SpaceX Is Entering The Micro-Satellites Game

On Twitter Twitter this week, SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted that the company is going to be enacting a program involving advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations. The formal announcement for the project is 2-3 months away.

The fact that the announcement is months away, however, hasnt stopped quite a bit of speculating over what the satellite system is likely to entail. (Hopefully not the orbital death ray platforms that sci-fi author Warren Ellis referred to when I interviewed him last summer.)

The most likely theory is that this will be an effort to bring high-speed satellite internet to areas that dont have the infrastructure to build fiber networks. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX is forming a relationship with WorldVu Satellites, Ltd. WorldVu was founded by Greg Wyler, who also founded high-speed internet satellite company O3b Networks. O3b has eight satellites in orbit now providing high speed internet and its next four satellites are already getting prepared to launch. Wyler left O3b (though he remains a significant shareholder) and went to Google to work on satellite internet. However, he has since left Google as well.

The Wall Street Journal report indicates that the two companies would plan to cooperate on a satellite manufacturing facility, a venture the report estimates to have a cost of around $1 billion. This also partially corroborates a report from SpaceNews in September that WorldVu and SpaceX had begun some sort of relationship. And Musks tweet, which came after the WSJ report came out, may be a response to that article. (A request for comment sent to SpaceX was not returned.)

That said, while a lot of signs point to SpaceX joining forces with WorldVu for satellite internet (WorldVu has the rights to the key spectrum needed until the end of the decade), this isnt the only possibility. Microsatellites are currently being used for a number of applications, particularly Earth-based imaging satellites. Other companies are working a different angle, such as Planetary Resources, which is developing small space telescopes that could be used to find likely candidates for asteroid mining.

Its plausible that rather than looking to SpaceX to manufacture satellites, WorldVu is in talks with SpaceX to launch them. After all, with a short time period to begin using the spectrum it has rights to, its possible that WorldVu would prefer to turn to an established satellite manufacturer rather than wait for a new venture to get up and running.

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SpaceX Is Entering The Micro-Satellites Game