Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX has reported that the number of Starlink satellites decreed by the end of 2025 has dropped significantly, falling from about 500 to about 200.
This massive drop in de-orbiting Starlink satellites was highlighted in the company’s latest semi-annual report it filed with the FCC, indicating the successful retirement of many older Starlink satellites.
Normally, a Starlink satellite has a lifespan of five years before de-orbiting, where it is designed to burn up completely upon re-entry into the atmosphere.
It should be noted that Starlink satellites can also be prematurely retired due to malfunctions or hardware failures.
The Starlink constellation, which consists of more than 10,000 satellites, saw an increase in burns last year, with SpaceX de-orbiting as many as four to five satellites daily, said astronomer and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.
From December 2024 to May 2025, SpaceX de-orbited 472 satellites, but this number dropped to just 218 from June to November.
Most of the de-orbited 167 satellites belonged to the first generation of the Starlink constellation, which began serving customers over five years ago. The rest came from the second generation constellation.
McDowell confirmed that SpaceX has “largely completed the mass retirement of the older satellites”, although re-entry remains high compared to 2023, reflecting SpaceX’s efforts to manage its growing satellite fleet.
