Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX company has received more than 500,000 orders for the satellite Internet service it is deploying.
To date, more than half a million people have ordered or deposited for Starlink, CNBC quoted SpaceX operations engineer Siva Bharadvaj as saying at the 26th Starlink mission webcast.
Starlink is a joint venture project of SpaceX to build an Internet network connecting to thousands of satellites, considered a star cluster in the space industry. SpaceX's satellite Internet network is designed to provide high-speed Internet to users anywhere on Earth.
SpaceX also has the world's largest satellite cluster, with more than 1,500 Starlink satellites launched into orbit to date.
SpaceX has begun a public testing program for Starlink, with a service priced at $99 a month since October last year. To use the service, users must pay a pre-order of $499 to order a Starlink Kit, including a user terminal and a Wi-Fi routing set to connect to the satellite.
SpaceX then began accepting a $99 pre-order for Starlink in early February, despite billionaire Elon Musk's company emphasizing that pre-orders were "fully refunded", as well as noting that "deposits do not guarantee services".
In other related developments, 3 months ago, SpaceX revealed in a filing sent to the federal government that Starlink had more than 10,000 users in the US and overseas as of February.
