Last month, SpaceX ($PRIVATE:SPACEX) launched 60 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This "constellation" of satellites is intended to eventually grow to 12,000 by the mid-2020s to create a space-based Internet communication system.
At one point, some experts weere skeptical SpaceX would get Starlink off the ground, let alone to a network of 12,000 nodes, but the May 24 launch put an end to that for now, at least. Now even more striking evidence that SpaceX's Starlink is not just off the ground, but set to expand, has been found in hiring data that we track over time via the company's recruiting websites.
According to that data trend, hiring at Elon Musk's SpaceX for positions with the terms "Starlink" and "Satellite" in their titles has taken off like a rocket (sorry) since last fall.
On September 18, 2018, SpaceX was hiring for just one position explicitly dedicated to its Starlink team. Just before the aforementioned launch in May 2019, SpaceX had opened up 29 such positions. In total, SpaceX has opened up 61 job titles across 571 individual job postings for Starlink since September 2018.
Starlink was created in order to help fund SpaceX's larger aspirations, such as getting to Mars. CEO Elon Musk believes there is massive demand for low-cost, global broadband networks. It was originally announced in 2015. The current plan is to launch "44 high-performance, low-cost spacecraft built and launched every month for the next 60 months" in order to get 2,200 satellites in orbit in order to support Starlink's FCC spectrum allocation license assignment.
Further Reading
- SpaceX fires up hiring for team to build Starlink orbital broadband network
- SpaceX job openings dropped 49% since May, indicating that Starlink may be hired up
- Hiring data at SpaceX indicates they're finally building Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) and Starlink
