SpaceX founder Elon Musk said last year he denied a request to turn on Starlink in Crimea, thwarting a Ukrainian attack on the Russian fleet.
LEON NEAL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
The European Union has finalized plans to build a satellite network to rival Elon Musk's Starlink.
The $11 billion Iris² network aims to provide high-speed internet to remote locations in Europe.
Musk has frequently clashed with European politicians and has faced scrutiny over Starlink's role in Ukraine.
Elon Musk's Starlink could have a new rival after the European Union confirmed it will join the race to provide high-speed internet to remote locations.
Starlink has also played a vital role in the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian military forces relying on the service for military communications.
That reliance has caused tensions with SpaceX's billionaire owner. In September 2023, Musk said he had denied a request to activate Starlink in Crimea, thwarting an attack on Russia's Black Sea fleet.
The EU is not the only one building their own Starlink rival. Amazon is working on its own network of internet-providing satellites, called Project Kuiper, with the first satellites expected to be deployed next year.
T-Mobile today said it opened registration for the "T-Mobile Starlink" beta service that will enable text messaging via satellites in dead zones not covered by cell towers.
T-Mobile's announcement said the service using Starlink's low-Earth orbit satellites will "provid[e] coverage for the 500,000 square miles of land in the United States not covered by earth-bound cell towers." Starlink parent SpaceX has so far launched over 300 satellites with direct-to-cell capabilities, T-Mobile noted.
A registration page says, "We expect the beta to begin in early 2025, starting with texting and expanding to data and voice over time. The beta is open to all T-Mobile postpaid customers for free, but capacity is limited."
The European Union is forging ahead with plans for a constellation of internet satellites to rival Elon Musk-owned Starlink, after signing a €10.6 billion ($11.1 billion) deal to launch nearly 300 satellites into low- and medium-Earth orbits by 2030. The bloc wants the space tech to boost its digital sovereignty by providing secure comms to […]
In recent days, there has been a smattering of coverage in state-run Russian media outlets about how the Belarusian army has developed its own satellite Internet service akin to SpaceX's Starlink constellation, called "Kulisa."
According to the TASS news service, for example, the Kulisa mobile communications technology has "already entered service and is being used in military units of the Armed Forces."
And Pravda, which started out as the official newspaper of Russia's Communist Party more than a century ago, taunted the developer of the technology, saying, "How's that for you, SpaceX?"
The service has launched in a host of new countries, including Chad, Mongolia, and Argentina, and has also become increasingly visible on planes and cruises.
Cloudflare said Starlink has seen rapid growth in areas with "pent-up demand" for alternative internet services. Traffic in Georgia and Paraguay, where Starlink launched in November and December 2023, has increased by 100 and 900 times this year, respectively.
SpaceX is reportedly in talks to sell shares in a deal that would value the NASA contractor at around $350 billion. This would make SpaceX one of the most valuable private companies on the planet and double its $175 billion valuation at the end of 2023.
A trail of Starlink satellites appears in the night sky five days after its launch.
Alan Dyer/Stocktrek Images/ Getty Images
SpaceX and other companies plan to fill the skies with tens of thousands of internet satellites.
Satellite mega-constellations could harm the atmosphere, say scientists calling for more research.
Elon Musk, whose Starlink satellite constellation is the biggest, wields power in the new Trump administration.
SpaceX's Starlink and other mega-constellations of satellites could damage the atmosphere in ways we don't yet understand, scientists say.
The number of satellites in Earth's orbit has skyrocketed from about 1,000 in 2010 to more than 10,000 today. According to a government report, an additional 58,000 satellites could launch by 2030,largely from SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon, and the Chinese government — all to connect the entire planet to the internet.
Research suggests the ozone layer that protects us from powerful solar radiation could be at stake.
About 100 scientists signed a letter in October asking the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates satellite launches in the US, to pause mega-constellations.
"We should look before we leap," the letter reads, adding, "The environmental harms of launching and burning up so many satellites aren't clear."
Elon Musk — who sits at the helm of the world's dominant satellite constellation, Starlink — has publicly criticized some regulations affecting his companies andhas positioned himself to push against regulation with the new Trump administration.
Starlink accounts for more than half of the 10,560 active satellites as of November 15, according to tracking by the Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell. SpaceX has filed for permission to fly 30,000 more satellites.
Elon Musk beside US President-Elect Donald J. Trump.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
Satellites burning up in the atmosphere
Studies have found that rocket launches, such as those that put satellites into space, emit pollutants like carbon dioxide and black carbon, which could trigger processes that deplete Earth's protective ozone layer.
