The Federal Communications Fee simply gave Starlink the inexperienced mild to vastly broaden its mega-constellation of satellites, which might probably deliver thousands and thousands of People sooner web. However the scientists I spoke with are sounding the alarm, saying that 7,500 extra satellites in uncharted orbits might have wide-ranging penalties, together with negatively affecting Earth’s ambiance.
This approval for the deployment of extra Starlink satellites was by no means actually unsure — Trump’s FCC has persistently sided with Elon Musk’s SpaceX — though it was simply half the variety of satellites the corporate initially requested.
“I am happy to see the FCC didn’t simply go, ‘Have as many as you need,’” Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who tracks satellite tv for pc launches. “The FCC is continuing at the least considerably intentionally, though I nonetheless have considerations concerning the environmental impression of those constellations.”
The authorization will almost double the variety of Starlink satellites in orbit to fifteen,000 by 2031, raising familiar distress from scientists concerning the threat of collisions in an more and more crowded stratosphere, in addition to overreliance on satellite tv for pc communications.
“This can be a lot of satellites, nevertheless it’s solely the start,” McDowell mentioned. “They’re going to ask for extra. China will throw so much up. Different firms and international locations will throw stuff up. We’ll cross the 100,000 mark almost certainly.”
Whereas there are at present about 40,000 objects in space tracked by area surveillance networks like NASA and the European House Company, there are various extra that aren’t tracked. The variety of objects in area able to inflicting “catastrophic harm” is estimated to be over 1.2 million.
“The problem isn’t the massive objects we hold monitor of. The problem is all the time the sub-10 centimeter objects that we do not hold monitor of,” Vishnu Reddy, a professor of planetary science on the College of Arizona, advised CNET.
FCC applauds order
FCC Chair Brendan Carr mentioned in an announcement that the authorization of extra Starlink satellites was a “sport changer for enabling next-generation providers,” touting the advantages to the American economic system and broadband connections nationwide.
“President Trump is restoring America’s know-how management,” Carr mentioned. “By authorizing 15,000 new and superior satellites, the FCC has given SpaceX the inexperienced mild to ship unprecedented satellite tv for pc broadband capabilities, strengthen competitors, and assist be sure that no neighborhood is left behind.”
Buried within the actual order is way extra measured language: “Whereas SpaceX requests motion on its whole proposed 29,988-satellite constellation, we proceed incrementally right here.”
The FCC’s order predicts that the approval will “dramatically enhance providers to clients in America,” even going as far as to say it should ship “pace service, together with symmetrical obtain and add speeds.”
The FCC can also be authorizing SpaceX to maneuver its satellites decrease in orbit, which is anticipated to improve latency issues which have dogged Starlink for years, however might make them extra prone to photo voltaic storms.
Starlink gained FCC approval for an extra 7,500 V2 satellites.
An more and more crowded orbit
The doomsday situation with all these satellites in movement is the Kessler Syndrome, a hypothetical situation through which particles in area units off a sequence response: One area object crashes into one other, which creates extra particles till Earth’s orbit is so cluttered with area junk that satellites can not function.
To verify Starlink satellites don’t come into contact with this area particles, SpaceX requires that they maneuver each time the likelihood of a collision is 3 in 10 million. That commonplace was really new in Starlink’s July 2025 status report with the FCC; beforehand, it had been 1 in 1 million.
Regardless of that larger threshold, Starlink satellites carried out 144,404 threat mitigation maneuvers within the six-month interval ending in Might 2025, an increase of about 200% from the earlier six months. There have been 148,696 maneuvers in an increase of about 200%.
That’s about one maneuver each 106 seconds, and that’s only for Starlink. The roughly 5,000 different lively payloads at present in orbit don’t publicly report the variety of maneuvers they make. This excessive variety of maneuvers is each good and unhealthy — they’ve managed to keep away from collisions to this point, however the elevated motion makes it tougher for different operators to know the place satellites can be.
“If everyone on the road is making an attempt to keep away from getting hit, ultimately, we’ll have accidents,” Reddy advised me in a earlier interview.
This was described as an “orbital home of playing cards” in one recent paper, with researchers estimating that it will take 5.5 days for a catastrophic collision to happen if there have been no maneuvers or a extreme loss in situational consciousness occurred. In 2018, the 12 months earlier than Starlink launched its first satellites, that quantity was 164 days. (The paper has not been peer-reviewed.)
“What occurs if there is a photo voltaic occasion the place we have misplaced management of the satellites? It will be unhealthy,” Reddy mentioned.
The extra satellites which are launched, the upper the stakes are. Occasions like a Starlink satellite explosion in December or the breakup of a Chinese rocket body in 2024 all tip the scales somewhat extra towards these doomsday situations.
Results on the ambiance
Starlink’s satellites typically final round 5 years. After that, they’re “deorbited,” a pleasant manner of claiming that they’re steered into the Earth’s ambiance to expend. Since Starlink launched its first satellites in 2019, we haven’t but seen the consequences at scale.
“We do not perceive the reentry chemistry after they eliminate them, to what extent that is affecting the ambiance,” mentioned McDowell.
However the early indicators aren’t nice. One 2024 study, funded by NASA and printed in Geophysical Analysis Letters, discovered {that a} 550-pound satellite tv for pc releases about 66 kilos of aluminum oxide nanoparticles throughout reentry. These oxides have elevated eightfold from 2016 to 2022. The Gen2 satellites permitted by the FCC weigh about 1,800 kilos.
