Genius billionaire inventor Elon Musk – either the world’s first supervillain waiting to happen, or the real-life version of Ironman’s Tony Stark – has just confirmed some of the rumors about launching the world’s largest satellite formation to provide “low cost” and “unfettered” Internet access across the globe.
The famous entrepreneur addressed the rumors in a series of tweets after the Wall Street Journal published an article about the venture.
According to The Wall Street Journal, former Google executive Greg Wyler, founder of WorldVu Satellites Ltd., is closely working with Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, to launch a fleet of roughly 700 satellites, each weighing under 250 pounds.
Individually, each satellite would be half the size of the smallest telecommunications satellite in commercial use today. Together, however, they’d form a fleet 10 times bigger than the current largest satellite constellation, owned by Iridium Communications.
“WSJ was wrong on several important points. The article shouldn't have been written on rumor and hearsay,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday November 11. However, the billionaire’s comments didn’t stop there: “SpaceX is still in the early stages of developing advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations. Announcement in 2 to 3 months.”
He also confirmed the project was about Internet access, which would be “unfettered certainly and at very low cost.”
Elon Musk is known for being at the forefront of technology with companies such as PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, among others. SpaceX is currently contracted by NASA to build rockets to fly astronauts to and from the international space station.
In recent months, Google and Facebook also expressed interest in similar ideas to provide Internet access to unwired parts of the world. Google’s Project Loon would use a combination of satellites and balloons while Facebook would rely on solar powered drones.
While it is doubtful those ventures would be able to enter China’s airspace, SpaceX’s giant network of satellites approach might have an easier time bypassing the Great Firewall. If so, how would Chinese authorities deal with it?
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