Starlink Services, LLC is a telecommunications subsidiary of the American spaceflight company SpaceX, providing broadband Internet service in approximately 160 countries and territories. Timestamp 12:00. It also aims to provide global mobile broadband. SpaceX began launching Starlink satellites in 2019. , the network consisted of approximately 10,413 satellites (10,397 operational) in low Earth orbit (LEO) that communicate with user terminals and gateway ground stations connecting the constellation to terrestrial internet infrastructure. Starlink also provides in-flight internet access for numerous airlines. Starlink accounts for approximately 75% of all active maneuverable satellites in Earth orbit and had more than 12 million subscribers as of June 2026.
In May 2018, SpaceX estimated the cost of designing, building, and deploying the constellation to be at least US$10 billion. By the end of 2025, Starlink had become SpaceX's largest business segment, generating $11.4 billion in revenue and $4.4 billion in operating income.
In addition to civilian broadband service, Starlink is also used for government and military communications, including notably in the Russo-Ukrainian war. Its large satellite constellation has been criticized by astronomers for increasing light pollution and orbital congestion.
History Background Constellations of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites were first conceptualized in the mid-1980s as part of the United States Strategic Defense Initiative, culminating in Brilliant Pebbles, where weapons were to be staged in low orbits to intercept ballistic missiles on short notice. The potential for low-latency communication was also recognized, and development offshoots in the 1990s led to numerous commercial LEO systems using fewer than 100 satellites, such as Celestri, Iridium, and Globalstar. Teledesic proposed a broadband "Internet in the Sky," similar to Starlink, with 840 satellites. However, some of those entities, including Iridium and Globalstar, went bankrupt. Teledesic voluntarily wound down operations due to financing challenges in the wake of the dot-com bubble burst.
In 2004, Larry Williams, SpaceX VP of Strategic Relations and former VP of Teledesic, opened the SpaceX Washington DC office. That June, SpaceX acquired a 10% stake in Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) as part of a "shared strategic vision". SSTL was at that time working to extend the Internet into space. However, SpaceX's stake was sold back to EADS Astrium in 2008 after SSTL became more focused on navigation and Earth observation."EADS Astrium signs an agreement to acquire Surrey Satellite Technology Limited from the University of Surrey." University of Surrey, April 7, 2008.
In early 2014, Elon Musk and Greg Wyler worked together planning a constellation of around 700 satellites called WorldVu, which would be over 10 times the size of the then-largest constellation, Iridium. However, these discussions broke down in June 2014, and SpaceX instead filed an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) application via the Norwegian Communications Authority under the name STEAM. SpaceX confirmed the connection in the 2016 application to license Starlink with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). SpaceX trademarked the name Starlink in the United States for their satellite broadband network; the name was inspired by the 2012 novel The Fault in Our Stars.
Design phase (2015–2016) Starlink was publicly announced in January 2015 with the opening of the SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond, Washington. During the opening, Musk stated there is still significant unmet demand worldwide for low-cost broadband capabilities, and that Starlink would target bandwidth to carry up to 50% of all backhaul communications traffic, and up to 10% of local Internet traffic, in high-density cities. Musk further stated that the positive cash flow from selling satellite internet services would be necessary to fund SpaceX's Mars plans. Furthermore, SpaceX has long-term plans to develop and deploy a version of the satellite communication system to serve Mars.
Starting with 60 engineers, the company operated in of leased space, and by January 2017 had taken on a second facility, also in Redmond. In August 2018, SpaceX consolidated all their Seattle-area operations with a move to a larger three-building facility at Redmond Ridge Corporate Center to support satellite manufacturing in addition to research and development. In July 2016, SpaceX acquired an additional creative space in Irvine, California. The Irvine office would include signal processing, radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) development for the satellite program.
By October 2016, the satellite division was focusing on the significant business challenge of achieving a sufficiently low-cost design for the user equipment. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said at the time that the project remained in the "design phase as the company seeks to tackle issues related to user-terminal cost".
Start of development phase (2016–2019) In November 2016, SpaceX applied to the FCC for a license to operate a "non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite system in the fixed-satellite service using the Ku- and Ka- frequency bands". In September 2017, the FCC granted a license that required half of the constellation to be in orbit within six years and that the full system would be operating within nine years from the date of the license.
SpaceX filed documents in late 2017 with the FCC to clarify their space debris mitigation plan, under which the company was to:
implement an operations plan for the orderly de-orbit of satellites nearing the end of their useful lives (roughly five to seven years) at a rate far faster than is required under international standards. [Satellites] will de-orbit by propulsively moving to a disposal orbit from which they will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere within approximately one year after completion of their mission.
