The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced on Friday that it has approved SpaceX’s application to deploy an additional 7,500 second-generation “Starlink” satellites, helping the company further expand its global Internet service business.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said that Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technology Company (SpaceX) has now been approved to operate an additional 7,500 second-generation "Starlink" satellites, which will bring the total number of satellites in orbit worldwide to 15,000. The committee also approved SpaceX’s technical upgrade of satellites and allowed it to use five frequency bands for operations; in addition, the committee also exempted previous regulations that restricted overlapping satellite signal coverage and restricted network capacity improvements.
The agency pointed out that the new satellites will provide direct satellite-connected cellular network services outside the United States and strengthen network coverage in the United States. They will not only support next-generation mobile communication services, but also achieve Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabits per second.
