[throwawaaarrgh]

Other providers are in the works, but they don't work as fast as Starlink and don't have their own rockets to launch them in. Which is good. BlueWalker 3, a prototype for a new internet satellite provider, is brighter than 99.8% of all stars visible from Earth. They're planning on launching 70 more of them.

There are about 5,000 Starlink satellites and about 8,000 satellites total. For the past few years, the number of satellites has been increasing by 30% every year. Starlink can launch 50 satellites in each Falcon 9, which can fly every week. Eventually Starlink will have about 42,000 satellites in orbit. Other mega satellite networks are being planned which could raise the total to over 400,000 satellites.

[mensetmanusman]

I wonder if someday starlink will be able to animate the Big Dipper by blinking satellites. A giant Pepsi logo or something.

[inemesitaffia]

There will never be more than 12k sats up at a time

[throwawaaarrgh]

No? They can have many more and plan to. They just have a limited authorization for 12k for the short term.

[inemesitaffia]

They can have millions, they don't plan to have more than 12k up at the same time. 40k is the estimated cumulative number for the currently planned lifecycle