[Stephen Clark] SpaceX launches 10,000th Starlink satellite (arstechnica.com)

submitted 6 days ago by threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works to c/spacex@sh.itjust.works

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The exact figure stands at 10,006 satellites, according to a tabulation by Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who expertly tracks comings and goings between Earth and space. This number includes dozens of Starlink demo satellites, but not the dummy spacecraft carried on SpaceX’s recent Starship test flights.

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[-] thessnake03@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

They've launched 10,000 but not all are still up there. Luckily the article had those numbers too

8,680 total Starlink satellites in orbit

8,664 functioning Starlink satellites in orbit (including newly launched satellites not yet operational)

7,448 Starlink satellites in operational orbit

[-] lemming@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago

That means 1200 inoperational ones? That's surprisingly many.

[-] becausechemistry@lemy.lol 3 points 5 days ago

It takes a while to go from orbital insertion to operational orbit, but that would be the last 40ish launches worth of satellites working their way up.

Maybe a good fraction of them are parked as on-orbit backups?

this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2025

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