The day before, on December 4 at 22:05 US East Coast time (December 5 at 9:05 Moscow time), a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, which launched 20 Starlink communications satellites into low Earth orbit. This launch made it possible to complete the formation of the first group of devices with Direct to Cell – a technology that allows ordinary smartphones to connect directly to satellites.
Image source: x.com/SpaceX
The new batch included 13 satellites with support for direct connection of mobile phones from the Earth – they completed the formation of the first group of devices of this type. “The first constellation of Starlink satellites with direct cellular connectivity is now deployed. This will allow unmodified mobile phones to connect to the internet in remote areas. The throughput per unit is only about 10 Mbit/s, but future constellations will be much more productive,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk promised on his page on the social network X.
The devices were deployed into low Earth orbit after 61 minutes, as planned. The first stage of Falcon 9 returned to Earth eight minutes after launch – it landed as planned on the floating platform “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Pacific Ocean. In 2024, SpaceX has launched more than 80 Starlink missions.
To date, the Starlink constellation includes 6,799 devices, of which about 330 support direct cellular connections. This grouping will make it possible to provide cellular communication services in remote regions of the planet where conventional cellular networks are not available. In the coming year, the American operator T-Mobile will be the first to begin providing satellite cellular communication services, and others will join later.