Canada’s telecommunications regulator has given Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) a licence allowing the company to provide satellite internet service to rural Canadians.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission sent a letter to SpaceX’s chief financial officer Bret Johnson informing him it has approved the company’s application for the Basic International Telecommunications Services (BITS) licence. The BITS licence would authorize SpaceX to provide international telecommunications services between Canada and other countries.
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The CRTC said it has received and reviewed 2,585 comments regarding SpaceX’s BITS application since the company filed it on May 15. The majority of the comments came from Canadians residing in remote parts of the country, according to CBC News.
The BITS licence will enable SpaceX to bring its Starlink Program to rural Canadians. The program aims to “deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable” through a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites.
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It is unclear when the internet service will be available in rural areas.
Starlink currently targets markets in northern United States and Canada, and is looking to expand to global coverage in 2021. Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, has said beta tests are already underway.
“Once these satellites reach their target position, we will be able to roll out a fairly wide public beta in northern US & hopefully southern Canada,” he said in a Twitter post on Oct. 6.
SpaceX has been consecutively launching batches of Starlink satellites since May 2019, with plans to ultimately build an interconnected network of 12,000 satellites.
Concerns have been raised that Starlink and similar megaconstellation initiatives engender space debris and light pollution, which can significantly interfere with space observations.
The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and the International Astronomical Union opened a four-day online workshop titled Dark and Quiet Skies for Science and Society on Oct. 8, hoping to raise public awareness about the issue.
In an interview with Space.com, an attendee at the event said the long-term goal is to convince the U.N. to “issue guidelines about protecting the night sky that will reflect a reasonable compromise between the satellite operators and the needs of astronomers.”
Musk has responded to these concerns on multiple occasions, noting that SpaceX has been doing experiments to reduce sunlight reflected from the satellites.
“It will be increasingly difficult to see Starlink satellites, as we’re actively working with the astronomer community to ensure that even the most sensitive telescopes are fine & scientific progress is not impeded,” he said in a tweet on Oct. 2.
The latest launch mission, hauling a full stack of 60 satellites, took place on Oct. 18 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which brings the total number of Starlink satellites in orbit to 835.
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The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has approved an Elon Musk-owned company's application to provide low Earth orbit satellite internet to rural Canadians.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) is Musk's rocket and spacecraft company.
One of the company's projects is to bring high-speed internet service to hard-to-reach rural areas around the globe by launching thousands of small satellites that will orbit just 550 kilometres above the Earth, vastly speeding interaction with residential computers on the ground.
Traditional telecommunications satellites orbit at more that 20,000 km above the Earth.
The CRTC approval letter is dated last Thursday and addressed to SpaceX's chief financial officer, Bret Johnson.
'The Commission received 2,585 interventions regarding Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s BITs application,' reads the notice.
'After consideration of the comments received, the Commission has approved the application and a BITS licence is enclosed.'
The vast majority of the interveners were individual Canadians living in rural areas of the country who support the application.
Aiming for network of 12K satellites
SpaceX has been launching trains of 60 satellites roughly twice a month since May 2019.
The most recent launch took place at Cape Canaveral on Sunday aboard the company's Falcon 9 reusable rocket.
That brings the total number of orbiting Starlink satellites to 835. Eventually, there will be 12,000 satellites in the network.
It is not clear how soon Canadians will be able to access Starlink's service.
SpaceX has said it will begin beta tests on the service with volunteer households in Canada and northern areas of the United States this fall.
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Musk, who is also the force behind electric car manufacturer Tesla, has been cautious about predicting how well the service will work, telling attendees at the Satellite 2020 Conference in Washington, D.C., in March that it is aimed at the three to four per cent of rural customers 'who simply have no connectivity right now, or the connectivity is really bad.'
SpaceX did not respond to a CBC request for comment Monday.