{"id":350614,"date":"2026-03-27T13:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T13:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/350614\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T13:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T13:21:08","slug":"spacex-just-hit-an-important-milestone-after-launching-more-starlink-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/350614\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Just Hit An Important Milestone After Launching More Starlink Satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Starlink is a communication system\u00a0and wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX that can provide fast internet connectivity to some of the most remote locations on Earth. While <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/transportation\/articles\/starlink-actually-reliable-heres-users-011700561.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Starlink is not flawless;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Starlink is not flawless&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Starlink is not flawless<\/a>, it serves both commercial and government uses. The system provides as much coverage as it does because Starlink owns more satellites than there are visible stars in the night sky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Earlier this month, SpaceX <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/articles\/quickly-spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-214700189.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:launched two Falcon 9 rockets;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;launched two Falcon 9 rockets&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">launched two Falcon 9 rockets<\/a> that delivered 54 new satellites into space, bringing the total of orbiting Starlink satellites to over 10,000. This constitutes around 70% of all active satellites hovering above the Earth, minus the 10 nonfunctioning Starlink satellites. Oh, and over 1,500 satellites that Starlink has launched have lost orbit and fallen back to Earth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">While maintaining over 10,000 orbiting satellites is a feat in and of itself, the speed at which Starlink\/SpaceX achieved this milestone is also noteworthy. In October of 2025, only <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/science\/articles\/many-starlink-satellites-orbit-141700411.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:8,400 Starlink satellites orbited the Earth;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;8,400 Starlink satellites orbited the Earth&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">8,400 Starlink satellites orbited the Earth<\/a>, which means SpaceX transported an average of 320 satellites per month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bgr.com\/science\/whats-happening-to-earth-right-now-cant-be-explained-by-climate-models\/?zsource=yahoo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:What&#039;s Happening To Earth Right Now Can&#039;t Be Explained By Climate Models;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;What&#039;s Happening To Earth Right Now Can&#039;t Be Explained By Climate Models&quot;}\" class=\"link \">What&#8217;s Happening To Earth Right Now Can&#8217;t Be Explained By Climate Models<\/a><\/p>\n<p>SpaceX isn&#8217;t going to stop at 10,000 satellites<img alt=\"SpaceX Falon 9 rocket launching into space\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"fig-image-round\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/cafdcd27194018613bcc212c478bb67f.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>SpaceX Falon 9 rocket launching into space &#8211; SpaceX<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">You can probably attribute Starlink&#8217;s satellite launching spree to the company&#8217;s attempts to keep up with its explosive growth. The company isn&#8217;t planning to stop anytime soon, so it&#8217;s probably going to need a lot more satellites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">As of writing, SpaceX and Starlink are functioning under an agreement with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to launch a total of 12,000 satellites. However, Starlink has filed the paperwork needed for approval to launch an additional 30,000 satellites, which would bring the total up to 42,000. Of course, as previously stated, we know of 10 nonfunctioning Starlink satellites, and well over 1,500 have fallen out of orbit ever since Starlink started launching satellites, so it&#8217;s unlikely all 42,000 would work at any given time or stay aloft for long.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">We also have to mention that SpaceX is seeking approval to launch up to one million more satellites. Unlike Starlink&#8217;s communications satellites, these orbiting installations would be AI data centers, which <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/articles\/why-dont-put-ai-data-131700004.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:many people (including the CEO of NVIDIA Jensen Huang) think is a bad idea;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;many people (including the CEO of NVIDIA Jensen Huang) think is a bad idea&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">many people (including the CEO of NVIDIA Jensen Huang) think is a bad idea<\/a>. More importantly, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/satellites\/this-is-really-intolerable-astronomers-protest-giant-orbiting-mirror-project-and-spacexs-million-ai-satellites\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Space.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Space.com&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Space.com<\/a>, the deputy executive director at the British Royal Astronomical Society, Robert Massey, believes that one million active satellites would destroy the night sky for everyone on Earth and make it almost impossible \u2014 or at least incredibly difficult \u2014 to observe distant stars with ground-based telescopes. This might be one milestone many people hope SpaceX never achieves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Enjoyed this article? <a href=\"https:\/\/subscribe.bgr.com\/newsletter-syndicated?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bgr-NL-feed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Sign up to BGR&#039;s free newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Sign up to BGR&#039;s free newsletter&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Sign up to BGR&#8217;s free newsletter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=bgr.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:add us as a preferred search source;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;add us as a preferred search source&quot;}\" class=\"link \">add us as a preferred search source<\/a> for the latest in tech and entertainment, plus tips and advice you&#8217;ll actually use.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bgr.com\/2133342\/spacex-hit-milestone-10000-starlink-satellites-orbiting-earth\/?zsource=yahoo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:original article on BGR;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;original article on BGR&quot;}\" class=\"link \">original article on BGR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starlink is a communication system\u00a0and wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX that can provide fast internet connectivity to some&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[185931,111,139,69,185930,147,392,1503,24802],"class_list":["post-350614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-communications-satellites","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-orbiting-satellites","tag-science","tag-space","tag-spacex","tag-starlink-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}