That's just the launch. Most satellites eventually fall out of orbit because of malfunction or because they're reaching the end of their lives. This "reentry" prevents dead satellites from becoming dangerous, uncontrollable space junk, but it also causes them to burn up as they plow through the atmosphere, releasing metals like aluminum.
Due to the sheer number of satellites expected to fly, die, and re-enter in coming years, future mega-constellations could inject 21 times more aluminum oxides into the upper atmosphere than 2022 rates, according to a paper published in the Geophysical Research Letters in June.
Aluminum oxides can linger for decades and cause "significant ozone depletion," the researchers wrote.
There may also be impacts scientists have not yet discovered — "unknown unknowns," Nilton Renno, an atmospheric scientist who co-signed the letter, told BI.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 56 Starlink internet satellites launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
An accurate prediction of all possible impacts "should be the basis for any relevant policy," Joseph Wang, a coauthor of the aluminum-oxides paper and a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Southern California, told BI in an email. At the moment, no such prediction exists.
For now, satellites are small potatoes compared to pollution from other industries. It's unclear how quickly their impact will balloon.
Another study found that about 10% of aerosol particles in the stratosphere contain metals from satellites and other spacecraft, and that amount could increase to about 50% in the next few decades.
There's no environmental review for mega-constellations
The 100-scientist letter asks the FCC to pause new satellite launches, conduct environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and end a rule that excludes satellites from those review requirements.
The letter says the exclusion "offends common sense," given the number of satellites in play.
In a 2022 report, the US Government Accountability Office also recommended that the FCC reassess the exclusion.
Indeed, an FCC spokesperson told BI that the agency plans to review its NEPA rules, which would include the satellite exclusion. That's because the Council on Environmental Quality updated government-wide regulations for implementing NEPA in May.
If the FCC finds that large satellite constellations significantly affect the human environment (such as Earth's atmosphere), it may have to start requiring environmental reviews.
Michelle Hanlon, the executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, agrees that more studies are needed but doesn't think that stopping satellite launches should be the solution.
"We can shut down the American space industry and there's still going to be launches," she told BI.
Musk's anti-regulation campaign
The incoming Trump administration may not be the most environmental-review-friendly, given Musk's anticipated role in it.
"There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go," Musk wrote on X after Trump announced a plan for the billionaire CEO to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk and SpaceX have already clashed with regulators over environmental reviews. In September the company published a strongly worded statement about the Federal Aviation Administration's review requirements for operations in Texas, where its next-generation Starship rocket is based.
Then, in October, SpaceX sued the California Coastal Commission, an environmental regulator, after it blocked the company's request for additional launches. SpaceX alleged the commission had made the decision based on political bias.
Without an environmental review, it's unclear what the impact of SpaceX's Starlink plans will be.
Starlink yesterday obtained federal approval to provide service to cell phones, with some limits. The Federal Communications Commission issued an order that partially grants SpaceX's application while imposing conditions and deferring a decision on some aspects of the application.
Starlink received approval to provide Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) within the United States. This means that in areas not covered by terrestrial cellular networks, Starlink satellites can provide service to cell phones. SpaceX already had approval to launch 7,500 second-generation satellites for its existing broadband service, and the new approval allows mobile service from those satellites.
The approval lets Starlink and T-Mobile move ahead with their plan to provide satellite service to phones in cellular dead spots. SpaceX is authorized to use the 1910–1915 MHz (Earth-to-space) and 1990–1995 MHz (space-to-Earth) bands for SCS pursuant to its lease agreement with T-Mobile. The lease covers the continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
The FCC has granted SpaceX permission to go forward with plans to offer a direct-to-phone version of its Starlink satellite internet service, with T-Mobile as its provider and a few provisos in place. The proposal dates to summer 2022, when SpaceX and T-Mobile first announced that they were pursuing the ability for the mobile provider’s […]
The Starlink waitlist is back in certain parts of the US, including several large cities on the West Coast and in Texas. The Starlink availability map says the service is sold out in and around Seattle and Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; San Diego; Sacramento, California; and Austin, Texas. Neighboring cities and towns are included in the sold-out zones.
There are additional sold-out areas in small parts of Colorado, Montana, and North Carolina. As PCMag noted yesterday, the change comes about a year after Starlink added capacity and removed its waitlist throughout the US.
Elsewhere in North America, there are some sold-out areas in Canada and Mexico. Across the Atlantic, Starlink is sold out in London and neighboring cities. Starlink is not yet available in most of Africa, and some of the areas where it is available are sold out.
