WASHINGTON, July 7 — The orbital environment above Earth is being reshaped at a pace without precedent, and the numbers now on the table are drawing attention far beyond the space industry. SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, already the largest ever built with over 6,000 satellites in orbit as of February 2025, has received Federal Communications Commission approval for 12,000 satellites and has applied for permission to launch up to 42,000. These are not distant proposals; they are active regulatory filings before the US government.
Competitors are moving quickly to claim their own slices of low Earth orbit. Amazon’s Project Kuiper holds FCC approval for 3,236 satellites and plans to begin launches in 2026.
OneWeb, now part of Eutelsat, already has 648 satellites in orbit. China has announced plans for its Guowang constellation, which would comprise 13,000 satellites. If every current plan and application is realised, the total number of satellites in low Earth orbit could exceed 100,000 by 2030, according to industry projections cited in the source material.
The scale of what must come down
Each satellite in these constellations has a typical operational lifespan of five to seven years. This means that thousands of spacecraft will need to be deorbited annually simply to keep the orbital environment from becoming cluttered with defunct hardware. The cumulative mass of satellites scheduled for deorbit by 2030 is estimated at over 10,000 metric tons, according to a 2024 report from the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit research centre that advises the US government on space policy.
To put that figure in context, the same report notes that roughly 200 metric tons of meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere naturally each year. The planned deorbit mass from satellite constellations alone would therefore represent a dramatic increase in the amount of human-made material burning up in the upper atmosphere.
The Aerospace Corporation report did not, according to the source material, assess the potential environmental or atmospheric effects of this material, but the sheer volume has prompted questions among researchers about what happens when thousands of tons of satellite debris re-enter over a short period.
Astronomers raise concerns about light pollution
The growth of mega-constellations has also drawn sustained criticism from the astronomical community. The International Astronomical Union, the global body representing professional astronomers, issued a formal statement in 2023 calling for regulation of satellite constellations. The concern centres on light pollution: the reflective surfaces of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit can interfere with ground-based telescopes, leaving bright streaks across long-exposure images and complicating efforts to observe faint objects in the night sky.
The IAU’s 2023 statement did not single out any particular company or country, but it reflected a growing consensus among astronomers that the current regulatory framework is insufficient to manage the visual impact of so many satellites. The organisation has called for international coordination on brightness limits, orbital altitude restrictions, and other measures that could reduce the interference.
SpaceX has taken some steps to address these concerns, including testing darker coatings on some Starlink satellites and developing visors to block sunlight from reflecting off the spacecraft. Whether these measures are sufficient to satisfy the astronomical community remains an open question, and the IAU’s call for regulation suggests that voluntary industry efforts may not be enough.
Regulatory and geopolitical dimensions
The regulatory landscape for satellite constellations is fragmented. The FCC, which authorises US-based satellite systems, has approved Starlink for 12,000 satellites and Project Kuiper for 3,236. But these approvals are US-specific; China’s Guowang constellation, with its planned 13,000 satellites, operates under Chinese regulatory authority, and OneWeb’s 648 satellites are governed by UK and international licensing frameworks.
There is no single global body that sets binding limits on the total number of satellites in low Earth orbit. This fragmentation has led to what some analysts describe as a de facto orbital land rush.
The first companies and countries to launch large constellations gain priority access to orbital slots and radio frequencies, which are finite resources coordinated through the International Telecommunication Union. Once a constellation is operational, it becomes much harder for later entrants to find suitable orbital positions without risking interference. The US administration under President Donald Trump has not issued a formal policy statement on mega-constellations since taking office, but the FCC’s approval process has continued under existing rules.
The Department of Commerce, which oversees commercial space activities, has not signalled any intention to slow the pace of constellation approvals.
What to watch next
The next major milestone will come later this year, when Amazon’s Project Kuiper is expected to begin launching its first operational satellites. If those launches proceed on schedule, the number of competing mega-constellations in orbit will increase from two — Starlink and OneWeb — to three, with China’s Guowang expected to follow in the coming years.
The Aerospace Corporation’s 2024 estimate of over 10,000 metric tons of satellite mass to be deorbited by 2030 will also face its first real-world test as Starlink’s early satellites, launched in 2019
