Starlink & Low Earth Orbit Broadband
Wiring the entire planet.
Explore this event on the interactive timeline →SpaceX began deploying a massive "megaconstellation" of thousands of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband internet access to any location on the surface of the Earth.
Key Numbers
- Total Sats Launched
- 11,955
- Active & Working
- 10,358
- Deorbited/Failed
- 1,581
- Data Source
- J. McDowell (May 2026)
Verified Facts
- Traditional satellite internet relied on massive satellites parked in geostationary orbit (22,000 miles away), resulting in terrible lag (600+ milliseconds) because the data literally had to travel to space and back.
- Starlink satellites orbit at just 340 miles (LEO), dropping the physical lag to roughly 25-50 ms (median ~45 ms) — far below older satellites, though still above typical fiber (5-15 ms).
- By blanketing the planet in connectivity, Starlink guarantees that the final 3 billion unconnected humans in rural and remote areas will come online, directly linking the entire human population into the global AI economy.