SpaceX says it plans to change its satellite launch strategy in a way that will speed up deployment of its Starlink broadband service and has set a new goal of providing broadband in the Southern United States late next year. Ars Technica reports: In a filing on August 30, SpaceX asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to "adjust the orbital spacing of its satellites." With this change, each SpaceX launch would deploy satellites in "three different orbital planes" instead of just one, "accelerating the process of deploying satellites covering a wider service area." "This adjustment will accelerate coverage to southern states and U.S. territories, potentially expediting coverage to the southern continental United States by the end of the next hurricane season and reaching other U.S. territories by the following hurricane season," SpaceX told the FCC. The Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons each begin in the spring and run to November 30 each year. SpaceX said it already planned to "provide continual coverage over northern states after as few as six more launches," but said it needs a license modification to speed up deployment in the Southern U.S. SpaceX's filing stresses the importance of quickly getting service to parts of the U.S. where broadband coverage is limited. "With this straightforward adjustment, SpaceX can broaden its geographic coverage in the early stages of the constellation's deployment and enable service initiation to serve customers earlier in the middle latitudes and southern-most states, and critically, those often underserved Americans in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands," the company told the FCC.
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