You never know that Musk, a well-built, perverse man, will bring surprise and shock the next second.

The smashing of windows at Cybertruck's new car launch looked like yesterday, when Elon Elon Musk made two more big stories on both sides of the globe in one day.

On January 7, 2020, Musk founded SpaceX successfully sent 60 broadband communications satellites of the third batch of Starlink program into space with a core-class Falcon 9 rocket for the fourth time. Together with the 120 satellite chains launched two times before, Musk has about 180 satellites in orbit, making it the person with the largest constellation in space.

On the same day, on the other side of the world, Musk's Model 3 was officially delivered to the outside world in China, and the first batch of 10 domestic Model 3 owners received the car keys accompanied by Musk. With the music, Musk danced before the delivery ceremony and thanked China at the delivery ceremony.

According to the Starlink plan, two batches of satellites were originally launched on January 16 and January 31, 2020, but the China Investment Network searched through foreign media, and there was no news of a satellite launch by Starlink on January 16. However, it is reported that, if nothing happens, Musk will launch a total of 180 satellites into space in the first month of 2020, with a total of nearly 24 satellites launched in 2020.

Over the past few days, with the momentum of these two major news, the share price of Tesla, Inc., a listed company owned by Musk, has soared, with a market capitalization of more than 100 billion US dollars. Musk may receive a down-payment of $346 million in stock options.

Musk's space fantasy

In foreign media comments, Musk has become a dreamer who surpassed Jobs. He is the only person in the world who has founded four unicorn companies-PayPal Holdings Inc, Tesla, Inc., SpaceX and Solar City (merged with Tesla, Inc. in 2016).

On one side is the extension in space, and on the other is the gallop above the surface. The actual performance of the Model 3 has yet to be tested by the first users, but Musk's satellite share will reach 1/3 of the normal operation in orbit above the space carried by the SpaceX.

Musk's space fantasy stems from a heavy reading of science fiction as a child, and his childhood even spends 10 hours a day reading science fiction, according to his childhood companions. Before he founded SpaceX in 2002, he had three entrepreneurial experiences and achieved financial freedom. SpaceX was founded with the goal of "revolutionizing space technology" and enabling humans to live on multiple planets, especially on Mars. Part of SpaceX's start-up capital also comes from the money earned from the sale of PayPal Holdings Inc to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

"at that time, a lot of people persuaded me not to start a rocket company. It was crazy at the time. In an interview with CBS in 2014, Musk said, "I have a good friend who collected a series of videos of rocket explosions for me to see. He just doesn't want me to lose all my money. "

It turns out that space exploration is indeed a "high-risk" measure, especially in 2008. The company was preparing to launch its first rocket, Falcon 1, which failed in the first three launches, and Musk even terminated his marriage that year. "this is the worst year of my life," Musk once told the media. but that didn't stop the great idea in his head. But the fourth time, Musk made the final decision to inject capital into SpaceX, "Falcon 1" finally launched successfully, followed by a 1.5 billion yuan contract with NASA.

Today, the Falcon series has become the world's first reusable rocket. In a promotional video recently released by SpaceX officials, Musk's rockets can reach any corner of the world in half an hour. Musk said that in his plan, the future hopes to make launching rockets as easy as flying airliners. Through Musk's star chain plan, billions of people on earth will be able to access the real broadband Internet through StarLink in the future. Musk wants to build a global "Wi-Fi network", which is considered to be a complete subversion of the telecommunications and Internet landscape.

The number of launches planned for the Star chain is also crazy. There are no more than 1500 satellites on earth. SpaceX's satellite Internet program started with the launch of 12000 star chain satellites and later applied to the International Telecommunication Union to deploy the spectrum for an additional 30000 star chain satellites. If all can be achieved, a total of 42000 may be launched.

Judging from the launch data that have now been completed, access to public data by China Investment Network shows that as of the first half of July 2019, the top three countries in the number of satellites in orbit above the earth are the United States, China and Russia. Among them, the United States has about 900 satellites in orbit, China has about 300, and Russia has more than 150. After the launch of Musk's 60 satellites, SpaceX will rank third in the number of satellites owned by countries in the world.

SpaceX killer mace: extremely low cost, has become the world's largest commercial satellite company

At present, 180 satellite chains have been launched and have become the largest commercial satellite constellation in the world. But this figure is only the tip of the iceberg compared with SpaceX's goal.

These chain satellites will first be deployed at an orbital altitude of 290 km, then use their thrusters to raise the orbital altitude to 550 km and begin to provide network services.

