Over 10,000 Starlink satellites launched

[McCarthy]

SpaceX shot 10,746 Starlink satellites into the sky so far with some 400 rocket launches. These days they seem to send a rocket every other day. I see them all the time from my house.

Next launch is in an hour. Last one was yesterday!

Meanwhile I don't know anybody that uses Starlink currently, and the few that used to use it, went back to fiber or GSM. There is no way in hell that internet customers justify this effort.

Internet for rural areas my ass, there is something else going on. And beyond Starshield.

[McCarthy]

Every launch creates 336 tons of CO2. And I'm supposed to feel bad for still owning V8 vehicles.

[Psi]

Every launch creates 336 tons of CO2. And I'm supposed to feel bad for still owning V8 vehicles.

No one is saying you should feel bad for owning V8 vehicles.   Well... maybe some of the media are, but their views are irrelevant and don't reflect reality in any way.

It's just a fake perception of reality caused by seeing people buying EVs who feel good about contributing less CO2 and then assuming, 'if they feel good about that then they must hate me for not having an EV'. 
When in fact 99.99% of EV owners are not even paying a causal thought to non-EV owners, much less having any negative thoughts about them.
It's the kind of illogical thinking where extremism comes from. 'If you're not with me you're against me, and vise versa'.

[McCarthy]

Every launch creates 336 tons of CO2. And I'm supposed to feel bad for still owning V8 vehicles.

No one is saying you should feel bad for owning V8 vehicles.   Well... maybe some of the media are, but their views are irrelevant and don't reflect reality in any way.

It's just a fake perception of reality caused by seeing people buying EVs who feel good about contributing less CO2 and then assuming, 'if they feel good about that then they must hate me for not having an EV'. 
When in fact 99.99% of EV owners are not even paying a causal thought to non-EV owners, much less having any negative thoughts about them.
It's the kind of illogical thinking where extremism comes from. 'If you're not with me you're against me, and vise versa'.

From 'figure of speech' to extremism.

Go touch grass.

[ejeffrey]

Meanwhile I don't know anybody that uses Starlink currently, and the few that used to use it, went back to fiber or GSM. There is no way in hell that internet customers justify this effort.

Well if you don't know them they must not exist?  I know a bunch of people who use starlink.

If you have access to fiber, then of course you shouldn't use satellite internet!  Why on earth did they sign up in the first place?  But lots of people still have very slow DSL or nothing.  5G is hit or miss.  It can be fast, but mostly in high density places that also have other Internet options.  Rural 5G is often pretty slow too.

There are indeed a lot of uses beyond home broadband.  They are popular with RV owners.  They sell a ton of service to ocean-going ships and aircraft.  While those customers are fewer in number they charge *much* more for those users than terrestrial customers. 

[McCarthy]

Well if you don't know them they must not exist?

I said I don't know anybody ANYMORE. I never claimed that there must be none. Yet another dumb conclusion of the same level.

The point was, that the market for rural (and all other use cases) is tiny, compared to any other form of ISP.

I own an RV. The RV owners I know well enough, all went back to GSM, mainly because it takes too long to dial in Starlink and issues with shading. But that is not the point. Launching over 10k satellites for internet services doesn't sound right. It used to be an event when ONE new satellite was sent to space, and now it has become a "daily" thing to send 2 or 3 dozen.

I bet we will find out years if not decades later what other missions have been part of this.

[brucehoult]

Meanwhile I don't know anybody that uses Starlink currently, and the few that used to use it, went back to fiber or GSM. There is no way in hell that internet customers justify this effort.

They've been cashflow positive for a year or two already, despite as you observe doing several launches a week ... 120 so far in 2025.

I've been using Starlink ever since I moved into this house in January 2022. I could not have without it. There is no physical phone line to this house. The nearest fibre is a village 18 km drive away. I have 4G coverage, but the local tower has insufficient spare bandwidth for them to sell fixed base wireless -- I'd have to use expensive hotspotting. There is a rural wireless broadband provider that cost more than Starlink and gives maximum 20 Mbps, IF you have line of sight to one of their towers. A neighbour tried is and didn't even get 20, so they switched to Starlink.

Starlink is literally the only sane option for decent internet here.

I did a speedtest right now. It's 6 PM, people are getting home from work. 300 Mbps. Good enough for me.

[coppercone2]

Well I think that rich people get stupid, pound their first at the table and demand things get done.

Not really a conspiracy. The government and businesses implements all kinds of expensive mega project stuff that barely or never pays off. Look at what happened with china (empty apartment luxury projects) and elsewhere.

