After a profitable Starlink mission launch on Wednesday, Elon Musk‘s SpaceX at the moment has over 100 Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit with Direct to Cell capabilities.What Occurred: On Wednesday, SpaceX launched 20 Starlink satellites, 13 of which have Direct to Cell capabilities, elevating the overall variety of such satellites in orbit to over 100.Every of those satellites includes a modem functioning as a cell tower in area, aiming to supply customers with international entry to texting, calling, and web searching utilizing normal LTE telephones, with out requiring further {hardware}, software program, or apps. “With over 100 Direct to Cell satellites now launched, and 100s extra deliberate to be launched this 12 months, excited to supply ubiquitous connectivity to our prospects beginning with T-Cellular within the US this 12 months!” Sara Spangelo, Senior Director of Satellite tv for pc Engineering at SpaceX, mentioned.Why It Issues: T-Cellular and SpaceX introduced a partnership in August 2022 aiming to attach the smartphones on T-Cellular’s community to Starlink satellites. The partnership is geared toward offering connectivity to distant places which are untouched by cell alerts from any supplier.Different mobile suppliers to have signed related partnerships with SpaceX embody Optus from Australia, Rogers from Canada, and KDDI in Japan. SpaceX plans to roll out texting providers with the assistance of the satellites by the top of 2024, adopted by voice calls, knowledge, and internet-of-things (IoT) providers in 2025. Take a look at extra of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility protection by following this hyperlink.Learn Extra:Photograph courtesy: WikimediaMarket Information and Knowledge dropped at you by Benzinga APIs© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga doesn’t present funding recommendation. All rights reserved.