t.co/Msne72cgMB pic.twitter.com/i3wfKX3Z0r
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 10, 2025
It rings back to late November when Musk said that v14.3 “is where the last big piece of the puzzle finally lands.”
With the advancements made through Full Self-Driving v14 and v14.2, there seems to be a greater confidence in solving self-driving completely. Musk has also personally said that driver monitoring has been more relaxed, and looking at your phone won’t prompt as many alerts in the latest v14.2.1.
This is another indication that Tesla is getting closer to allowing people to take their eyes off the road completely.
Along with the Robotaxi program’s success, there is evidence that Tesla could be close to solving FSD. However, it is not perfect. We’ve had our own complaints with FSD, and although we feel it is the best ADAS on the market, it is not, in its current form, able to perform everything needed on roads.
But it is close.
That’s why there is some legitimate belief that Tesla could be releasing a version capable of no supervision in the coming months.
All we can say is, we’ll see.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms
However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon. Musk replied, basically confirming it.
Elon Musk confirmed through a post on X that a SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) is on the way after hinting at it several times earlier this year.
It also comes one day after Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was aiming for a valuation of $1.5 trillion, adding that it wanted to raise $30 billion.
Musk has been transparent for most of the year that he wanted to try to figure out a way to get Tesla shareholders to invest in SpaceX, giving them access to the stock.
He has also recognized the issues of having a public stock, like litigation exposure, quarterly reporting pressures, and other inconveniences.
However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon.
Musk replied, basically confirming it:
As usual, Eric is accurate
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2025
Berger believes the IPO would help support the need for $30 billion or more in capital needed to fund AI integration projects, such as space-based data centers and lunar satellite factories. Musk confirmed recently that SpaceX “will be doing” data centers in orbit.
AI appears to be a “key part” of SpaceX getting to Musk, Berger also wrote. When writing about whether or not Optimus is a viable project and product for the company, he says that none of that matters. Musk thinks it is, and that’s all that matters.
It seems like Musk has certainly mulled something this big for a very long time, and the idea of taking SpaceX public is not just likely; it is necessary for the company to get to Mars.
The details of when SpaceX will finally hit that public status are not known. Many of the reports that came out over the past few days indicate it would happen in 2026, so sooner rather than later.
But there are a lot of things on Musk’s plate early next year, especially with Cybercab production, the potential launch of Unsupervised Full Self-Driving, and the Roadster unveiling, all planned for Q1.
Tesla has added the 15th automaker to the growing list of companies whose EVs can utilize the Supercharger Network this year, as BMW is the latest company to gain access to the largest charging infrastructure in the world.
BMW became the 15th company in 2025 to gain Tesla Supercharger access, after the company confirmed to its EV owners that they could use any of the more than 25,000 Supercharging stalls in North America.
Welcome @BMW owners.
Download the Tesla app to charge → https://t.co/vnu0NHA7Ab
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) December 10, 2025
Newer BMW all-electric cars, like the i4, i5, i7, and iX, are able to utilize Tesla’s V3 and V4 Superchargers. These are the exact model years, via the BMW Blog:
- i4: 2022-2026 model years
- i5: 2024-2025 model years
- 2026 i5 (eDrive40 and xDrive40) after software update in Spring 2026
- i7: 2023-2026 model years
- iX: 2022-2025 model years
- 2026 iX (all versions) after software update in Spring 2026
With the expansion of the companies that gained access in 2025 to the Tesla Supercharger Network, a vast majority of non-Tesla EVs are able to use the charging stalls to gain range in their cars.
So far in 2025, Tesla has enabled Supercharger access to:
- Audi
- BMW
- Genesis
- Honda
- Hyundai
- Jaguar Land Rover
- Kia
- Lucid
- Mercedes-Benz
- Nissan
- Polestar
- Subaru
- Toyota
- Volkswagen
- Volvo
Drivers with BMW EVs who wish to charge at Tesla Superchargers must use an NACS-to-CCS1 adapter. In Q2 2026, BMW plans to release its official adapter, but there are third-party options available in the meantime.
They will also have to use the Tesla App to enable Supercharging access to determine rates and availability. It is a relatively seamless process.
Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’
SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms
