Starlink, China’s Role, and the Management of Low Earth Orbit

In late December 2025, China filed applications with the International Telecommunication Union covering satellite constellations totalling more than 200,000 satellites. The scale of the filings was framed in media coverage as escalatory and hypocritical, given Beijing’s earlier criticism of SpaceX’s commercial satellite constellation Starlink. Yet the move reflects an orbital environment already transformed by large-scale commercial deployment, where control over satellite infrastructure has potentially profound political consequences.

Low Earth orbit has shifted from a sparsely populated technical domain to a dense layer of critical infrastructure. More than 10,000 active satellites now circle the planet, with the majority launched after 2019, supporting civilian communications, navigation systems, military operations, disaster response and commercial connectivity. This transformation has been driven by falling launch costs, the industrialisation of satellite production and the capacity of a small number of actors — notably SpaceX — to deploy systems at scale.

Starlink matters not simply because of its size, but because it became embedded in civilian, military and emergency communications before governments had fully understood the implications. In Ukraine, Starlink terminals were integrated into battlefield communications out of necessity rather than deliberate policy choice. And in other conflict-affected regions like Iran, satellite connectivity has become politically consequential because access can be enabled, restricted or delayed through operational decisions rather than formal state policy.

Starlink’s significance lies less in the discretion of its owner than in the structural features of dense orbital infrastructure. Once deployed, satellite systems are difficult to replace or unwind. Reliance on this system has developed faster than the rules meant to govern it.

China’s commercial satellite sector has changed markedly in response to these pressures. Manufacturing has moved away from small-scale testing and custom production towards faster, more standardised output. Firms such as GalaxySpace have reorganised factories to shorten build times and increase volume. Design choices once driven by experimentation are now shaped by the practical demands of launch schedules, including restrictions on how many satellites can be stacked inside a single rocket and the need to meet regulatory filing deadlines.

Source : Starlink, China and the governance of low Earth orbit