SpaceX CEO Elon Musk raises his arms in celebration under a prototype Starship rocket under construction in Boca Chica, Texas.
Steve Jurvetson on flickr
Elon Musk said Monday in a series of tweets that his aerospace company, SpaceX, has so far sent 100,000 Starlink terminals and is now serving 14 countries with pending license applications in others.
The tweets imply that Starlink added 10,000 subscribers in about 3 weeks. In late July, the company said it had about 90,000 users of its Internet service, CNBC reported.
Starlink is a SpaceX initiative to create a network of tens of thousands of satellites, known in the space industry as a constellation, to provide high-speed internet to customers anywhere on Earth.
SpaceX launched its Starlink beta Internet service in late 2020 with a program that allowed some customers to test it for $ 99 a month, not including initial shipping, tax, installation and equipment costs, such as now ceiling mounts to hold the terminals in place.
A Starlink kit includes a satellite dish, a stand, a power supply and a WiFi router.
More recently, SpaceX has indicated that it plans to expand the service to work on the Internet in flight, or on moving ships and trucks.
Gwynne Shotwell, president and space director of SpaceX, announced in February 2020 that the company would likely separate its Starlink satellite business and could have a IPO of the unit in the coming years.
The initiative has already been very intense in capital for SpaceX. In 2018, Shotwell predicted it would cost SpaceX about $ 10 billion or more to build the Starlink network.
Last week, federal files revealed that SpaceX intends to use its Starship rocket as its main vehicle to deliver its Starlink Gen2 satellites into orbit. SpaceX has already launched 1,740 satellites as part of Starlink and aims for its Gen2 Starlink system to add about 30,000 satellites to the Internet.