TL;DR
- SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation has grown to 7,000 satellites, with Elon Musk now controlling nearly two-thirds of all active satellites orbiting Earth.
- Starlink operates in 102 countries, has over 3 million customers, and plans to launch up to 42,000 satellites to provide global internet coverage.
- SpaceX’s dominance in the satellite industry raises concerns about the concentration of power in Musk’s hands, given his control over Tesla, Starlink, and Twitter (now X).
- A recent incident in Brazil, where Starlink initially made the banned X app available to customers before complying with the blocking order, highlights the potential implications of this power.
SpaceX, the space company founded by tech billionaire Elon Musk, has achieved a significant milestone with the launch of its 7,000th Starlink satellite this week. The rapidly growing internet satellite constellation now accounts for nearly two-thirds of all active satellites orbiting Earth, according to data from non-profit satellite tracker CelesTrak.
Since the first launch in 2019, the number of Starlink satellites has increased by an average of three per day, rising more than six-fold in just three years. SpaceX currently has 6,370 active Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit, with several hundred more inactive or deorbited. This figure represents just over 62 percent of all operational satellites, dwarfing the number of satellites operated by Starlink’s closest competitor, UK-based startup OneWeb, by roughly 10 times.
SpaceX’s ambitious plans for Starlink involve launching up to 42,000 satellites to complete the constellation, which aims to deliver high-speed internet and phone connectivity to every corner of the globe. The service is currently available in 102 countries and boasts more than three million customers who pay a monthly fee to access the network through a $300 ground-based dish.
The company expects to expand its service to dozens more countries in the near future, with only a handful of nations, including Afghanistan, China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Syria, not currently on the waitlist due to internet restrictions or trade embargos. However, people in these countries have still managed to access the network through illegally imported equipment, as seen with activists in Iran who smuggled dozens of Starlink receivers into the country in 2022.
Following the latest SpaceX launch, which saw 21 more Starlinks delivered into space aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday, Musk took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to announce, “Starlink now constitutes roughly 2/3 of all active Earth satellites.”
The growing dominance of SpaceX in the satellite industry has raised concerns about the concentration of power in the hands of the world’s richest person. In April 2023, Musk himself tweeted, “Between Tesla, Starlink and Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever.”
A recent incident involving the social media platform X, which is also owned by Musk, further highlighted the potential implications of this power. After lawmakers in Brazil introduced a ban on the platform last week, Starlink initially made the app available to its customers in the country, though it has since complied with the blocking order.
As SpaceX continues to expand its Starlink network at an unprecedented pace, the company’s influence on global communication and the space industry as a whole is likely to remain a topic of discussion and scrutiny in the years to come.
