(Credit: Starlink.com)
Starlink's ambitious plan to run a constellation of 30,000 satellites is still taking shape, but even with only a fraction of that network in operation, SpaceX owns roughly 60% of all active satellites in orbit, according to new data from space technology firm Slingshot Aerospace.
Approximately 89% of orbiting satellites now belong to commercial firms as opposed to government or military groups; last year, 5,648 of the 9,241 active satellites were from Starlink.
While most satellites circling Earth are in use, thousands are not. Slingshot finds that 3,356 satellites were inactive at the end of 2023, bringing the total number of spacecraft orbiting Earth to nearly 12,600. Considering that data, Starlink still makes up about 45% of all satellites, active and inactive. It's also the largest constellation, or group, in lower-Earth orbit by a big margin.
Comparing Slingshot's data with the data logged by Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer Jonathan McDowell's on his website, Starlink has 5,896 satellites in orbit as of Thursday morning. This means SpaceX has added nearly 250 satellites so far this year, with plans to add 23 more on Thursday night. McDowell says 98% of Starlink satellites in orbit are currently operational.
The number of satellites in lower-Earth orbit skyrocketed in 2020 because of Starlink. The number of spacecraft launched into geostationary orbit further away from the Earth has increased too, but at a slower rate. As more satellites launch, it could become increasingly difficult and expensive to get spacecraft insured. Space insurance firms ate $995 million in insurance losses last year while only gaining about $557 million from customer payments, according to Slingshot's report.
For Slingshot General Manager Melissa Quinn, the growing number of satellites in orbit is concerning. “The industry has been saying space is becoming more congested for years, but now reality is setting in and the pressure is on to address the increasing risk in orbit,” she says. “We need to come together as an industry to make meaningful progress to coordinate the safe and sustainable use of space.”
The collision risk is real. In the latter half of 2023, SpaceX told the FCC that Starlink satellites successfully avoided over 24,000 crashes with other objects in Earth's orbit. That was down from the first of the year even with a spike in Starlink deployments, Space.com notes.
That could change as launches continue. SpaceX currently has FCC clearance to launch its second-gen Starlink network, but the agency only gave it permission to send up 7,500 satellites when it had requested closer to 30,000. More recently, the FCC said SpaceX can start using additional radio frequencies to bolster data capacity.