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PARIS — SpaceX expects to begin testing direct-to-device services using newly acquired spectrum from EchoStar as soon as the end of next year.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said at the World Space Business Week conference Sept. 16 that the company is now working with a wide range of technology and telecom partners to use S-band spectrum SpaceX purchased for $17 billion in cash and stock last week.
“We hope to be launching our next-generation direct-to-device satellites in two years, and hopefully maybe have some tests on phones late next year,” she said.
The EchoStar spectrum requires SpaceX to deploy a new generation of satellites with payloads compatible with that spectrum. The company also needs partnerships with other firms so that devices can use it.
“This is the start, by the way, of a huge amount of work,” Shotwell said of the deal. “We’re working with chip manufacturers to get the proper chips in phones.”
SpaceX will need new agreements with mobile network operators. The company was already working with them under earlier plans to use terrestrial mobile spectrum for direct-to-device services, but now that it owns spectrum, “we want to work with them almost providing capacity, kind of wholesaling capacity to their customers,” Shotwell said.
She argued that effort will be more efficient than the “clunky” approach of negotiating with individual operators for spectrum rights.
“When we cross a border into another country, we now need to leverage a different licensed spectrum, so it’s very clunky,” she said. By contrast, the EchoStar spectrum is cleared globally.
Shotwell said SpaceX approached EchoStar and its chairman, Charlie Ergen, about a year ago about using its spectrum. “We’ve known Charlie for a really long time,” she said. “We talked maybe a year ago, and then again a few months ago. Finally, I said to him, ‘We should really be working together on the spectrum.’”
Planning for Starship propellant transfer
Future versions of Starlink satellites are expected to launch on SpaceX’s Starship, given their larger size. Starship remains in development but completed a largely successful test flight Aug. 26.
“My Starship team needed that win,” Shotwell said, a reference to three previous test flights that suffered mission-ending anomalies. “I was really pleased. They did a great job. We met every mission objective that we wanted to.”
With one more launch planned of the current version 2 Starship, the company’s focus is turning to the more powerful version 3, with a first launch late this year or early next year. “It’s really the vehicle that could take humans to the moon and Mars,” she said.
A key early test for version 3 will be demonstrating the ability to transfer propellant from one Starship to another in low Earth orbit, enabling refueling for missions beyond LEO. “That is really the technology, in addition to the heat shield, that is the tough thing in front of us.”
She said she was less concerned about docking Starships, given the company’s experience with Dragon missions to the International Space Station, than with the actual propellant transfer.
“Can we transport propellant?” she said. “Is that propellant cold enough? That is really the experiment. That is what you’ll see from us trying next year.”
“Hopefully it’s not as hard as some of my engineers think it could be,” she added.
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