Starlink sends first tweet from space using the upcoming Direct to Cell service

SpaceX has managed to beam a tweet to its own account on Elon Musk's X social network using Starlink for the first time. Last month, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket managed to put the first Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities into orbit.

These will eventually be used for the Coverage Above and Beyond joint mission with T-Mobile that SpaceX announced back in 2022 which "aims to bring connectivity nearly everywhere in the U.S. for Un-carrier customers, even in many of the most remote locations previously unreachable by traditional cell signals from any provider… aka dead zones."

The constellation of satellites with Direct to Cell abilities that SpaceX launched is now undergoing testing , and the first tweet from space comes as a testament to the feasibility of the upcoming Coverage Above and Beyond service of T-Mobile.

As if to illustrate the successful proof of concept, SpaceX's chief of satellite engineering posted the relatively dense tree cover in the Santa Cruz Mountains valley where the team got to "exchanging some DMs on X."

Before the test, SpaceX promised "seamless access to text, voice, and data for LTE phones across the globe," but only informed that "Starlink has successfully sent and received texts to cell phones via our first six Direct to Cell satellites." Now that the first tweet from space using Starlink satellites has been posted, SpaceX can add the all-important data transfer to the list of successful connections that bypass cell towers, too. 

Get the new Starlink Standard Kit dish at Best Buy