Shotwell: About That 4,000 Satellite Internet Constellation…Well…

Gwynne Shotwell

Speaking at a satellite convention in Hong Kong on Tuesday, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell downplayed the company’s commitment to building a 4,000 satellite constellation to deliver Internet around the world.

Addressing CASBAA’s convention Oct. 27, Shotwell sought to dispel the impression that SpaceX — already busy returning from a launch failure with an upgraded rocket, developing a Falcon Heavy variant, upgrading its Dragon cargo freighter to carry crew for NASA — was moving full-speed-ahead with what would almost certainly be a multibillion-dollar investment in satellites.

“I would say that this is actually very speculative at this point,” Shotwell said of the satellite Internet idea. “We don’t have a lot of effort going into that right now.

“Certainly I think that from a technical perspective this could get done. But can we develop the technology and roll it out with a lower-cost methodology so that we can beat the prices of existing providers like Comcast and Time Warner and other people? It’s not clear that the business case will work,” Shotwell said.

The story also mentions that Shotwell has always said that the $1 billion investment that SpaceX received from Google and Fidelity Investments has gone into the space company’s treasury for company purposes and has not been earmarked for the satellite constellation program.