> Matching Starlink’s 40,000 would take “a couple of months, not years.”
Wow, that's faster than I would have expected. Good thing in this case!
Wow, that's faster than I would have expected. Good thing in this case!
First off the basic facts are wrong, SpaceX has just over 7000 satellites, not 40,000.
Secondly it is physically impossible to launch even 7000 satellites within a few months, even for SpaceX. The satellites do not exist and would need to be built which takes over a year at a minimum. Europe launches rockets into space a couple times a year and you can only launch around a dozen or two satellites per launch. That means just to reach 7000 satellites, assuming 20 per launch and a generous 10 launches per year is over 3.5 years to launch all those satellites.
Edit: The problem appears to be with the low quality terminology.
It is using the word "satellites" to refer to ground terminals. Ground terminals are not "satellites".
It is still incorrect however as Eutelsat doesn't have the bandwidth required to serve what SpaceX is providing to Ukraine. They can provide a backup, but it will be significantly degraded versus what Ukraine already uses.
What? The article never used satellite to refer to ground terminals. They used the word terminals.