Science

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday said that the active number of the company’s Starlink satellite Internet service users crossed the “strategically important threshold” of 69,420 on Friday night. The billionaire entrepreneur — who often posts about his electric car company, Tesla, rockets, and of course cryptocurrency on Twitter — in another tweet said that all 72 orbital planes will be activated by August, adding many other improvements were also lined up. “Starlink simultaneously active users just exceeded the strategically important threshold of 69,420 last night!” he wrote in his first tweet.

In a subsequent tweet, Musk wrote, “All 72 orbital planes activate in August, plus many other improvements, enabling global coverage, except for polar regions, which will take another 6 months.”

User @StevenCravis was confused and asked why 69,420 was a “strategic number.”

This number of 69,420 points at the rapid deployment of the satellite Internet system. In February, SpaceX had revealed it had 10,000 Starlink customers.

Just seconds after Musk tweeted, Twitter users responded in huge numbers. One of the users, @flcnhvy, asked when would airline Wi-Fi become a reality, to which Musk quickly responded, “Focusing on 737 and A320, as those serve most number of people, with development testing on Gulfstream.”

Here are more responses to Musk’s original tweet:

Musk has referred to this number in the past as well, albeit in a different context.

On October 15, 2020, Musk announced on Twitter that Tesla Model S would be available at $69,420.

“The gauntlet has been thrown down! The prophecy will be fulfilled. Model S price changes to $69,420 tonight!” he tweeted.

In May 2021, Musk said that SpaceX received more than 5 lakh pre-orders for its Starlink satellite Internet service and anticipated no technical problems meeting the demand.

“Only limitation is high density of users in urban areas. Most likely, all of the initial 500k will receive service,” he tweeted.

Starlink claims its satellites are over 60 times closer to the Earth than traditional satellites. This results in lower latency and the ability to support services typically not possible with traditional satellite Internet.

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