Gwynne Shotwell, the president of SpaceX, announced during a press conference on Tuesday that the company has begun selling satellite lasers—which are utilised for quick in-orbit communications—to other satellite companies.

With fewer ground stations, SpaceX’s network can provide more global internet coverage thanks to its hundreds of Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit, which communicate with one another in space at the speed of light via intersatellite laser links.

Shotwell stated that SpaceX, as a provider, will offer that technology to other businesses while participating in a panel discussion at the Satellite industry conference in Washington.

“We’ll roll that out… with our new Polaris Dawn mission coming up here this summer on a Dragon capsule,” Shotwell stated, making reference to the company’s next Dragon space capsule journey for a private astronaut.

According to Shotwell, the laser product is referred to as “Plug and Plaser,” implying that users could quickly and simply install it on their spaceship.

Space firms have chosen to sell spaceship components in order to diversify their sources of income and raise finance for larger, more ambitious projects. SpaceX is in the process of creating and testing the Starship, a rocket that will be significantly more powerful than its mainstay Falcon 9 rocket but will be much cheaper.

“We generally don’t sell components, so this is a little bit of a new thing for us,” Shotwell said after the panel discussion. She said SpaceX was already in talks with potential customers.

(Adapted from Reuters.com)