Elon Musk Announces Major New Updates For Starlink Satellites!

In today’s post, Elon Musk details the next generation Starlink, Indonesia tempers GigaFactory expectations, Shanghai slowly gains back productivity and the SpaceX Starship might be clear to fly. So let’s get going.

Elon Musk has unveiled details on the next generation of SpaceX’s Starlink communications satellite in an interview with Youtuber Tim Dodd, The Everyday Astronaut.

​​The new Starlink satellites will be optimized for Starship’s massive launch capacity and dispensing capabilities. To take advantage of the 100 metric tonne lift of the Starship Super Heavy, Starlink V2 will be 1.25 tonnes each, and measure about 23 feet long. This makes them over 4 times heavier than the current Starlink V 1.5, and clearly demonstrates why the new constellation can only be carried into orbit by Starship.

Current Starlink deliveries by Falcon 9 are done in batches of about 60 at a time, so trying to use the same rocket for Starlink V2 would be limited to about 15 satellites per launch.

And they’re not just bigger, the Starlink V2 is much more powerful as well. Musk was a little tight-lipped about the specific capabilities - aside from saying they’re “almost an order of magnitude more capable than Starlink 1.” - but it’s believed the new satellites will have a bandwidth of about 140 to 160 gigabits per second each; a significant improvement over the V1’s 18 gigabits. 

The plan is - if the FCC approves the design - to launch a new constellation of 30,000 Starlink V2 satellites. Starship can reportedly launch an entire orbital plane of them in one go - that’s 100 to 120 satellites evenly spaced in orbit -  and would have to launch half of the 30,000 satellite network inside 6 years. 

That adds up to around 130 launches total to deploy Starlink V2. That’s a very high expectation for a ship that hasn’t even had an orbital test flight yet. We can really understand from this just how much SpaceX and Elon are betting on the Starship to work out as expected. This calls back to that leaked Elon email in December - without Starship and Starlink, SpaceX is bankrupt.

And there is even more riding on this than Elon Musk and his fortune - SpaceX is going to be critical to the United States maintaining their presence in space - without a Starship lander, the Artemis Program doesn’t get to the Moon. Without SpaceX operating at full capacity, the Chinese will be essentially free to just take over low Earth orbit, the Moon and maybe even Mars as well. So that’s not great.

Then there is the importance of Starlink for equal access to the internet. So far at least, this is the only reasonable option that we have to deliver reliable, high speed internet to any location on Earth. And moving forward, it’s going to be pretty hard to have a global society of equal human beings if the access to information and communication is not also equal.

Indonesia Pumps Breaks on GigaFactory 

We’ve got a new update from Indonesian officials that is tempering expectations about Tesla’s expansion into the country. Last week we had a strong indication that Tesla would launch a nickel mining operation, a battery factory AND a vehicle assembly plant. Now Indonesia’s Minister for maritime and investment affairs, has walked that back a little bit, saying that the deal is not done just yet, while also assuring the public that negotiations between Tesla and Indonesia were still ongoing. 

The Minister told local media outlets, quote, “Making an investment decision is not as easy as snapping fingers. It takes a long process and time. Moreover, this is an investment of huge value. So we have to be patient.”

Which makes a lot of sense, obviously this is a gigantic, multi billion dollar deal in the works here - they’re not going to hash that out over the course of a week. The Indonesians may have got a little bit excited and started hyping it up too soon, but it's hard to blame them really, we may have done the exact same thing on this YouTube channel - but there is still nothing that would point to us being wrong about the eventual outcome.

We have yet to hear or read any direct comments about this deal from Elon Musk, which is probably a good sign, Elon is usually pretty quick to shoot down false reports, so the fact that he’s letting this story go without commenting likely means that the negotiations are in fact happening.

We know that Tesla doesn’t have much of a choice but to commit to building something in Indonesia if they want the opportunity to mine nickel there - Indonesia wrote a new law in 2020 that bans the export of raw nickel from the country. As the holder of the world’s largest nickel reserve, they want to leverage that to attract investments in lithium ion battery manufacturing in their country.