“That is primarily a priority for the big variety of satellites to be launched sooner or later,” Joseph Wang, one of many examine’s authors, told CNET at the time. “We projected a yearly extra of greater than 640% over the pure stage [of aluminum oxide nanoparticles]. Based mostly on that projection, we’re very anxious.”
Samples taken in 2023 by scientists with the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration discovered that about 10% of particle particles within the stratosphere contained traces of metals from rockets and satellites. They estimated this might develop to 50% or extra “primarily based on the variety of satellites being launched into low-Earth orbit.”
What impact that can have remains to be one thing of an open query, however there’s little doubt that the large enhance in satellites — and their inevitable de-orbiting — will change the composition of the stratosphere considerably.
Photo voltaic storm dangers at decrease orbits
One issue that’s been underdiscussed within the newest FCC approval is the elevated threat of photo voltaic storms wiping out satellites in decrease orbit, in keeping with Sascha Meinrath, professor of telecommunications at Penn State College.
Over the course of 2026, Starlink will decrease 4,400 satellites from 342 miles above the Earth’s floor to 298 miles, according to a Jan. 1 post on X from Michael Nicolls, vice chairman of Starlink engineering at SpaceX. The brand new FCC order authorizes Starlink to maneuver satellites as little as 211 miles.
“I am extra involved simply because we hold shifting them decrease and decrease,” Meinrath advised CNET. “There is a cause why persons are like, ‘Oh, wow, this has higher statistics for his or her efficiency.’ There is a cause why they’re empty. It is due to the chance.”
The results of photo voltaic storms on satellites in low-Earth orbit can vary from community efficiency degradation to satellite tv for pc deorbiting in excessive instances, in keeping with researchers at the University of California, Irvine. Photo voltaic storms can set off atmospheric drag, which prompts Starlink’s satellites to autonomously modify their altitude in response. Neighboring satellites make their very own changes, and it might take three to 4 days earlier than they’re stabilized at their authentic positions.
“The self-driving algorithms, optimized for regular operations, might inadvertently amplify storm impacts by triggering chains of orbital changes,” say the UC Irvine researchers.
That is largely a priority for community efficiency, but when we’re more and more counting on satellites to ship important providers, the impression of photo voltaic storms could possibly be extremely severe, Meinrath mentioned.
“In the identical manner that you’ve a wireline infrastructure strung up on poles, you must take note of issues like wind storms or ice storms. Photo voltaic storms are additionally an inevitability,” he mentioned. “That very actual downside stays, so far as I can inform from the filings, unaddressed.”
It’s not simply Starlink
Having 15,000 new satellites within the sky is an enormous deal — it’s greater than the variety of lively satellites at present in orbit — however Starlink is way from the one entity that’s lively in area.
“The opposite actually important growth was that China simply filed for one more 200,000 satellites with the ITU,” mentioned McDowell, referring to the Worldwide Telecommunication Union, an company throughout the United Nations that facilitates assigning satellite tv for pc orbits.
Some observers are skeptical that the Chinese language authorities will really attain this large quantity, describing the submitting as extra of a land-grab than a possible plan. Underneath ITU guidelines, China would have seven years to launch its first satellite tv for pc, then seven extra to finish the constellation.
“SpaceX isn’t as massive a priority because the Chinese language constellations, that are worse on virtually all fronts,” McDowell mentioned.
China at present has over 1,300 satellites in orbit, in keeping with a US Space Force fact sheet. Amazon’s Undertaking Leo, previously known as Undertaking Kuiper, has additionally launched about 200 satellites out of a proposed 3,236.
Extra satellites will enhance connectivity for thousands and thousands
Whereas Starlink is usually higher than different choices in rural areas, it has nonetheless by no means persistently met the FCC’s definition of broadband internet as 100Mbps obtain and 20Mbps add speeds. It has additionally struggled on the latency entrance, with the latest information from pace check website Ookla displaying a median lag of 45ms — about 4 instances larger than the average American gets. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the identical firm as CNET, Ziff Davis.)
Starlink has a superb argument that it’ll lower latency by shifting satellites decrease. The approval may even deal with its different important hurdle: capability. An analysis from Penn State College’s X-Lab discovered that Starlink’s satellites can deal with simply 6.66 households per sq. mile earlier than service begins to dip under the FCC’s minimal.
“Shifting all these satellites down of their orbital shells will lower latency, and it’ll permit for extra capability,” Meinrath advised CNET. “While you learn between the strains, you are like, ‘Oh, it is a tacit acknowledgement that, in reality, there are some extreme capability limitations, and so they’re making an attempt to determine the best way to resolve for these.’”
Whereas the considerations about more and more crowded skies should be taken severely, so do the advantages of a contemporary high-speed web connection. Companies just like the FCC and SAMHSA have even gone so far as to name broadband entry as a “super-determinant” of well being due to the impression it has on training, employment and well being care entry.
Over the previous a number of years, I’ve talked to dozens of individuals residing in rural areas who’ve described Starlink as an absolute sport changer for them.
“You deliver a Starlink dish on the market and plug it in. Two minutes later, you’ve got obtained the entire world once more within the palm of your hand,” Eben Hopson, a photographer in Utqiagvik, Alaska, advised me in a previous interview.
It’s not a stretch to say these Starlink connections are life-altering for thousands and thousands of individuals all over the world. However simply because their satellites are floating in area a whole lot of miles away doesn’t imply there’s no threat for us right here on the bottom.
