Brenda Marie Rivers
The Federal Communications Commission approved SpaceX’s request to lower the orbit of its proposed Starlink broadband satellites as part of efforts to expand the distance between competing constellations and increase space environment safety, SpaceNews reported Friday.
SpaceX proposed to change the orbit of around 1,600 Starlink satellites from 714.58 to 341.75 miles, facilitating possible re-entry of a defunct satellite into Earth’s atmosphere in five years without having to use a propulsion system.
The company seeks to reach a signal latency of15 milliseconds and increase the distance between satellites from competitors such as OneWeb and Telesat.
Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX and a 2019 Wash100 winner, said production of Starlink satellites is underway and an initial batch has already entered the launch site processing phase.
FCC authorized the company in March 2018 to deploy Ku- and Ka-band satellites and cleared deployment of V-band satellites in November of the same year.
