SpaceX turns to ambitious project for Internet beaming from space

SpaceX is embarking on yet another ambitious project — to beam high-speed Internet service from space to reach all parts of the globe, including remote areas.

Not only will the web of satellites wrapping the Earth in low orbit provide access to all areas on the planet, they will do it more efficiently and cheaply than the existing satellites, according to the company.

The company has asked the US federal government for permission to conduct tests by launching a constellation of 4,000 small and cheap satellites to beam the Internet signals.

The satellites would be deployed from one of SpaceX's rockets, the Falcon 9. The tests will check the antenna technology on the satellites for capability to deliver high-speed Internet to the ground.

The founder Elon Musk has said the effort "would be like rebuilding the Internet in space".

The announcement comes when Facebook has abandoned its plan to provide Internet service from space.

Google and Fidelity recently invested $1 billion into SpaceX, partly for the Internet project, reports the Washington Post.

Similar plans earlier by other players to use low-Earth orbiting satellites to provide Internet access have bombed, with costs ballooning to billions.

Musk shot to fame with his bizarre goal of colonising Mars with his belief that if humans are to survive, they must become a "multi-planetary species." Since then SpaceX has been providing rocket facilities for Nasa and the ISS.

The man behind PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX is acclaimed for 'disruptive innovation' that looks at totally electric cars, energy-generating superfast trains, batteries for home energy storage and reusable space rockets.