All he did is said "here is a bunch of money, shoot rockets". Not that much different then saying "here is a bunch of money, build pyramids" lol. Just because you can hire 100,000 people to do something does not mean its smart, makes sense or is profitable. But human intuition tells us that if there is alot of people doing something, it must be correct. This used to be true before money came along, with animals.

[McCarthy]

Meanwhile I don't know anybody that uses Starlink currently, and the few that used to use it, went back to fiber or GSM. There is no way in hell that internet customers justify this effort.

They've been cashflow positive for a year or two already, despite as you observe doing several launches a week ... 120 so far in 2025.

I've been using Starlink ever since I moved into this house in January 2022. I could not have without it. There is no physical phone line to this house. The nearest fibre is a village 18 km drive away. I have 4G coverage, but the local tower has insufficient spare bandwidth for them to sell fixed base wireless -- I'd have to use expensive hotspotting. There is a rural wireless broadband provider that cost more than Starlink and gives maximum 20 Mbps, IF you have line of sight to one of their towers. A neighbour tried is and didn't even get 20, so they switched to Starlink.

Starlink is literally the only sane option for decent internet here.

I did a speedtest right now. It's 6 PM, people are getting home from work. 300 Mbps. Good enough for me.

I'm aware that there are plenty of users. I'm aware that it is the best or only option for some folks. All this was never the point. You guys get stuck on personal situations or details that are not the issues I try to address.

Positive cashflow after a pre-cash flow Investment of $10 billion? Without that, this would be still in the red for years to come.

THIS IS MY POINT: Even if the internet sector carries Starlink, I still bet a grand that there is a much bigger, government based motivation behind this.

[coppercone2]

I am telling you that your instinct that tells you something has to be logical or smart because its big is not always true anymore! You pay for a job, job gets done. Its like executing an order. There is this wisdom that people have that makes them think if something is well financed it gets vetted, people think about, etc.. this is just not true. Sometimes it is, but often not. Most people think about it in the sense that "money is moving, lets be near it" not "why is the money moving and should it be moving (this is what congressional oversight is)?"

They are likely banking on reaching some sort of 'critical mass' where all the business problems go away because it gets so hot (may be a bit of a magic bullet idea)

Say you agree and smile and then you get contracts and can treat it as 9-5 with someone else doing the thinking.. its just jobs

These big projects are super vulnerable to the classic business teaching of 'sunk cost fallacy', so at some point you stop looking at feedback and projects and just keep going on hope...

[McCarthy]

I am telling you that your instinct that tells you something has to be logical or smart because its big is not always true anymore! You pay for a job, job gets done. Its like executing an order.

Maybe this is just (another) fantasy of Musk, and he surely can throw money at anything.

There is more to my intuition though. The US is back to a semi cold war, but mainly with China this time around. China will eventually claim Taiwan again, physically, and the question is, how will the US respond. Can we even afford to respond with most of our manufacturing long being exported to China? They can crumble our entire economy by simply not delivering any products.

And we are long in an arms race to space.

Are those Starlink satellites capable of doing more than just providing internet? That is my question...

[coppercone2]

Well the government knows it can nationalize everything because its the government if there is a war. I am sure there is a plan for seizing starlink in some doomsday book but its unlikely that they are banking on it. The military knows space is vulnerable as hell.

I think the government would be much more likely to invest in something like re-building a high bandwidth AT&T "long lines" because its a way more hardened target that is actually possible to defend. Modern technology make near terminal interception a possibility but space defense is still way out there. I think there would need to be a very evolved 'starwars' program (with all the original bells and whistles) for the government to even think about space comms as a priority thing for a full scale war.

They are getting a ton of info about hypersonic target interception in terrestrial enviroments right now, and jamming terrestrial missiles and such, in Ukraine, against the latest hardware. There is basically zilch on space war so far. Its unlike the government to put their eggs in that basket.


I don't know for sure, but I suspect that if they have all those sats up there already in that orbital region, and it got nuked, then putting more things up there would be very very hard. I thought maybe if there is enough missiles to constantly rebuild the network it could be a viable strategy, but I think it would just get extreme losses from space debris and basically tanks that idea. If it all just fell down, theoretically you could just keep launching more and sustain the network, but it would get polluted quickly.


All those global goals seem good on paper, but you end up with nuances and logistics problems that completely spiral out of control. Various things like this : global food supply, global water supply, global vaccination.. .and now its global telephony. These projects usually end up fighting multiple 'black (money) holes" (and global police force idea too  )

[Halcyon]

Meanwhile I don't know anybody that uses Starlink currently, and the few that used to use it, went back to fiber or GSM. There is no way in hell that internet customers justify this effort.

