The mayor refused to install Elon Musk’s relay antennas

SpaceX is owned by an American billionaire who specializes in space and space flight Elon Musk. In addition to exploration projects for the Moon and Mars, it is developing the Starling project, which aims to ensure high-speed Internet around the world. Gravel was selected as one of its French sites.

The goal of its Starling project is: Providing high-speed Internet to the entire world through the constellations of low-level satellites. To continue its growth, SpaceX needs groundbreaking in France, which will act as relays covering the entire landscape. These stations are not made up of antennas, but spheres used to connect multiple satellites together and transfer data until the laser connection system is active.

Financial assistance issue for connection to public electricity network

The selected land is located in the Lurette Zone, between the BASF and the former Ajinomoto factories, Ru du Viex-Semin-de-Loon. With a very close presence ofOVH, Which has very powerful servers and, in fact, seemed to be the ideal location choice for Growlines Starling. But the mayor eventually refused to grant building permission for the relay antennas, France Blue reports. According to our colleagues, Bertrand Ringode has denied it, and the municipality has stated that it has not responded to requests for financial assistance for the connection of the 9 telecommunication antennas to be installed to the public electricity network of the partner company Centurion *. Order dated April 26th.

Last March, the mayor had already revealed the reservation, specifically pointing to the lack of advice: “ There is no public hearing or contradictory public debate, which surprises me equally. Today we really need to get more information. »