Using Starlink’s Satellites To Study Earth’s Upper Atmosphere

Using Starlink’s Satellites To Study Earth’s Upper Atmosphere

Aside from global access to cat videos, the presence of thousands of Starlink broadband internet access satellites in LEO has a very pleasant side effect for atmospheric researchers. Starlink publicly …

At the start of 2019, fewer than 2,000 active satellites circled Earth. By June 2026 there were 15,711 — and nearly two out of every three belonged to a single constellation: SpaceX's Starlink.

Look Up’s quarterly space index, released on 2 June 2026, counted 15,711 active satellites in Earth orbit. It assigned 10,365 of them to SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. That is 65.97 percent, making “nearly two out of every three” the arithmetic of this particular catalog. The same index put the active population below 2,000 at the start of 2019. The total had therefore grown almost eightfold in a little more than seven years. That interval is …