Is Elon Musk's Starlink polluting space? Researchers call for the FCC to pause launches

As Elon Musk's Starlink continues to launch an internet network of thousands of satellites into the atmosphere, the environmental implications are unknown without a formal review, experts warn.

The Starlink system aims to provide high-speed broadband internet access around the world, especially to areas where it's unreliable or nonexistent, such as rural areas, according to the company.

While the benefits of increased access are unquestionable, the rate at which commercial satellites are being propelled into the atmosphere -- without studying the impact on the environment -- has some experts calling for intervention.

In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a group of 100 space researchers from universities, research observatories and space institutes asked for the government agency to press pause on new satellite launches to allow for environmental review.

"We should look before we leap," researchers cautioned in the letter.

While long-term impacts remain unknown, researchers said what is evident is more satellites and more launches lead to more damaging gases and metals in the atmosphere.

ABC News has reached out to Starlink for a comment.

Since Space X's Starlink satellites were first launched into low Earth orbit in May 2019, the FCC has approved the company to deploy nearly 12,000 satellites into space -- a number researchers say is expected to soar.

"The new space race is ramping up quickly: some experts are estimating an additional 58,000 satellites will be launched by 2030," researchers said in the Oct. 24 letter.

"Other plans have been proposed to launch 500,000 satellites to create new mega-constellations that would power satellite internet," researchers said.

The letter called for the FCC to pause new satellite launches until the agency can conduct environmental reviews, saying national and international regulators need to develop an "unprecedented system of cooperation" to share the low Earth orbit space.

"Until extensive coordination is in place, we shouldn't let the commercial interests first to launch determine the rules," researchers said, seemingly pointing at Musk's aerospace feats.

The skies may seem boundless while looking up from Earth, but researchers said in the letter that both orbital space and the broadcast spectrum are not infinite.

A May 2021 study published in Nature found that connections between the Earth and space environments "are inadequately taken into account," and that untracked satellite debris will lead to potentially dangerous "on-orbit collisions."

A Starlink satellite has a lifespan of approximately five years before de-orbiting, according to the company. When the technology is no longer serviceable, it is destroyed while reentering the atmosphere.

The company maintains that this process means "no orbital debris is created and no satellite parts hit the ground," however, with a lack of environmental oversight, researchers say, what is or isn't left in the atmosphere has not been confirmed.

Sierra Solter-Hunt, an American physicist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Iceland released a paper in 2023 that warned of "conductive particulates" from burned satellites lingering in the atmosphere.

Satellites are largely constructed from aluminum, a superconductor used for the blocking, distorting or shielding of magnetic fields, according to Hunt, who argues the debris could disrupt the Earth's magnetic field.

Pollution from satellites reentering the atmosphere also has the potential to damage our ozone layer, according to a June 2024 study published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The study determined that reentering satellites in 2022 caused a 29.5% increase of aluminum in the atmosphere above the natural level, resulting in around 17 metric tons of aluminum oxides injected into the mesosphere.

In the letter, directed to Federal Communications Commission Space Bureau Chief Julie Kearney, researchers call for the agency to take timely action over new satellite launches.

"We're in a short window of time when we can prevent making a mess of space and our atmosphere rather than spend decades cleaning it up," researchers said, adding, "The new space race doesn't need to create massive space waste."