We’ll see a mass migration of SpaceX Starlink satellites this year.<\/p>\n
All Starlink<\/a> broadband spacecraft currently orbiting 342 miles (550 kilometers) or so above Earth<\/a> \u2014 about 4,400 satellites \u2014 will descend to an altitude of roughly 298 miles (480 km) over the course of 2026.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are two main reasons for the move, according to Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink engineering at SpaceX<\/a>, who announced the plan via X<\/a> on Thursday (Jan. 1).<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n “As solar mininum approaches, atmospheric density decreases, which means the ballistic decay time at any given altitude increases \u2014 lowering will mean a >80% reduction in ballistic decay time in solar minimum, or 4+ years reduced to a few months,” Nicolls wrote in his X post. “Correspondingly, the number of debris objects<\/a> and planned satellite constellations is significantly lower below 500 km, reducing the aggregate likelihood of collision.”<\/p>\n Solar activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. We likely just passed through the maximum phase of the current one, known as Solar Cycle 25<\/a>. (Scientists have been tracking these cycles diligently since 1755<\/a>, when the numbering system began.) The next solar minimum is expected in 2030 or thereabouts.<\/p>\n As Nicolls noted, the atmospheric changes wrought by solar activity are of great interest and importance to satellite operators. An active sun causes a thicker atmosphere, which increases frictional drag on spacecraft and brings them down faster. Low solar activity has the opposite effect.<\/p>\n The downward migration in 2026 involves roughly half of SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of nearly 9,400 operational spacecraft (though that number is always growing<\/a>). The fleet is highly reliable; there are just two dead Starlinks currently in orbit, according to Nicolls.<\/p>\n “Nevertheless, if a satellite does fail on orbit, we want it to deorbit as quickly as possible,” he wrote. “These actions will further improve the safety of the constellation, particularly with difficult-to-control risks such as uncoordinated maneuvers and launches by other satellite operators<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Low earth orbit<\/a> (LEO) is getting increasingly crowded these days. Starlink is the main driving factor; about two-thirds of all operational satellites belong to the megaconstellation. But other giant networks are being assembled as well. For example, China has begun building out two LEO internet constellations,<\/a> each of which will each feature more than 10,000 spacecraft if all goes to plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We’ll see a mass migration of SpaceX Starlink satellites this year. All Starlink broadband spacecraft currently orbiting 342…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-224116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}