Elon Musk dismisses employees to accelerate the emergence of satellite Internet

In 2015, Ilon Musk announced that he intends to create an Internet distribution system using twelve thousand compact satellites. To implement the project, he founded Starlink, which in March 2018 entered into an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission, which indicated that half of the prepared devices should be launched by 2024. It seems that Ilon Mask is so afraid of not being in time by the deadline that he is even ready to fire some of the employees and replace them with new ones.

The Reuters publication reported that in June, Ilon Musk fired “at least seven” important Starlink managers. Among the dismissed employees were Vice-President SpaceX satellites Rajeev Badial, designer Mark Krebs and specialists who previously worked at Microsoft. According to Reuters, they are accustomed to longer development schedules and are not ready for the Ilona Mask mode.

At the moment, it is known that about 300 specialists are working on the Starlink project. In January 2015, Ilon Mask stated that after three or four years the number of employees of the company will exceed 1000 people. Having dismissed ineffective employees, Ilon Mask found a replacement for them in the person of more trusted people.

It is known that satellites for the distribution of the Internet will be launched into orbit from 1110 to 1325 km high, which is much lower than the altitude of other similar devices. The speed of the distributed Internet will reach 1 Gbit per second with a delay of no more than 35 ms. For comparison, satellites at higher altitudes are not able to provide a delay below 600 ms.

Starlink test satellites were launched on February 22, 2018. The mass launch of the devices is scheduled for 2019. Initially, the satellite network will be inactive - it will work only when there are at least 800 satellites inside it.

What do you think the future Internet will look like?