One Starship Launch Can Add 20 Times More Internet Capacity Than a Falcon 9
The leap comes from a new satellite with 10 times the bandwidth, plus a much larger rocket to carry dozens at once.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg · Google’s AI Brain Drain, SpaceX's Huge Quarter, Airtable’s 90% Collapse, US Data Fuels China AIOne launch of SpaceX's giant Starship rocket can add more than 20 times as much internet capacity as a launch of its workhorse Falcon 9.
The math comes down to two upgrades happening at once: a bigger satellite and a bigger rocket to carry it.
Today's Starlink network, which beams internet from orbit, runs mostly on a version called V2. A Falcon 9 rocket carries about 27 of those satellites at a time. Each of those launches contributes roughly 2.6 terabits per second to overall network throughput, or the maximum amount of data the new satellites can move at once.
SpaceX has now built a new version, called V3, that carries 10 times the bandwidth of a V2. The problem is that the V3 is too large to launch in big numbers on Falcon 9.
That is where Starship comes in. Starship is designed to carry 60 of the larger V3 satellites in a single flight. Because each satellite is so much more powerful, that single flight could contribute 60 terabits per second in capacity, compared with 2.6 terabits on Falcon 9.
A recent test flight showed how close that future is. The flight proved the heat shield needed for rapid reuse, and it released 20 V3 satellites as a demonstration. Controllers made contact with the test satellites, confirming the design works in space, before the satellites burned up as planned.
The next milestone is operational: launch 60 V3s, place them in the correct orbit, and connect them to the live network. Repeated many times, those launches could expand Starlink's total bandwidth by 10 times, and eventually 100 times.
That jump is what would allow Starlink to do far more demanding jobs, including sending service directly to ordinary cellphones.
Questions people ask
How much data is a terabit per second, really?
A terabit per second is one trillion bits of digital information per second. For scale, a typical home fiber connection moves about one gigabit per second, so one terabit equals roughly 1,000 such connections.
What is the difference between Falcon 9 and Starship?
Falcon 9 is SpaceX's longtime reusable rocket, and Starship is its far larger successor, still in testing. Starship is designed to be fully reusable and to lift much heavier cargo, which is why it can carry bigger satellites in larger batches.
What does direct-to-cell service mean?
Direct-to-cell means an orbiting satellite talks straight to a regular smartphone, without a dish or special antenna. It requires far more capacity and power than serving fixed dishes, which is why the extra V3 bandwidth matters.