SpaceX is looking to add a hardware upgrade to its first-generation Starlink satellite constellation.
In a current application for the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday, SpaceX asked to add new satellite technology to its existing constellation, as was spotted by telecommunications lawyer Ryan Thompson in a report detailed by PCMag.
“This upgraded hardware will allow SpaceX to more efficiently meet the demand for its revolutionary broadband capabilities,” wrote the company.
The news comes just months after SpaceX was approved to launch as many as 7,500 of its second-generation Starlink satellites. The company is now looking to add its next-gen Starlink satellites to the first-generation system, which was granted access to launch as many as 4,408 satellites into the orbital constellation.
“To be clear, while SpaceX intends to populate its Gen1 constellation with upgraded satellites, it does not intend to more rapidly de-orbit its existing satellites,” the company wrote. “Rather, it seeks only to replace those satellites with upgraded hardware when those satellites reach the end of their planned operational period.”
The application doesn’t detail the new satellite hardware, besides calling them “even more advanced beam-forming and digital processing technologies.”
The news also comes less than a week after a number of SpaceX job listings were spotted for Starlink positions at the company’s Austin, Texas factory.
SpaceX Launches Starlink Mobile App V3 for iPhone and Android https://t.co/6tkRyLelw3
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) February 15, 2023