Musk's move is also controversial. Among the existing space Internet projects, Star chain is trying to launch the largest number of satellites and making the fastest progress. The reasons for the controversy are nothing more than three aspects: large-scale low-Earth orbit satellites will significantly affect astronomical observation, second, it will affect space traffic, and third, it will produce a large amount of space junk.

With the launch, SpaceX intends to release information to the media in response to these two disputes. SpaceX said that in the latest launch of the chain satellite, one of the tests used to reduce the reflectivity of the satellite chain technology. In addition, before each chain satellite launch, two rows of orbital data (TLE) will be provided to the top astronomical research groups to facilitate astronomical researchers to coordinate the arrangement of astronomical observations.

As for affecting space traffic, SpaceX said that SpaceX will share high-fidelity tracking data with other satellite operators through a US Air Force squadron during Starchain satellite flight operations.

In terms of environmental protection, the satellite is a low-orbit satellite with thin air in its orbit, so it is subject to greater air resistance. In long-term operation, the Starlink satellite will gradually fall into the atmosphere, and even if the Starlink satellite is out of control, it will slowly fall into the atmosphere and burn itself, unlike high-orbit satellites, which float over the earth for a long time and become real rubbish.

As mentioned earlier, "colonization of Mars" is the ultimate goal of SpaceX. Before achieving this ultimate goal, SpaceX needs to reduce cost and time as much as possible, including the reuse of rockets in December 2015. This is the first company in the world to land an orbital rocket and has taken the first step in terms of reusability. More than a year later, SpaceX made progress, launching and successfully landing a reused Falcon 9 rocket.

At present, Falcon series rocket technology has become mature. According to expert estimates, the total cost of launching the 60 satellites is more than 35 million US dollars, with an average launch cost of 2300 US dollars per kilogram. In addition to Falcon rockets, the launch cost of the world's cheapest commercial rocket is about $10000 per kilogram.

Comparing the launch costs of different rockets, BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) is a large rocket developed by SpaceX. Source: SpaceX official

Another benefit of SpaceX's Falcon series is that, as a commercial rocket, the company can independently control the frequency and timing of the launch. Therefore, SpaceX dares to set the target of 24 Starlink launches this year, which is basically equal to the number of rocket launches in the United States last year. At the same time, in order to reduce costs and optimize the design of stars and arrows, SpaceX's satellite is designed to be flat on one side of the solar sail, and the soundproof tiles in the fairing are also optimized to carry the satellite.

With these details, the cost of Starlink's satellite is much lower than that of the competition, and SpaceX has become the largest satellite launcher in the world.

Pull Tesla, Inc. 's stock to rise sharply

The success of the Star chain project will greatly benefit Musk's other business, Tesla, Inc. Electric vehicles. When the coverage of SpaceX is wide enough, Tesla, Inc., who is on autopilot at L4 level, can realize the characteristics of real-time online and low-delay network in any corner of the world, and will become its unique advantage. In addition to commercial applications, Starlink has gradually shown its military potential, so the US Air Force has sponsored $28.7 million to SpaceX to support it to expand its applications to the military.

As early as 2016, SpaceX began to try deep cooperation with Tesla, Inc., and the two teams jointly developed new automotive materials. In order to maximize resource sharing, the two companies have also joined hands to create a rich material database.

As we all know, due to a series of stringent requirements, such as strength, heat resistance, lightweight, fatigue resistance and so on, aerospace materials technology is much more difficult than cars. Musk's move spawned aviation aluminum, which is highly sought after by car companies because of its excellent performance.

And NIO Inc. ES8 from China is the world's first production car with 7003 aviation aluminum. According to relevant media reports, the torsional stiffness of NIO Inc. ES8 using aviation aluminum is even as high as 44140 Nm / degree, and the model with excellent safety performance is about 30000 Nm / degree.

Interestingly, with the delivery of Musk's first domestic Model 3 and the first launch of 60 satellites in 2020, Tesla, Inc. 's share price has soared in recent days, and the market capitalization was once close to 100 billion US dollars. It fell slightly on January 16, and the current offer per share is 512.81 US dollars. The company's share price has more than doubled in the past three months.

It is well known that Musk has not been paid a penny since he founded Tesla, Inc. in 2004. According to the salary incentive scheme previously designated by Tesla, Inc., if Tesla, Inc. 's market value reaches 100 billion US dollars and meets one of the 16 operating results, Musk will receive a stock award of about 1.69 million shares, which are worth nearly 938 million US dollars. The initial payment will be 346 million US dollars.