SpaceX's Starlink-powered internet service could launch as soon as next year.

SpaceX Internet

Elon Musk just sent a tweet using internet provided by the constellation of Starlink satellites launched by his spacetech company SpaceX.

"Sending this tweet through space via Starlink satellite," he wrote earlier this morning on Twitter. "Whoa, it worked!!" he added in a follow-up tweet.

Musk's space company has launched only 60 of up t0 30,000 planned Starlink satellites into space so far. The goal is to launch a global and reliable internet service — but for now, SpaceX is only planning to roll out the service in the U.S. and parts of Canada next year, according to TechCrunch.

Avoiding Collisions

The planned constellation of satellites has been met with a fair amount of skepticism. Starlink satellites, both current and future, are orbiting the Earth at much lower altitudes than regular communication satellites, causing astronomers to raise concerns they might ruin the night sky.

In September, the European Space Agency tweeted that it had to perform a "collision avoidance" maneuver to avoid a crash with one of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. According to Forbes, SpaceX refused to do anything at first — but later blamed the decision on a bug.

READ MORE: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet [TechCrunch]

More on Starlink: SpaceX Blames Bug for Decision Not to Avert Satellite Collision


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