In March 2018, the FCC granted SpaceX approval for the initial 4,425 satellites, with some conditions. SpaceX would need to obtain a separate approval from the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The FCC supported a NASA request to ask SpaceX to achieve an even higher level of de-orbiting reliability than the standard that NASA had previously used for itself: reliably de-orbiting 90% of the satellites after their missions are complete.
In January 2017, SpaceX expected annual revenue from Starlink to reach $12 billion by 2022 and exceed $30 billion by 2025. In May 2018, SpaceX expected the total cost of development and buildout of the constellation to approach $10 billion ().
In mid-2018, SpaceX reorganized the satellite development division in Redmond and terminated several members of senior management.
First launches (2019–2020)
After launching two test satellites in February 2018, the first batch of 60 operational Starlink satellites was launched on May 24, 2019.
By late 2019, SpaceX was transitioning their satellite efforts from research and development to manufacturing, with the planned first launch of a large group of satellites to orbit, and the clear need to achieve an average launch rate of "44 high-performance, low-cost spacecraft built and launched every month for the next 60 months" to get the 2,200 satellites launched to support their FCC spectrum allocation license assignment. SpaceX said they would meet the deadline of having half the constellation "in orbit within six years of authorization... and the full system in nine years".
By July 2020, Starlink's limited beta internet service was opened to invitees from the public. Invitees had to sign non-disclosure agreements, and were only charged $2 per month to test out billing services. In October 2020 a wider public beta was launched, where beta testers were charged the full monthly cost and could speak freely about their experience. Starlink beta testers reported speeds over 150 Mbit/s, above the range announced for the public beta test.
Commercial service (2021–present)
Pre-orders were first opened to the public in the United States and Canada in early 2021.
The FCC had earlier awarded SpaceX with $885.5 million worth of federal subsidies from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to support rural broadband customers in 35 U.S. states through Starlink, but the subsidies were revoked in August 2022, with the FCC stating that Starlink "failed to demonstrate" its ability to deliver the promised service. SpaceX later appealed the decision saying they met or surpassed all RDOF deployment requirements that existed during bidding and that the FCC created "new standards that no bidder could meet today". In December 2023, the FCC formally denied SpaceX's appeal since "Starlink had not shown that it was reasonably capable of fulfilling RDOF's requirements to deploy a network of the scope, scale, and size" required to win the subsidy.
In March 2021, SpaceX submitted an application to the FCC for mobile variations of their terminal designed for vehicles, vessels and aircraft, and in June the company applied to the FCC to use mobile Starlink transceivers on launch vehicles flying to Earth orbit, after having tested high-altitude low-velocity mobile use on a rocket prototype in May 2021. The FCC approved the application in June 2022. Starlink had an annual loss in 2021.
In 2022, SpaceX announced the Starlink Business service tier, a higher-performance version of the service. It provides a larger high-performance antenna and listed speeds of between 150 and 500 Mbit/s with a cost of $2500 for the antenna and a $500 monthly service fee. The service includes 24/7, prioritized support. Deliveries were advertised to begin in the second quarter of 2022. Starlink terminal production was delayed by the 2020–2023 global chip shortage, and only signed up 5,000 subscribers for the last two months of 2021. Revenues from Starlink in 2022 were reportedly $1.4 billion, accompanied by a net loss. The Starlink business unit had a single cash-flow-positive quarter during 2022.SpaceX says it will test Starlink's satellite-to-cell service with T-Mobile this year , CNBC, March 13, 2023.
On December 1, 2022, the FCC issued an approval for SpaceX to launch the initial 7500 satellites for its second-generation (Gen2) constellation, in three low-Earth-orbit orbital shells, at 525, 530, and 535 km (326, 329 and 332 miles) altitude. Overall, SpaceX had requested approval for as many as 29,988 Gen2 satellites, with approximately 10,000 in the altitude shells, plus approximately 20,000 in shells and nearly 500 in the shells. The FCC noted that this was not a net increase in approved on-orbit satellites for SpaceX, since SpaceX was no longer planning to deploy 7518 V-band satellites at altitude that had previously been authorized.
In March 2023, the company reported that they were manufacturing six Starlink "v2 mini" satellites per day as well as thousands of user terminals. The v2 mini had Gen2 Starlink satellite features while being assembled in a smaller form factor than the larger Gen2 satellites. The Gen2 satellites required the diameter Starship in order to launch them.
Starlink posted a $30.7 million loss in 2023, and its first year of profitability was 2024, with a net profit of $72.7 million.
In November 2024, SpaceX proposed a constellation of Starlink satellites around Mars, referred to as "Marslink". The proposed system would be capable of providing more than 4 Mbit/s of bandwidth between Earth and Mars, as well as imaging services.