Starlink Start Lowering Altitude of 4400 LEO Broadband Satellites to Boost Safety

SpaceX appears to have begun their planned move to lower the orbit of around 4,400 of their Starlink ultrafast broadband satellites from around 550km to 480km, which is due to take place over the course of 2026. So far 652 satellites have completed orbit lowering while 972 are currently on the way down.

Starlink currently has around 9,950 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – mostly at altitudes of between c.340-550km. Residential customers in the UK usually pay from £35 a month for the ‘Residential 100Mbps’ unlimited data plan (kit price may vary due to different offers), which also promises uploads of c.15-35Mbps and low latency connectivity. Faster packages exist at greater cost, while more restrictive (data capped) options also exist for roaming users (e.g. £50 per month for 100 GigaBytes of data).

However, back in January 2026 (here), the VP of Starlink Engineering for SpaceX, Michael Nicolls, revealed that they planned to lower the orbit for 4,400 of their satellites as part of a “significant reconfiguration” that will be “focused on increasing space safety”. According to satellite watcher Jonathan McDowell, this process has now begun (here).

The move is partly because 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:

“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 … 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.”

As we pointed out in the last update, lowering the altitude of so many satellites will also have some positive performance benefits, such as in terms of a small boost to network latency times. As the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, said: “Tighter beams and better signal quality.”