Overview
- Starlink engineering chief Michael Nicolls announced the plan for 2026 and said it will be closely coordinated with other operators, regulators, and the U.S. military.
- Lowering from roughly 550 to about 480 kilometers is intended to increase atmospheric drag so retired or failed satellites decay in months rather than years.
- The move follows a December 2025 incident in which Starlink lost a satellite after a suspected on‑board explosion that produced trackable fragments before burn‑up.
- Nicolls also cited safety risks from uncoordinated activity, pointing to a late‑2025 Chinese launch in which a newly deployed satellite passed about 200 meters from a Starlink spacecraft.
- Starlink says the change could slightly reduce user latency, though it may shorten satellite lifetimes and require a higher replacement launch cadence; some reports indicate thousands of spacecraft, including about 4,400 initially, will be shifted.