SpaceX recently celebrated Starlink, surpassing 4 million customers worldwide in over 100 countries.
Starlink has achieved many milestones in the past year or two. SpaceX’s President and Chief Operations Officer Gwynn Shotwell recently shared Starlink’s progress during a hearing at the Texas House of Representatives.
Starlink is connecting more than 4M people with high-speed internet across 100+ countries, territories and many other markets.
— Starlink (@Starlink) September 26, 2024
Thank you to all of our customers around the world! 🛰️🌎❤️ → https://t.co/zR6w4t1qM9 pic.twitter.com/sk7wucihxH
Starlink Terminal Factory in Bastrop, TX
“We also have Starlink[’s] user terminal factory in Bastrop Texas—almost a million square feet and we’re expanding now…This week– by the way–we will pass 4 million customers for Starlink, which is quite exciting,” said Shotwell.
Shotwell added that SpaceX plans to produce printed circuit boards in its Starlink Bastrop facility. It aims to compete with Taiwan and other Southeast Asian countries in the printed circuit board market.
“Bastrop will be the largest printed circuit board manufacturing facility in the entire United States. And I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to beat Southeast Asia in efficiency of producing those printed circuit boards.”
Starlink Cellular
The SpaceX COO also informed the Texas House of Representatives that the company hopes to launch around 100 missions to put more Starlink satellites in orbit. SpaceX is preparing to launch Starlink Direct-to-Cell—aka Starlink Cellular—with partner T-Mobile.
In a recent interview with Jim Cramer, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert estimated that Starlink Cellular beta could launch between late 2024 and early 2025. Sievert stated that SpaceX has 192 cellular satellites in orbit at the moment. Starlink Cellular reportedly needs around 300 cellular satellites to offer services in the United States. Based on Shotwell’s comments, it will take about 100 missions to reach the required number of cellular satellites to launch Starlink Direct-to-Cell.
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