Asatellite internet constellation is aconstellation ofartificial satellites providingsatellite internet service. In particular, the term has come to refer to a new generation of very large constellations (sometimes referred to asmegaconstellations[1]) orbiting inlow Earth orbit (LEO) to providelow-latency, high bandwidth (broadband)internet service.[2] As of 2020, 63 percent of rural households worldwide lacked internet access due to the infrastructure requirements of underground cables andnetwork towers. Satellite internet constellations offer a low-cost solution for expanding coverage.[3]
In the 1990s, several LEO satellite internet constellations were proposed and developed, includingCelestri (63 satellites) andTeledesic (initially 840, later 288 satellites). These projects were abandoned after the bankruptcy of theIridium andGlobalstar satellite phone constellations in the early 2000s.
In the 2010s, interest in satellite internet constellations reemerged due to the dropping cost of launching to space and the increased demand for broadband internet access. Internet satellite constellations are planned by private companies likeOneWeb (OneWeb constellation),[7][8]SpaceX (Starlink),[9][10]Amazon (Project Kuiper),[11][12]Samsung and Russia'sRoscosmos (Sfera)[13][14] and China (Hongwan, 2018,[2] ornational satellite internet project, 2021).[15] By late 2018, more than 18,000 new satellites had been proposed to be launched and placed in LEO orbits between 2019 and 2025.[2] This is more than ten times as many satellites as the sum of all active satellites in space as of March 2018. More recent proposals by 2020 could bring that number to over 100,000.[16]
A year after the start of fielding the first satellite internet constellation—Starlink which began launching in late 2019 and began beta test of the network in late 2020; OneWeb began satellite deployment in 1H2020—the competitive disruption to established satellite company business models began to be better understood. In early 2021, the three largest European satellite operatorsSES,Eutelsat, andHispasat—which had until that time eschewed developing and fielding a broadband satellite internet constellation withprivate funds—informed theEuropean Commission that they would be willing to invest in the development of such a project if theEuropean Union were to invest government funds in the effort as well.[17] All three companies had formerly focused on the provision of communication services fromGEO andMEO orbits, while the newer satellite internet providers have been fielding their constellations exclusively inLEO.[17] In March 2025, the largest of the three operators,SES entered into a partnership with satellite direct-to-device (D2D) provider,Lynk Global to route traffic between Lynk's LEO constellation and SES’s MEO satellites and gateways to enable secure real-time data delivery and reduce requirements for ground infrastructure.[18]
In 2018, the Russian government established theSfera (Sphere) constellation program, to consist of 162 satellites, providing broadband internet connectivity,message relay, video broadcast, and remote sensing services. In October 2022, a demonstrator satellite called Skif-D technology was launched.[19]
Proposed systems vary greatly in the number of satellites, the types of orbits and the telecommunication architecture (in particular the presence or absence ofinter-satellite links). System designs have been analyzed using statistical methods and simulations to estimate the total throughput.[20] Particularly challenging is the dynamic nature of the network, as LEO satellites typically pass over a given location in less than 10 minutes.[21]
For continental distances (greater than about 3,000 km[22]), LEO satellite internet networks are expected to be able to provide lowerlatency than optical fiber links.[23][22][24] This is expected to hold even without inter-satellite links, using only ground station relays.[25][26] The new networks are said to be able to "potentially compete with today's ISPs in many settings".[22]
Critics have objected against the increasedlight pollution forastronomy, the increased possibilitysatellite collisions resulting inspace debris and, more generally, a lack of end-of-life cleanup for the increasing number of satellites that would become space debris.[27][28]
Astronomers have studied the potential effects increased satellite usage inLow Earth Orbit would have onVery Large Telescope that use ultra-wide imaging exposures, such as the 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope[29] used in the Legacy Survey of Space and Time project at theVera C. Rubin Observatory. They found that 30 to 40% of exposures could be compromised during the first and last hours of the night.[30] A study found that twilight observations are particularly affected by SC and that the fraction of streaked images taken during twilight has increased from less than 0.5% in late 2019 to 18% in August 2021 due to SpaceX Starlink Satellites.[31] Astronomers have also voiced concern over the impact satellite internet constellations will have onradio astronomy.[32]
Additional research is needed to determine impact of (inter alia) light pollution on various locations, communities, indigenous peoples, and other forms of observation.
