I’m a fan of Elon Musk.
But even as a fan, I sometimes find his promises a bit … optimistic. And in the case of Starlink — his plan to develop a globe-spanning network of satellites providing broadband internet, and create a subsidiary business that SpaceX could later spin off in an IPO — I suspect Musk may have gone a bit overboard.
It was almost six years ago that SpaceX first floated the idea of building Starlink, and attracted a $1 billion investment from Fidelity and Alphabet to help finance the project (according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence). To its credit, SpaceX has made some amazing progress since then.
In October, the company crossed the 800-satellite threshold needed to begin offering moderate satellite internet coverage in the U.S. In the months since, it has progressively expanded the service, first to Canada, and then to the United Kingdom. Every time the company launches a Falcon 9 Starlink mission into orbit, it adds another 60 internet-beaming satellites to its constellation. By the end of this year, SpaceX says Starlink should be able to provide internet service basically everywhere on Earth.
But not to everyone on Earth.