SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared at the All-In Podcast Summit yesterday that even though his firm has bought $17 billion worth of spectrum from EchoStar, translating the purchase into coverage will require smartphone support. This support should probably arrive in two years, according to him, with another hurdle being the need to build the satellites to support the new frequencies. Musk also asserted that SpaceX should demonstrate full reusability with the Starship rocket next year as it works with the upper-stage ship's highly complex heatshield.
SpaceX Won't Put Other Carriers Out Of Business With Its Starlink Spectrum Purchase, Says Musk
Starting by commenting on SpaceX's mega Starlink purchase, Musk shared that the deal will allow SpaceX to deliver connectivity from satellites to phones. However, he cautioned that "there are hardware changes that need to happen in the phone. So since these frequencies are not supported in current phones, the chipset has to be modified to add these frequencies."
Modifying the chipset to gain phone support is "probably is a two year timeframe," according to the executives. As a result, he believes "the phones that are able to use the spectrum that was acquired probably still aren't shipping in around two years."
Not only do the frequencies require smartphone hardware support, SpaceX also needs to "build the satellites that are gonna communicate on those frequencies," he said. "So in parallel we are building the satellites and working with the handset makers to add these frequencies to the phones. And then the satellites and the phones will then handshake very well to achieve high bandwidth connectivity," Musk added.
The $17 billion deal also caused slight turbulence in the telecommunications sector as it sent the shares of major carriers lower. When asked whether SpaceX was aiming to build a global carrier with Starlink, while Musk admitted that it "would be one of the options," he nevertheless asserted that "we're not going to put the other carriers out of business" as the carriers "are still going to be around because they own a lot of spectrum."
The end result of the deal should be, according to him:
You should be able to have a Starlink, like you have an AT&T or T-Mobile, Verizon, or whatever, you can have a, you know, account with Starlink that works with your, you know, Starlink antenna at home for your WiFi as well as on your phone. And yeah it would be a comprehensive solution for high bandwidth at home and for high bandwidth direct-to-cell.
As for Starship, Musk remains confident that SpaceX will recover the ship in 2026. The upper stage had proven to be quite troublesome this year since it has completed just one successful flight out of four. Musk shared that SpaceX will launch the third generation Starship booster and rocket after the next flight, i.e., Flight 11.
Commenting on the new rockets, he shared that the third-generation Starship is "a gigantic upgrade because it's got Raptor 3 and pretty much everything changes on the rocket with version three." Calling it a "radical redesign," Musk added that the new rocket is "capable of over a hundred tons to orbit fully reusable," which could lead SpaceX to "deliver over a hundred tons to a useful orbit" in 2026.
One of the biggest constraints SpaceX is facing with Starship is the heatshield. According to Musk, "no one's ever made a fully reusable orbital heatshield." For Starship's heatshield, SpaceX has to ensure "it can withstand the heat, is very light, doesn't transmit the heat to the primary structure. And, all the tiles they don't crack, and then, as you ascend, if you hit some rain, the tiles don't dissolve in the rain."
"And then you really need to know that these tiles are working. You can't go through this laborious inspection. So it really needs to be, these tens of thousands of tiles all work and don't need to be refurbished or checked one by one as was the case with the shuttle," he added.
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