Giga Shanghai Returns to 70%

Tesla’s Gigafactory Shanghai has effectively reached 70% of its pre-lockdown weekly output levels. As of May 30th, the addition of a second shift at the vehicle manufacturing plant had boosted production to its highest level since late March, when local restrictions forced a total shutdown.

Giga Shanghai deliveries in April 2022 were down 97% from March 2022 - the lowest output since April 2020.

Shanghai authorities will remove many restrictions for businesses to resume work on June 1st, as they begin to start lifting the city-wide lockdown that started two months ago. Shanghai will also introduce policies to support its battered economy. This includes adding 40,000 car ownership quotas for the year and subsidizing people who exchange their old combustion engine vehicles for battery-powered electric cars.

So that's all very good news, but we should still be expecting Tesla to report delivery numbers for the second quarter that fall short of expectations. It’s hard to say just by how much Tesla will miss the mark, we know that production at the Fremont plant was accelerated to try and make up some of the gap - but this will likely be the first time in over two years that the company does not demonstrate a shocking growth rate in deliveries, and possibly even a regression.

FAA

The FAA has just announced that they plan to release the final Programmatic Environmental Assessment or PEA for the SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy orbital launch programs at the Boca Chica, Texas launch site on June 13th, 2022.

This is of course, yet another push back that was made on May 31st, which was the previous expected release date. Why should we believe them now, when every other deadline so far has been missed? Well, June 13th is a very specific date, it’s a Monday, and in the past the FAA has just set the goal post as the end of the month, whatever day that happens to fall on. So this is different, and that’s probably a good sign. I think.

This assessment will determine whether or not SpaceX is allowed to make an orbital flight test attempt from Starbase. The subject in question here, is whether or not the benefits of the rocket test outway the impact it would and could potentially inflict on the environment - this rocket is unprecedented in terms of size and power, it could explode on the pad, or it could explode in mid air, we have no idea what might happen. 

Felix from the YouTube channel What About It? Ran some numbers recently and calculated that a fully fueled Starship would explode with the force of about 10 kilotons of TNT, which would be the largest artificial, non-nuclear explosion in history… Which would be pretty cool, but obviously would also have some negative impact on the natural coastal environment around Starbase - I don’t think people would be going to the beach at Boca Chica any time soon after that.

Of course, the PEA was originally due to be completed at the end of 2021, as a draft of the assessment was published by the FAA in September of that year. However, more than 18,000 comments left on the draft by the public forced a longer review process.

Since then, SpaceX has been moving steadily to test various boosters and starships for orbital launch, constructing their new Raptor V2 engines which will power their vehicles into space, and constructing vehicle bays and launch platforms both at Boca Chica’s Starbase, and Cape Canaveral’s pad 39A.

Mechazilla construction is continuing quickly at pad 39A in Florida, with five of the eight structural blocks now resting at the site. Meanwhile at Boca Chica, the new production facilities are getting roofs attached, and their cranes are already seeing use. So the infrastructure is coming along really fast - it does feel like SpaceX has been accelerating their progress over the past few weeks.

Earlier this year, CEO Elon Musk predicted that - if approved - an orbital launch test of Starship and Super Heavy would take place at the end of May. Obviously that wasn’t the case, as both the FAA and testing of the test vehicles weren’t ready in time.

Early in May, however, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell provided her own updated timeline of a June or July test date. This seems to be more and more likely, as even with potential FAA approval on the 13th, SpaceX is still constructing and testing vehicles, like Boosters 7 and 8 plus Ship 24 and 25, all of which are either being constructed, fitted for Raptor V2 engines, and/or being tested for pressure and structural stability.

This is honestly the most optimistic outlook that we have seen around Starbase in quite some time. The mood genuinely feels like things are going to work out and a test launch is going to happen this summer. 

While this may feel like a delay or a disappointment, it’s probably for the best that the pace is moving more slowly. If the FAA had just gone ahead and rubber stamped the launch in 2021, and if Elon had actually tried to launch the 4/20 Starship, it would have either just exploded on the ground or failed to reach orbit and come plummeting back to Earth like a 69 meter long, multiple hundred tonne lawn dart and exploded on the ocean’s surface. Again, that would be dope, but probably best if it doesn’t happen. Success would be even better.