Washington (AFP)

The Californian space company SpaceX will launch on Monday 60 additional satellites for its Starlink constellation of high-speed internet from space, a service intended to cover as a priority the isolated areas of the globe.

If the launch is successful, the constellation will have just under 180 satellites in orbit, after two launches of 60 last year (some of the satellites launched previously have broken down). San Francisco-based Planet Labs, which photographs the entire Earth in high resolution every day, has about 140 active satellites in orbit, which is the largest active constellation currently.

SpaceX uses its own Falcon 9 rockets, which are reusable, and has planned an unprecedented launch rate: it plans to launch two more by the end of January, and a SpaceX manager said in September that she hoped to carry out two launches per month in 2020, a pace that the company has not yet proved that it was able to maintain, technically or financially.

In total, the company founded by Elon Musk has requested licenses to send up to 42,000 satellites, a figure quite hypothetical at this stage. But SpaceX said that its internet service would be operational in 2020 for Canada and the northern United States, and that the rest of the world would be gradually covered thereafter, over the launches.

If the constellation materializes, SpaceX will have more active satellites than all the other operators on the planet combined, civilians and military, which is estimated to be around 2,100.

Small Starlink satellites weighing around 200 kg, fitted with a solar panel, are manufactured, launched and operated by SpaceX. They will be deployed by a rocket at an altitude of 290 km, and will take one to four months to reach their operational orbit of 550 km.

Monday's launch is scheduled for 9:19 PM (2:19 GMT Tuesday) from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

- Points in the night -

The relatively low altitude of 550 km should allow a faster response time than traditional telecommunications satellites, which fly in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km. This reduced time is crucial for online video games, or video chats.

The grid of the sky will have to be dense enough so that several Starlink satellites are always in direct line with the subscriber. SpaceX did not disclose a price or subscription method, but the reception terminal should have a flat antenna the size of a pizza box.

The most lucrative market is not the internet users of cities and areas already well connected to the internet by fiber or cable, but poorly connected, rural, desert, maritime regions ...

The launch of the first cluster in May 2019 had caused a stir in the astronomer community, because the "train" of 60 satellites was clearly visible in the night sky, the light of the Sun reflecting on the devices at high altitude. The idea that thousands of others join them in space made fear a speckled sky and ruined forever for astronomical observations.

After brushing aside these critics, Elon Musk recognized their legitimacy. One of the 60 satellites launched on Monday has a different treatment on its surface, so that it reflects less light.

"But SpaceX has not yet reassured astronomers," said Laura Seward Forczyk, a space analyst. It will take several days to compare this new version of the Starlink satellites to the previous one.

OneWeb is the other advanced company to provide a new broadband internet from space. The company wants to cover the Arctic with very high speed (375 giga per second) above the 60th parallel in late 2020, with 24-hour coverage in early 2021.

OneWeb has only six satellites in orbit today, but is preparing launches for around thirty satellites each time, with a final target of 650 aircraft. Again, the company will have to prove that it has the financial capacity to make this heavy initial investment.

© 2020 AFP