Starlink the new crazy project of Elon Musk

Code Names: Tintin A and Tintin B.
What will Tintin A and Tintin B do for? The mission of these satellites is first of all to validate the technologies developed by SpaceX on its Seattle site, opened in 2015 to work on the Starlink project. The two precursor satellites must thus communicate regularly with three ground stations in the United States, to verify the reliability of the links. According to Elon Musk, these test devices must fly over Los Angeles on Friday 23 February in the morning. "Tintin A and Tintin B will try to send the message" Hello world "when they go near LA, tweeted the founder of SpaceX yesterday, do not tell anyone, but the Wifi password is" Martian "." Elon Musk fans are still debating whether this tweet was a joke or not. One thing is certain: my used frequencies appear incompatible with those of terminals equipped with Wifi.
30 billion expected sales

Far from being a mere fad of philanthropy, the Starlink project is one of the cornerstones of SpaceX's strategy. In an internal document unveiled by the Wall Street Journal in early 2017, the group estimated the constellation's turnover in 2025 at $ 30 billion, compared with only $ 5 billion for launches. Elon Musk himself ensured in 2015 that Starlink's profits would help finance his priority project, the installation of human settlements on Mars.

Is the project credible? He appears in any case very ambitious.
SpaceX on Thursday, February 22, launched the first two test satellites of Starlink, its satellite constellation project designed to connect the world to broadband. Launched in 2015 by Elon Musk, the project bears the mark, a megalomaniac nothing, of its initiator: it plans to put into orbit 4,425 satellites at altitudes between 1,100 and 1,325 km, to definitively eliminate the digital divide in the world. By 2024, the constellation could even reach 12,000 satellites, including 7,500 in a much lower orbit (340km), according to SpaceX. A monumental figure: the largest constellation is currently that of the California start-up Planet, with just under 200 satellites in orbit.