The year 2025 ended with more than 14,000 active satellites from all countries zooming around the Earth. One-third of them will quickly transfer to lower elevations.

The maneuvers will be carried out by SpaceX, the owner of the biggest satellite fleet in orbit. About 4,400 of the business’s Starlink Internet satellites will move from an elevation of 341 miles (550 kilometers) to 298 miles (480 kilometers) throughout 2026, according to Michael Nicolls, SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink engineering.

“Starlink is starting a substantial reconfiguration of its satellite constellation concentrated on increasing area security,” Nicolls composed Thursday in a post on X.

The maneuvers carried out with the Starlink satellites’ plasma engines will be steady, however they will ultimately bring a big portion of orbital traffic more detailed together. The result, possibly counterintuitively, will be a decreased danger of accidents in between satellites whooshing through near-Earth area at almost 5 miles per second. Nicolls stated the choice will “increase area security in a number of methods.”

Why now?

There are less particles things at the lower elevation, and although the Starlink satellites will be loaded more securely, they follow choreographed courses dispersed in lots of orbital lanes. “The variety of particles things and prepared satellite constellations is considerably lower listed below 500 km, minimizing the aggregate probability of crash,” Nicolls composed.

The 4,400 satellites moving closer to Earth comprise almost half of SpaceX’s Starlink fleet. At the end of 2025, SpaceX had almost 9,400 working satellites in orbit, consisting of more than 8,000 Starlinks in functional service and hundreds more going through tests and activation.

There’s another natural factor for reconfiguring the Starlink constellation. The Sun is beginning to peaceful down after reaching the peak of the 11-year solar cycle in 2024. The decrease in solar activity has the ripple effect of decreasing air density in the uppermost layers of the Earth’s environment, a significant consider preparing satellite operations in low-Earth orbit.

With the approaching solar minimum, Starlink satellites will come across less aerodynamic drag at their existing elevation. In the unusual occasion of a spacecraft failure, SpaceX counts on climatic resistance to drag Starlink satellites out of orbit towards an intense death on reentry. Moving the Starlink satellites lower will enable them to naturally reenter the environment and burn up within a couple of months. At solar minimum, it may take more than 4 years for drag to pull the satellites out of their present 550-kilometer orbit, according to Nicolls. At the lower elevation, it will take simply a couple of months.