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There are now more than 10,000 active Starlink satellites orbiting Earth
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There are now more than 10,000 active Starlink satellites orbiting Earth


There are more than 10,000 active Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit. This makes it the largest satellite constellation ever made. Since 2019, more than 11,500 satellites have been launched, but some of them have already come back down to Earth.

Created by SpaceX as part of the Starlink project to give people all over the world access to the internet.



by HasibBinAmzad

View 32 Comments

32 Comments

  3. That-Advance-9619 on

    Disgusting. The work of a Epstein class nepobaby that cares for nothing but profit.

    I have yet to see people actually get access to the internet thanks to starlink, not without the asterisk of “I, Elon Musk, can cut it anytime so agree with my Altright views just like Ukraine” and even if that was the case I don’t think the internet is worth polluting the orbit to this amount.

  5. AndrijaSucevic on

    If I remember correctly, according to CARA  reports that we get, there are about 100 uncontrollable Starlink satellites and one recently broke apart into small pieces. 

    While I really appreciate the cutting edge of the technology and amazing feat to have such low amount of failures, it is really concerning when we think about the increased risk of congestion and collision cascades. Especially since many companies/governments are following in Starlink footsteps (constellations made up of 1000s of satellites).

    I know there is automatic avoidance and deorbiting strategies in place, but as number of satellites increase, the margin for error get smaller….

    Just remember Iridium 33 and Fengyun 1C and the amount of debris those single events produced….we are still doing avoidance manoeuvres today because of it.

  8. Jazzlike-Grade-6663 on

    this is such a bad visual representation, it makes it looks like they are already surrounding earth in whole but in reality they are thousands of kms apart

  9. ChadlyTrooper on

    Although this looks terrible, it also important to remember the dots are not up to scale and would vanish from this image if they were.

  10. Lunar-Outpost415 on

    Astronomers hate these f#cking things as they produce streaks across long exposure images.

  11. Legged_MacQueen on

    If it was 100km higher, the lag would only increase by 1-2ms, but they would be able to last for a lot, lot more. They even have the means to deorbit themselves. Planned obsolescence in satellites should be illegal.

    All of them are going to burn into the atmosphere within 5-6 years. I understand that SpaceX can afford to do that, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. I have done no research on the subject. Has SpaceX done research on the environmental impact of Starlink? It’s not a Kessler issue. We all should know it’s not a Kessler issue if they are going down within a few years. What I am worried about is that whatever their batteries are made of will contaminate who knows what.

    I know it will probably not be a significant pollutant compared to most other things that can pollute the atmosphere, 10k satellite over 6 years is insignificant compared to the transportation or agriculture industry, but every little thing counts.

  12. OptimallyPicked on

    10, 198 for Starlink plus about a hundred for Starshield (budding military equivalent)

    So about 10,300 at the moment.

  14. Tattorack on

    Are Starlink satellites built to be disposable?

    I’ve never really gotten a clear answer. From what I know, they’re really small satellites. Do they even have solar panels?

    Low Earth orbit means they’re still exposed to atmospheric drag, so it seems like they’re designed with an expiry date. 

  15. largestbeefsreak on

    Starlink is not sustainable and really the business model makes no sense. It’s brute forcing high bandwidth for satellite connections. Its only real applicable use case is for wealthy entities like corporations and governments. And don’t you just love ruining low earth orbit, possibly heading towards Keslar Syndrome, all to the benifit of the few.

    Capitalism in space. Fucking wonderful.

  16. OdinsBeard4455 on

    At least, one to two starlink satellites are deorbited every day due to old outdated tech to reduce space debris.

  18. Disastrous-Metal-183 on

    This might be a silly question, but does this make launching things like the Artemis II more difficult? Do they have to make sure they don’t crash into one of these suckers on launch and re-entry?

  19. gottagrablunch on

    I don’t know anyone that uses starlink. I’m very certain they aren’t just crappy internet access!

  23. cyberspace-_- on

    The real issue is that all great powers will want to have their own.

    So we are talking about 100k+ LEO sats within a couple of years.

  25. drifters74 on

    I’m eagerly awaiting the Kessler Syndrome from not attempting to clean up what’s already there first

  30. SuspendedHalo on

    The problem with models like this is that they paint the satelites as being 10000x bigger than what they really are. Not advocating but the doomers in the comments really paint an ignorant picture.