Starlink to Shift LEO Ultrafast Broadband Satellites into a Lower Orbit

The Vice President of Starlink Engineering for SpaceX, Michael Nicolls, has revealed that they’re going to move all of the broadband satellites they currently have in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at around 550km above the planet to c.480km (impacting roughly 4,400 satellites) over the course of 2026.

According to Nicolls, the “significant reconfiguration” of Starlink’s satellite constellation is a change that is “focused on increasing space safety” and is being “tightly coordinated with other operators, regulators, and USSPACECOM.” Just for context. Starlink currently has around 9,400 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (c.5,900 are v2 / V2 Mini) – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km.

Residential customers in the UK usually pay from £55 a month for the ‘Residential Lite’ unlimited data plan directly from Starlink (kit price may vary due to different offers), which promises downloads of up to 250Mbps (175Mbps average) and uploads of c.15-35Mbps. Faster packages exist at greater cost, while cheaper, albeit more restrictive (data capped), options also exist for roaming users (e.g. £50 per month for 50 GigaBytes of data).

However, Starlink is no longer the only game in LEO town, with orbital space around the Earth fast becoming increasingly packed at lower altitudes and the risk from collisions rising. The move to shift a significant portion of Starlink’s constellation into an even lower orbit is thus intended to mitigate against some of the risks the current environment could create.

Michael Nicolls said (X):

“Lowering the satellites results in condensing Starlink orbits, and will increase space safety in several ways. As solar mininum approaches, atmospheric density decreases which means the ballistic decay time at any given altitude increases – lowering will mean a >80% reduction in ballistic decay time in solar minimum, or 4+ years reduced to a few months. Correspondingly, the number of debris objects and planned satellite constellations is significantly lower below 500km, reducing the aggregate likelihood of collision.

Starlink satellites have extremely high reliability, with only 2 dead satellites in its fleet of over 9000 operational satellites. Nevertheless, if a satellite does fail on orbit, we want it to deorbit as quickly as possible. These actions will further improve the safety of the constellation, particularly with difficult to control risks such as uncoordinated manoeuvres and launches by other satellite operators.”

One small side note is on that “extremely high reliability” claim is with how it overlooks the satellites that were lost in other ways, such as during launch or early orbit insertion. But none of this should be confused with the many others that have also been decommissioned as part of a regular routine (they’re only designed to last for a few years before being sent to burn up in the atmosphere).

The announcement doesn’t mention it, but shifting so many satellites into a lower orbit could also deliver a small improvement in network latency.