Approximately 4,400 Starlink satellites will be moved to lower orbits across 2026
In sum — what to know:
Switching orbits: Starlink will re-orbit all its satellites operating at 550 km to 480 km from the Earth in 2026.
Safety first: Michael Nicolls, VP of engineering at SpaceX, tweeted that the reconfiguration is aimed at consolidating Starlink’s orbit and improving space safety.
Concerns over space safety on the rise: Concerns over increasing density of commercial satellites are growing as risks of collision rise.
Starting 2026, Starlink will bring approximately half its fleet of satellite closer to earth addressing rising space safety concerns.
In a statement on X Michael Nicolls, VP of engineering at SpaceX said that approximately 4,400 satellites from the the Starlink fleet that are currently operating at 550 km above Earth will be lowered to 480 km over the course of this year.
Nicolls explained in his tweet that the action is aimed at condensing Starlink’s orbit to enhance space safety.
“As solar mininum approaches, atmospheric density decreases which means the ballistic decay time at any given altitude increases,” he wrote. The reconfiguration will slash the time it takes for a dead satellite to deorbit, he claimed — from 4 years to just a few months.
Lowering also reduces the likelihood of collision with free-floating debris objects, as Nicolls said the number of debris and satellite constellations is significantly lower below 500 km. Moving the constellation will keep them from getting in the way of “uncoordinated maneuvers and launches by other operators”.
The reconfiguration, Nicolls said, is being tightly coordinated with operators, regulators, and U.S. Space Command.
The reconfiguration comes after Starlink reported an anomaly with one of its satellites in December 2025. The satellite — one of the 9000 Starlink satellites in orbit — dropped 4 km in altitude due to a possible explosion onboard, losing communications with a SpaceX spacecraft at 418 km.
The event created many small pieces of detritus. “The satellite is largely intact, tumbling, and will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise within weeks,” Starlink stated.
There are currently over 10,000 active satellites orbiting the Earth, a number that has quadrupled in the last 5 years. Defunct objects accumulating from those satellites and space debris falling to Earth are a growing risk to the constellations.
The European Space Agency (ESA) tracked nearly 40,000 flying objects, of which only 11,000 are active payloads. End of life satellites pose collision risk as they disintegrate into clouds of debris if not deorbited, hovering in orbit for many years.
According to Starlink’s semi-annual constellation status reports, the Internet service provider has performed approximately 74,00 maneuvers between May 2023 and 2024. At that rate, Starlink estimated the number to reach 100,000 by the fall of 2025.
Space junk is carefully monitored by space agencies and most commercial satellites are programmed to dodge any flying objects coming at them by adjusting their orbits. However, the numbers are telling of an increasingly crowded space environment. “To me, they are an indicator of an orbital environment that is stressed and losing resilience,” Hugh Lewis, professor of Astronautics at University of Birmingham wrote on LinkedIn. “We should not allow them to grow in number without some consideration of the implications.”
Earlier, Starlink launched its first set of satellites for 2026, expanding its constellation size to now reaching 9,500 in-orbit satellites. Starlink’s constellation provides broadband internet access to many rural and underserved communities with little to no connectivity. The service provider’s satellite internet served as the backbone of communication in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Now following U.S. strikes in Venezuela and subsequent arrest of President Nicolás Maduro, Starlink is providing free broadband internet to users in Venezuela.
Conversely, the company has received heavy pushbacks from China and Russia that have accused Starlink’s network of being a threat to national security aiding criminals and terror groups.
