Starlink
The internet constellation that pays for everything else — and is now trying to become your phone company.
Starlink is a constellation of small satellites in low orbit delivering broadband to dishes, planes, ships — and now directly to ordinary phones. It is also the reason SpaceX could afford Starship.
How big it has become
Starlink had 7.2 million consumer subscribers at the end of September 2025. A year later: 13.6 million, plus “hundreds of thousands” of enterprise accounts not in that count. It added 1.7 million in Q2 2026 and 1.6 million in Q3. Q3 2026 results
In 2025 Starlink brought in $11.4 billion of revenue and $4.4 billion of operating income — SpaceX's largest and most profitable segment until the AI division overtook it in Q3 2026. Q3 2026 connectivity revenue was $5.25B: $3.12B consumer (+57%) and $2.13B enterprise and government (+91%). Average revenue per consumer is $69 a month, down from $83 a year earlier as cheaper plans spread.
Musk, Aug 4, 2026: “It's not out of the question that at some point Starlink will deliver a majority of the world's internet.” On the Q3 call he claimed a path to roughly 100× today's bandwidth within three years with ~100,000 satellites. Q3 call
The satellites
Roughly 11,190 Starlink satellites were in orbit at the end of October 2026 out of 13,069 launched since May 2019; about 1,879 have re-entered. Starlink is estimated at around two-thirds of all active satellites. KeepTrack tracker
V3: why Starship matters to Starlink
The new V3 satellite carries about ten times the capacity of V2 and only launches efficiently on Starship. The first 20 flew suborbitally on Flight 13 (July 24, 2026); the first 26 operational V3s went to orbit on Flight 14 (September 28). Musk says ~1,000 V3 satellites are needed for “critical mass,” expected around Q2 2027; Shotwell says users will notice after a few hundred, by mid-2027.
Approvals
FCC approvals have grown from 4,425 satellites (2018) to 7,500 Gen2 (2022) to a 15,000-satellite very-low-orbit direct-to-device constellation approved October 7, 2026.
Starlink Mobile: becoming a US carrier
The direct-to-cell service, rebranded Starlink Mobile in March 2026, finished its first-generation constellation of 650+ satellites in February 2026 and now has 22 million monthly users (+37% in a quarter). Partners include T-Mobile (US), Rogers, Optus, Telstra, One NZ, KDDI, Salt, Entel, Kyivstar, Virgin Media O2, Airtel Africa and Veon. Advanced Television
Then came the spectrum. SpaceX agreed to buy EchoStar's AWS-4, H-block and AWS-3 licences for about $17 billion (Sept 2025; FCC-approved May 2026). On October 8, 2026 it agreed to buy Grain Management's nationwide 800 MHz low-band portfolio — reportedly ~$8 billion — closing in the first half of 2027. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile each fell about 7% after hours. Musk said it enables “complete phone coverage in America”; SpaceX says the spectrum will let Starlink Mobile “become a major mobile carrier in the US.” A “Mobile V2” service is targeted for early 2028. RCR Wireless
Planes, ships and governments
- Aviation — more than 3,800 aircraft equipped and ~12,000 contracted; customers include United, Qatar, Emirates, Lufthansa Group, IAG, Air France, Air Canada, Southwest, American, Singapore, KLM and Hawaiian (the first, in 2022).
- Maritime — Royal Caribbean fleet-wide, Carnival, Viking, Disney, Norwegian, MSC, Virgin Voyages; cargo lines Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd.
- Starshield and defence — the military version announced December 2022; more than $6 billion in US Space Force contracts by mid-2026, including ~$6.45B of Golden Dome satellite awards in May 2026.
- Countries — around 160–174 depending on the source and the date.
Starmind: data centres in orbit
On August 4, 2026 SpaceX announced a partnership with Nvidia to build Starmind AI compute satellites around Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs. The AI1 design: 30 m tall deployed, 75 m wingspan, up to 250 kW of compute, 210 kW of solar and 160 m² of radiators, in sun-synchronous orbit with laser links into Starlink. Production is planned at a Gigasat factory in Bastrop, Texas, with first flights in 2027; Musk has floated a constellation of a million spacecraft. The S-1 is more cautious: AI compute satellites no earlier than 2028. Not a Tesla App