SpaceX applies for Drone Ships
December 20, 2023
By Chris Forrester
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has applied to the FCC for permission to place 12 US flagged ‘Drone Ships’ in an experiment to fill the maritime gaps. The tests will run from January 1st to June 29th 2024. The Drone Ships will be placed in US territorial waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The SpaceX request says: “SpaceX would operate no more than four earth stations per vessel under this authorisation at any given time. This experiment will enable SpaceX to test antennas onboard SpaceX’s autonomous drone ships in the Ka-band.”
“Each earth station will communicate only with those SpaceX satellites that are visible on the horizon above a minimum elevation angle and that observe the appropriate angular separation from the Geostationary arc. The earth station will track SpaceX’s satellites passing within their field of view. During testing, communications with the satellites will be limited to a minimum elevation of 25 degrees above the horizon at all times,” adds SpaceX in its application.
Musk, in an old Tweet from 2020, said the Drone Ships would be needed to “bounce” signals to get from satellite to satellite.