SpaceX successfully sent text messages via Starlink satellites using T-Mobile’s network, it announced Wednesday, as Elon Musk’s company aims to bring its direct-to-device cell service to market in the coming year.
The recent test comes as major players pursue the market to connect unmodified phones directly to satellites, a nascent subsector of the space economy. SpaceX last week launched the first six Starlink satellites equipped with direct-to-device, or D2D, capabilities, after receiving authorization from the Federal Communications Commission last month to test the technology.
The company said it performed the texting demonstration on Monday — in which SpaceX “sent and received our first text messages to and from unmodified cell phones on the ground to our new satellites in space” — and declared the test “validates” that “the system works.”
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