A report from the SATCON1 workshop in 2020 concluded that the effects of large satellite constellations can severely affect some astronomical research efforts and lists six ways to mitigate harm to astronomy.[33][34] In 2022, theIAU announced theCentre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference to coordinate or aggregate measures to mitigate such detrimental effects.[35][36][37] TheAAS is maintaining aliving document that tracks recent progress in the field.[38]
The growth of all tracked objects in space over time showing a recent increase of active satellites[39]
UN Guidelines and ISO standard 24113 on space debris mitigation "encourages" organizations to voluntarily:[28]
Limit debris released during normal operations
Minimize the potential for on-orbit break-ups
Post-mission disposal
Prevention of on-orbit collisions
A study suggests policies could help achieve the goal of debris mitigation and spacesustainability.[28] A team of scientists outlined rationale for governance that regulates the current freeexternalization of true costs and risks, treatingorbital space around the Earth as an "additional ecosystem" or acommon "part of the human environment" which should be subject to the same concerns andregulations likee.g. oceans on Earth. The study concludes that it needs "new policies, rules and regulations at national and international level".[40][39]
As of 2022, global space activity is not sufficiently shaped by any international entity, and therefore "there is no common set of rules that govern global space activity and no mechanisms to ensure the proper disposal of hardware at the completion of space missions. Nor is there any coordinated effort to clean up the decades of space debris already accumulated in orbit."[41]
There exist many satellite operators at LEO, MEO, and GEO. Similar to the Internet, which is a network of networks, satellite networks of different operators can also form federated networks of satellite networks.[42]
Globalstar — an operational constellation of 24 low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites for satellite phone and low-speed data communications, covering most of the world's landmass. The launch of the second-generation constellation was completed on February 6, 2013
Iridium — an operational constellation of 66cross-linked satellites in apolar orbit, used to provide satellite phone and low-speed data services over the entire surface of Earth. Iridium NEXT, a second-generation constellation of the communications satellites, was completed on January 11, 2019
Orbcomm — an operational constellation used to provide global asset monitoring and messaging services from its constellation of 29 LEO communications satellites orbiting at 775 km
Starlink — a satellite constellation development project to provide high-speed Internet underway bySpaceX to deploy nearly 12,000 satellites in multiple orbital shells by the mid-2020s
Lynk Global — a satellite-to-mobile-phone satellite constellation with the objective of coverage to traditional low-cost mobile devices
Viasat, Inc. — a current broadband satellite provider providing fixed, ground mobile, and airborne antennas
OneWeb constellation — in 2023 merged withEutelsat, 648-satellite network was planned for completion by late 2022
Project Kuiper — Amazon's constellation will consist of 3,236 satellites operating in three orbital shells
O3b mPOWER - provides coverage to most of the globe under a service launched in 2024. Satellites built byBoeing.
AST SpaceMobile — a satellite-to-mobile-phone constellation to provide 5G services around the world to existing unmodified mobile phones[45]
G60/Qianfan — a Chinese megaconstellation project developed by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) to deploy 14,000 satellites by 2030. The first stage consists of 1,296 satellites to provide global coverage; 648 of these are to be launched by the end of 2025 to provide regional network coverage. The first launch was on August 6, 2024.,[46] second batch of satellites were launched on 15 October 2024.
Guowang — a Chinese megaconstellation project created by SatNet, a firm backed by theCAST.[47] it plans to be constituted of over 13,000 satellites by the project's end.[48]
^abcBhattacherjee, Debopam; Aqeel, Waqar; Bozkurt, Ilker Nadi; Aguirre, Anthony; Chandrasekaran, Balakrishnan; Godfrey, P. Brighten; Laughlin, Gregory; Maggs, Bruce; Singla, Ankit (15 November 2018). "Gearing up for the 21st century space race".Proceedings of the 17th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks. HotNets '18. Redmond, WA, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 113–119.doi:10.1145/3286062.3286079.ISBN978-1-4503-6120-0.
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