Internet for rural areas my ass, there is something else going on. And beyond Starshield.

My sister and her family live in a rural area and they've had Starlink for a few years. The only other alternative is Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) Fixed Wireless. It's essentially used in areas where fibre and VDSL2+ doesn't reach (but not remote enough for NBN's Skymuster satellite). It's limited to a maximum of 400 Mbps downstream and 40 Mbps upstream and it's not that much cheaper. Most people get better speeds on cellular.

When I was with the police, we also started deploying Starlink in Mobile Command busses and vans, where you can literally park-up at a major event or crime scene anywhere in the state, and be able to access the internet and Police VPN and VoIP network. It was orders of magnitude better than the Inmarsat set up that was previously used.

[Cyclotron]

Meanwhile I don't know anybody that uses Starlink currently, and the few that used to use it, went back to fiber or GSM. There is no way in hell that internet customers justify this effort.

They've been cashflow positive for a year or two already, despite as you observe doing several launches a week ... 120 so far in 2025.

I've been using Starlink ever since I moved into this house in January 2022. I could not have without it. There is no physical phone line to this house. The nearest fibre is a village 18 km drive away. I have 4G coverage, but the local tower has insufficient spare bandwidth for them to sell fixed base wireless -- I'd have to use expensive hotspotting. There is a rural wireless broadband provider that cost more than Starlink and gives maximum 20 Mbps, IF you have line of sight to one of their towers. A neighbour tried is and didn't even get 20, so they switched to Starlink.

Starlink is literally the only sane option for decent internet here.

I did a speedtest right now. It's 6 PM, people are getting home from work. 300 Mbps. Good enough for me.

I'm aware that there are plenty of users. I'm aware that it is the best or only option for some folks. All this was never the point. You guys get stuck on personal situations or details that are not the issues I try to address.

Positive cashflow after a pre-cash flow Investment of $10 billion? Without that, this would be still in the red for years to come.

THIS IS MY POINT: Even if the internet sector carries Starlink, I still bet a grand that there is a much bigger, government based motivation behind this.

The government doesn't need to make a deal on commercial sats to get its way. They've been pumping secret satellites into space since the space race began. Hell, that was the whole point of the space race. But if there must be a conspiracy theory, my go-to one is aliens.

[Halcyon]

Are those Starlink satellites capable of doing more than just providing internet? That is my question...

They also provide cellular coverage to remote areas of Australia for those who are on the Telstra (post-paid) network, and are outside the range of cellular towers (albeit it's only for two-way SMS at this point, voice and data will follow).

https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-networks/mobile-technology/satellite-to-mobile

[McCarthy]

They are getting a ton of info about hypersonic target interception in terrestrial enviroments right now, and jamming terrestrial missiles and such, in Ukraine, against the latest hardware. There is basically zilch on space war so far. Its unlike the government to put their eggs in that basket.

Now we are talking. I wonder if those 10k satellites are also designed to jam or misguide ICBMs, coms, hypersonics, aviation. Or to manipulate information via internet in regions of interest or conflict.

[Cyclotron]

Are those Starlink satellites capable of doing more than just providing internet? That is my question...

They also provide cellular coverage to remote areas of Australia for those who are on the Telstra (post-paid) network, and are outside the range of cellular towers (albeit it's only for two-way SMS at this point, voice and data will follow).

https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-networks/mobile-technology/satellite-to-mobile

T-Mobile in the US uses them for satellite cellular as well. Apple uses Globalstar for their SOS feature.  I say this because I didn't know what they used and just looked it up.

[Kalvin]

Average lifetime of a Starlink satellite is 5-7 years. In order to build the initial constellation requires quite many satellites, which means many launches. Maintaining the constellation requires launches, too. The constellation requires some redundancy as some portion of the satellites may become unusable for any reason. Global service requires many satellites as the earth has pretty big surface area. In order to be able to provide decently fast service with good coverage to the users, there need to be quite a few satellites up in the sky. Although you personally do not know many who are (still) using Starlink, it doesn't mean that it is not used widely anyway. For example maritime vessels, cruise ships, passenger aeroplanes, rescue and international aid organizations, and military are all potential users for fast internet access with good coverage. Not everything is a conspiracy.

[Andy Chee]

Are those Starlink satellites capable of doing more than just providing internet? That is my question...

If you mean eavesdropping on other radio frequency communications or optical high-zoom lens surveillance photography or seeding the atmosphere with brain control chemicals, then no, the starlink satellites are not equipped for those tasks.

Any belief along those lines is a conspiracy theory.

[magic]

Now we are talking. I wonder if those 10k satellites are also designed to jam or misguide ICBMs, coms, hypersonics, aviation. Or to manipulate information via internet in regions of interest or conflict.

