Starlink is the world's largest constellation of artificial satellites. Regardless of the state of the infrastructure on earth, they provide internet and connectivity. The quality and efficiency of the connection provided by Starlink is due to the large number of satellites and is difficult to replace.
The Starlink constellation is operated by Starlink Services LLC, which is wholly owned by SpaceX, a company owned by billionaire Elon Musk. According to data that SpaceX shared on its website in late February, a total of 7,946 satellites have been launched into orbit. Of these, 6,751 are active.
What is the reason for Starlink's success?
It is the large number of satellites that makes Starlink unique . Karol Wójcicki, an astronomy popularizer and author of the website “Z głowy w gwiazdach”, calls Starlink a megaconstellation. He points out that from the beginning of the space era to the launch of the first Starlink, there were a total of 3-5 thousand satellites in Earth orbit. Starlink has doubled that number.
“For this system to work properly and efficiently, we need to be within range of at least a few of these satellites wherever we are on Earth. This network will only work when there are a lot of satellites in orbit,” Wójcicki explained.
Starlink satellites fly above Earth at an average altitude of about 550 kilometers above sea level, or so-called low Earth orbit, typical of many telecommunications satellites. It takes a single Starlink satellite about 90 minutes to orbit our planet.
photo: Jacques Dayan / Shutterstock
The large number of satellites in orbit means that the internet connection provided by Starlink is of good quality. “Additionally, the fact that these satellites are in low Earth orbit means that the signal from Earth to these satellites, as well as between them, when there are so many of them, travels very quickly. Therefore, the communication delay in this network, the so-called ping, is very short. This allows for high data transfer speeds and use it, for example, while traveling,” the PAP interviewee pointed out.
Starlink was created with civilian users in mind. It was to deliver fast, broadband internet to any location on Earth in a wireless manner, allowing independence from terrestrial infrastructure.
“In Europe, this may seem like an unnecessary pleasure, but anyone who has traveled even in the United States surely realizes how big a challenge mobile phone coverage is in many regions, not to mention fast internet. Starlink is one of the answers to such needs,” said Wójcicki.
Thanks to the constellation, you can have fast internet, for example, during an ocean cruise or a passenger flight. It can also be delivered where civilian telecommunications infrastructure has been disabled, damaged or destroyed, as for example in Ukraine, which is fighting the Russian invasion.
Starlinka over Ukraine
” It's not like the satellites are +hanging+ over Ukraine. These satellites are in constant motion. Because there are so many of them in the entire constellation, at least several dozen are over the territory of Ukraine at any given moment. They stay there for a few seconds and fly on, and then they fly into the range of recipients in Ukraine,” explained the astronomy popularizer.
“If Starlink disappeared from Ukraine, it would probably be a significant problem, but I suspect that what Elon Musk says is not entirely true, that it would immediately lead to the collapse of the front. There is no equivalent of Starlink on the Russian side, and the Russians somehow manage to communicate,” said Dr. Grzegorz Brona, former president of the Polish Space Agency and currently president of Creotech Instruments, a company operating in the space sector.
photo: CLODAGH KILCOYNE / Reuters / Forum
However, he also admitted that the advantage of Starlink is higher bandwidth compared to other solutions.
” The quality of the connection and its efficiency are currently difficult to replace with solutions from other operators ,” said Wójcicki, who is a Starlink user himself.
Andrzej Wilk from the Centre for Eastern Studies pointed out that Starlinks are a crucial element for Ukraine . He explained that over Ukraine “there must be full satellite cover of the area of operations 24 hours a day”. “Europeans are simply not able to handle it” – assessed the expert in a film published by OSW last week. He also noted that the French company Eutelsat, the creator of the OneWeb network, currently has over 600 satellites.
What instead?
A smaller number of European satellites means smaller network capacity – admitted Grzegorz Brona. He pointed out, however, that the OneWeb network , although still under construction, has already achieved operational capacity.
“OneWeb is a solution designed for business. It currently has significantly fewer users and therefore there is no bandwidth problem. However, if 5 million users appeared overnight, as Starlink has, problems would occur overnight,” he assessed.
The OneWeb satellites are further from Earth, in orbit at about 1,200 kilometers. This allows a single device to cover a larger area of the planet. The number of satellites in the constellation could therefore be smaller to provide full coverage, although this would still not solve any potential capacity problems if the number of users increased.
