The space race is poised to change the night sky forever

At some point in the not-too-distant future, the amount of satellites in the night sky could outnumber the amount of stars visible to the naked eye.

Over the past decade, the number of active satellites orbiting Earth has grown from ~1,000 to ~17,000, with experts predicting that figure could surpass 100,000 within another decade.

As launch costs fall, companies including SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Google are also exploring the possibility of orbital data centers, or networks of satellites designed to process and store data in space (often AI-related).

Satellites are getting bigger, too

SpaceX's current Starlink satellites—which make up over half of all satellites currently in orbit—clock in at ~4 square meters, or about the size of a king bed.

But those numbers are about to rocket upwards faster than Starship at liftoff:

• SpaceX says its future data-center satellites could reach 1,500 square meters, or 375x larger than Starlink satellites.
• Other companies have proposed systems of satellites that each measure 9,600+ square meters, nearly the size of two full NFL football fields.

Why it’s a big deal: Satellites already interfere with telescope images by reflecting sunlight, complicating both astronomical research and amateur stargazing. Scientists worry that adding tens of thousands of larger satellites could pose an “existential threat” to scientific observatories and Earth-based telescopes, some of which cost US taxpayers billions of dollars.