Musk’s bigger Starlink satellite ‘too small’ for military applications
- Even at almost five times the size of the current version, the new spacecraft will not be able to carry potentially deadly extensions, analyst says
- According to SpaceX founder a functional prototype has already been built and shipped to factory where heavy lift launch rocket is being developed
Elon Musk’s upgraded Starlink satellite will be too small for military applications, despite weighing almost five times the current version, according to a military affairs analyst in China.
The SpaceX founder on Monday told an online video show called Everyday Astronaut that a functional prototype had already been built and shipped to the South Texas factory where a heavy lift launch rocket called Starship is under development.
Musk said the new satellite weighs “about 1.25 tonnes” – compared to the company’s existing 260kg (573 pounds) satellites. Starlink 2.0 is twice as long and likely to have at least five times as much surface area for Earth-facing antennas than its predecessor.
Zhou Chenming, a researcher at the Yuan Wang military science and technology institute in Beijing, said the new satellites would still be relatively too small to carry destructive weapons, powerful energy generators or large sensors.
“The key improvement in Starlink 2.0 is the size of antennas, which could significantly improve transmission,” he said.
According to Musk, data throughput for the new satellite will be “almost an order of magnitude more” than Starlink 1.0, putting it at 140-160 gigabits per second, compared to current estimations of about 18 Gbps.