Not sure if any of that is practical at all, but even if they were dual purpose, would you rather pay 10x the cost to Boeing for developing something similar As other said, the US has been deploying military sats for decades.

[amyk]

I did a speedtest right now. It's 6 PM, people are getting home from work. 300 Mbps. Good enough for me.

~30ms ping with satellite internet is amazingly low.

[McCarthy]

Now we are talking. I wonder if those 10k satellites are also designed to jam or misguide ICBMs, coms, hypersonics, aviation. Or to manipulate information via internet in regions of interest or conflict.

Not sure if any of that is practical at all, but even if they were dual purpose, would you rather pay 10x the cost to Boeing for developing something similar As other said, the US has been deploying military sats for decades.

Deploying a few MIL sats here and there does not compare to this fleet of Starlink sats. If the MIL had a desire for so many, the only way to "hide" it, would be to make them dual purpose.

Obviously I'm speculating. But I will not act surprised if we ever find out that they had a MIL purpose too.

Who knows how much MIL may be financially involved. A good portion of my taxes may go into it, while being entirety classified.

[coppercone2]

I seriously doubt it, I read the space-x job postings a while back, they are low low low cost equipment (they had every bean counter red flag known in their job listings, its probobly a stressful place to work). Piggy backing expensive military hardware on those soda cans would be a waste of money

more then likely, what they would allow for is OPFOR playing with them , that is give access to the regular sats for possible experiments  / war games / hacker games, i.e. test jammers, virus/malware, etc. Stuff that requires access and "user time" but is non destructive. The only provision I can see them installing that would be secret on the behest of the government is some kind of kill switch, but that  is a double ended sword (back doors that can be exploited by your enemies) and very paranoid... more then likely installing shutdown back doors would be giving your enemies way more power over you, it would be a holy grail for a hostile country to find access to that. The proverbial self destruct button (space balls).. and even the war games are pretty dangerous, since its a commercial venture that effects the economy, the last thing you want is your stock to go down because you made provisions for some idiot that wanted to play with a virus (reminds me of the sg1 episode avenger 2.0 )

I am sure his network is a barely functional nightmare and requires tons of effort to keep running at all, I doubt there is time/resources for shenanigans

i.e. right now GPS is making so much dollars that starting even a small war that threatens it would have such big consequences that any gains would be totally lost and piss off most of the people on earth.. it seems that all you need is a few successful quarters on the markets and most problems get settled lol. Even for a individual, like 3 paychecks later and you have no idea what you were even thinking before


IMO all the high end hardware that is interesting for the military (like say powerful jammers) is incompatible with the bare bones systems on those sats, you would need special antennas, improved power systems, cooling system provisions, heavier mounts, shielding etc. I think there is a lack of understanding of how much more involved the engineering is to add simple features in space, compared to putting it on a benchtop. The reason why space-x can afford 10000 of them in space is because their engineered down to the fractional penny. Those things are the hardest to modify


oh yeah, and if you make secret deals with the govt, and they some how wreck your stuff (i.e. say software/hacking experiments), then the ONLY thing you can tell your investors is that you are incompetent if you want to remain secret. Expect your stock to implode after that shareholders meeting, its full of rabid investors that bail out if you promise less then 1000% growth in the next quarter lol

Maybe a few of those sats have limited access by the military for limited / scrutinized experiments. I would not think it would go much further then this. But I think they would just buy it and keep it internal (why would you involve space-x at all other then tech support for secret govt research?)


The NSA obviously has a interest in them (much like ISPs), and I expect there is a room for them nearby, but they would just be interested in traffic, not the space part. The russians are using space-x terminals, its known, so its guaranteed the NSA is some how involved, just like they are involved for the internet in general... they would not be doing their charter if they were not
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A


BTW not sure if you worked with it, but bottom dollar hardware engineering (even for more advanced uses, like factories ,that need alot of something), is totally insane, when you first go there you run into ten "what the fuck, how could that possibly be a problem for this kind of system"'s in one week, when you realize that the design you had in mind for the system before seeing it is like 15 times more advanced then what they made (for cost reasons), and its generally a systems engineering nightmare, and later on you get literally excited when you determined its possible to fit another wire in the chassis if the assembler yanks on it, and its considered a engineering achievement, whereas external people would find it benign and pathetic

[Roehrenonkel]

Every launch creates 336 tons of CO2.

Yummy! That's just food for plants.

[iMo]

What you may need to really achieve a fundamental breakthrough in this technology is a physically small starlink modem with a small antenna, say as large as today's GPS modules..