Musk’s Starlink Wins Approval for New Satellites After Court Rejects Challenges

A federal court has upheld approval of a plan from Elon Musk’s Starlink to launch a new fleet of satellites, rejecting a challenge from DISH Network and an environmental group.

A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on July 12 said that the Federal Communications Commission properly adhered to federal law when it approved Starlink’s plan to deploy 7,500 satellites that will continuously circle the earth.

The commission has the authority to grant licenses for satellite systems if they are found to be in the public interest. The commission granted a license for the Starlink satellites because it found the network would improve access to the internet in “unserved and underserved regions of the United States and worldwide.”

DISH said that the Starlink satellites would interfere with its own satellites and that the approval was wrongly conditioned on pending verification from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

The International Dark Sky Association said the commission needed to perform an environmental review to assess light pollution from the satellites before granting approval.

Read Full Article Here