Roughly 4,400 Starlink satellites can be moved to decrease orbits throughout 2026
In sum — what to know:
Switching orbits: Starlink will descend all its satellites working at 550 km to 480 km above Earth in 2026.
Security first: Michael Nicolls, VP of engineering at SpaceX, tweeted that the reconfiguration is aimed toward consolidating Starlink’s orbit and enhancing area security.
Considerations over area security on the rise: Considerations over rising density of business satellites are rising as dangers of collision rise.
Beginning 2026, Starlink will convey its satellite tv for pc constellation nearer to earth addressing rising area security considerations.
Michael Nicolls, VP of engineering at SpaceX, wrote on X that roughly 4,400 satellites from the the Starlink fleet which might be presently working at 550 km to 480 km above Earth can be lowered over the course of this yr.
Nicolls defined in his tweet that the motion is aimed toward condensing Starlink’s orbit to boost area security.
“As photo voltaic mininum approaches, atmospheric density decreases which implies the ballistic decay time at any given altitude will increase,” he wrote. The reconfiguration will slash decay time by 80%, he claimed — shrinking 4 years to just some months.
Decreasing additionally reduces the chance of collision with free-floating particles objects, as Nicolls mentioned the variety of particles and satellite tv for pc constellations is considerably decrease under 500 km. Transferring the constellation will hold them from getting in the best way of “uncoordinated maneuvers and launches by different operators”.
The reconfiguration, Nicolls mentioned, is being tightly coordinated with operators, regulators, and U.S. Area Command.
The reconfiguration comes after Starlink reported an anomaly with considered one of its satellites in December 2025. The satellite tv for pc — one of many 9000 Starlink satellites in orbit — dropped 4 km in altitude as a result of a doable explosion onboard, shedding communications with a SpaceX spacecraft at 418 km.
The occasion created many small items of detritus. “The satellite tv for pc is basically intact, tumbling, and can reenter the Earth’s ambiance and totally demise inside weeks,” Starlink acknowledged.
There are presently over 10,000 lively satellites orbiting the Earth, a quantity that has quadrupled within the final 5 years. Defunct objects accumulating from these satellites and area particles falling to Earth are a rising danger to the constellations.
The European Area Company (ESA) tracked almost 40,000 flying objects, of which solely 11,000 are lively payloads. Finish of life satellites pose collision danger as they disintegrate into clouds of particles if not deorbited, hovering in orbit for a few years.
In response to Starlink’s semi-annual constellation standing experiences, the Web service supplier has carried out roughly 74,00 maneuvers between Might 2023 and 2024. At that fee, Starlink estimated the quantity to succeed in 100,000 by the autumn of 2025.
Area junk is fastidiously monitored by area companies and most industrial satellites are programmed to dodge any flying objects coming at them by adjusting their orbits. Nonetheless, the numbers are telling of an more and more crowded area atmosphere. “To me, they’re an indicator of an orbital atmosphere that’s careworn and shedding resilience,” Hugh Lewis, professor of Astronautics at College of Birmingham wrote on LinkedIn. “We must always not permit them to develop in quantity with out some consideration of the implications.”
Earlier, Starlink launched its first set of satellites for 2026, increasing its constellation dimension to now reaching 9,500 in-orbit satellites. Starlink’s constellation offers broadband web entry to many rural and underserved communities with little to no connectivity. The service supplier’s satellite tv for pc web served because the spine of communication in Ukraine throughout the Russian invasion. Now following U.S. strikes in Venezuela and subsequent arrest of President Nicolás Maduro, Starlink is offering free broadband web to customers in Venezuela.
Conversely, the corporate has obtained heavy pushbacks from China and Russia which have accused Starlink’s community of being a menace to nationwide safety aiding criminals and terror teams.
