Today, July 7, SpaceX released 'Starlink Maritime' service to connect sea-going vessels. "From merchant vessels to oil rigs to premium yachts, Starlink Maritime allows you to connect from the most remote waters across the world, just like you would in the office or at home," says the company. Starlink Maritime is designed to provide "high-speed, low-latency internet with up to 350 Mbps [Megabits per second] download while at sea."
The Starlink user terminal for maritime coverage costs $10,000 USD for a set of 2 "high performance terminals." The monthly internet service cost is $5,000 USD per month, according to the company's Starlink.com website. "Starlink Maritime offers the ability to pause and un-pause service at any time, and is billed in one month increments, allowing users to customize their service to their individual needs."
The high performance Starlink user terminal is designed to withstand "extreme cold, heat, hail, sleet, heavy rain, and gale force winds, Starlink also holds up against rocket engines," the company said, "Starlink is currently being used to get high-quality video of SpaceX rocket landings at sea, providing continuous coverage in the face of engines capable of generating up to 190,000 lbs of force." See the video below of the Falcon 9 rocket landing on a drone ship.
In addition to withstanding extreme cold, heat, hail, sleet, heavy rain, and gale force winds, Starlink is rugged enough to withstand rocket landings. Here’s live video captured on a SpaceX droneship at sea with and without Starlink pic.twitter.com/EKhLrjLhlq
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 7, 2022
Royal Caribbean Group, the world's second largest cruise ship operator, started providing SpaceX’s Starlink internet to passengers around a week ago. SpaceX is also ready to provide Internet to airplanes, Hawaii Airlines and JSX charter flights already have contracts to provide Starlink Wi-Fi to passengers while flying. Delta Airlines is expected to also provide Starlink to passengers. According to Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian, the commercial airline company is in discussions with SpaceX representatives who are collaborating to conduct “exploratory testing” of the internet technology.
To date, SpaceX has launched around 2,750 Starlink satellites to Low Earth Orbit that beam internet service globally. The company already provides internet to over 500,000 subscribers living across 36 countries. Now that SpaceX has regulatory approval to beam Starlink satellite signals aboard moving vehicles, the company is expected to gain more subscribers that would like to have high-speed internet everywhere they go. Long-term, SpaceX plans to launch at least 12,000 Starlink satellites over the next five years to build a more robust global network.
Starlink Maritime allows you to connect from some of the most remote waters in the world → https://t.co/Qa48wiYN5f pic.twitter.com/Vd3Bli6id2
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 7, 2022
Featured Image Source: SpaceX
About the Author
Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo
Evelyn J. Arevalo joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover news as a Space Journalist and SpaceX Starbase Texas Correspondent. Evelyn is specialized in rocketry and space exploration. The main topics she covers are SpaceX and NASA.