Solutions competing with Starlink are emerging, but they have not yet reached the scale of Elon Musk's venture. In late 2022, the European Union announced that its own Iris constellation would guarantee internet access throughout its territory from 2027.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, intends to launch a Kuiper constellation of 3,200 satellites; he put the first prototypes into orbit in October 2023. China, meanwhile, wants its Guowang system to have 13,000 satellites.
Already in April 2023, the Washington Post reported that Russia was trying to jam Starlink transmissions using its own electronic warfare system. In March 2024, Democrats from the US House of Representatives launched an investigation into the purchase of Starlinks by the Russians. The issue was the potential illegal acquisition of terminals from other countries – the Russians were supposed to “clog” the network provided by the satellites, e.g. using high-quality video streaming.
The Starlinka Scandal
On Sunday, Musk wrote on the X portal, which he also owns, that if he shuts down the Starlink system, the entire front in Ukraine will collapse. In response, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said that the Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs finances Starlinks for Ukraine at a rate of about $50 million per year. Musk responded that this is a small part of the costs.
Dr. Grzegorz Brona attempted to calculate how many Starlink internet access points could be maintained for $50 million per year. He took as a starting point a mobile package with a throughput of 50 GB per month – intended for business and crisis services. SpaceX offers it in Poland for PLN 1,125 per month, or PLN 13.5 thousand per year (packages with a larger data limit are more expensive). For $50 million, or – in simplified terms – about PLN 200 million, you can pay for the operation of about 15 thousand access points during the year.
This is all assuming that the price will be the same as for individual customers. However, in the case of wholesale purchases – and this is what we are dealing with when it comes to Poland's aid for Ukraine – we can expect a lower price. How low? Brona assumes that it is two or even three times lower. If this is true, it may turn out that for $50 million Poland is financing Ukraine's access to 30-45 thousand access points to Starlink. This is all the more likely because Kiev reported that it has access to about 42 thousand terminals, and Warsaw purchased and transferred about 30 thousand.
Elon Musk has been changing his approach to the Russian-Ukrainian war. In early 2022, right after the Russian invasion, he sent Starlink terminals to Ukraine. In September of that same year, in a letter to the Pentagon, he allegedly demanded that the US administration take over financing for Ukraine's use of satellites, which he estimated at $400 million annually. When the matter came to light, he announced that SpaceX would continue to finance services for Ukraine.
Two Starlink prototypes were launched in 2018, and a year later, SpaceX began launching operational devices. The network was launched to its first users in 2020. On February 28, 2025, Starlink announced that its user base had surpassed 5 million in 125 countries and territories.
Initially, the Starlink network operated at latitudes that roughly covered the United States and southern Canada, and part of Europe. As more and more satellites were added to the orbits, the network's reach increased. Currently, according to SpaceX, the network is available in North America, most South and Central American countries, and Europe, with the exception of Russia, Belarus, and some Western Balkan countries. Starlink is also available in several African countries, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Mongolia. The list also includes Yemen, where a civil war has been going on for a decade.
Karol Wójcicki pointed out that sending such a large number of satellites into Earth orbit would normally involve enormous expenses, but SpaceX managed to reduce costs by developing a rocket that returns to Earth after launch and is able to fly into space multiple times.
A single Falcon 9, a rocket designed by SpaceX, carried up to 60 Starlinik satellites in the older version. Over time, however, their mass increased. While the first Starliniks were relatively small devices weighing 200-300 kilograms, the latest version weighs about 1,250 kilograms.
Because starlinks are sent into space in groups, they create characteristic formations in the sky shortly after launch. They then look like a series of points of light, something like a string of stars or a space train. Over time, however, they move away from each other and settle into separate orbits.
Of the nearly 8,000 satellites that have been sent into space, some have already completed their work. As Wójcicki explained, individual devices have a set shelf life and after that, they are deorbited and replaced with new ones. SpaceX reports that 865 satellites have been deorbited from Earth's orbit into the atmosphere in a controlled manner, with another 329 in the process. SpaceX emphasizes that only one satellite is still in orbit and is not under control.
Rafal Lesiecki (PAP)
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