“The Commission should proceed carefully to ensure that SpaceX’s deployment does not come at the expense of competition and innovation from other emerging NGSO (non-geostationary fixed service satellite) FSS systems,” Kuiper corporate counsel Michael J. Carlson wrote in the FCC letter, adding that, “Once launched, satellites remain in orbit for years, or even decades.” According to CNBC, SpaceX had launched around 2,700 Starlink satellites in total as of last Tuesday, which provide Internet services for nearly 500,000 people (though the exact number of current active satellites is unclear, given that some have been lost). Its August 2021 proposal to the FCC for a second-generation network would increase that by more than tenfold, cementing SpaceX’s dominance in the space. Project Kuiper, by comparison, has yet to launch a single satellite, despite having laid out its own ambitious plans last year to provide broadband to rural locales. However, it’s not just SpaceX’s competitors who have voiced opposition to the company’s ambitious satellite plans. In February, NASA, which recently granted SpaceX $69.95 million to develop its satellite communications, told the FCC it believes the sizable swarm could interfere with the agency’s science and human space missions, The Guardian reported. Scientists have also spoken out about the impact such a large swarm of satellites could have on the future of astronomy.
