Emissions Assessment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Broadband Megaconstellations; Starlink, OneWeb and Kuiper

[2309.02338] Emissions Assessment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Broadband Megaconstellations; Starlink, OneWeb and Kuiper Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Search arXiv Press Enter to search · Advanced search Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics arXiv:2309.02338 (astro-ph) [Submitted on 5 Sep 2023 ( v1 ), last revised 13 Apr 2026 (this version, v6)] Title: Emissions Assessment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Broadband Megaconstellations; Starlink, OneWeb and Kuiper Authors: Ogutu B. Osoro , Edward J. Oughton , Andrew R. Wilson , Akhil Rao View a PDF of the paper titled Emissions Assessment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Broadband Megaconstellations; Starlink, OneWeb and Kuiper, by Ogutu B. Osoro and 3 other authors View PDF Abstract: The growth of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband satellite megaconstellations is rapidly increasing the number of rocket launches. While improving broadband Internet helps achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there are also significant environmental emissions produced from burning rocket fuels. We present sustainability analytics for phase 1 of the three main LEO constellations including Amazon Kuiper (3,236 satellites), Eutelsat Group's OneWeb (648 satellites), and SpaceX Starlink (4,425 satellites). We find that LEO megaconstellations provide substantially improved broadband speeds for rural and remote communities but are roughly 6-8 times more emissions intensive (250 kg CO2eq/subscriber/year) than comparative terrestrial 4G mobile broadband. Policy makers must carefully consider the trade-off between improving broadband Internet to further the SDGs while mitigating the growing space sector environmental footprint, particularly regarding phase 2 plans to launch an order-of-magnitude more satellites. Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) ; General Economics (econ.GN); Systems and Control (eess.SY) Cite as: arXiv:2309.02338 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2309.02338v6 [astro-ph.EP] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.02338 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Edward Oughton [ view email ] [v1] Tue, 5 Sep 2023 15:56:43 UTC (1,411 KB) [v2] Fri, 15 Sep 2023 14:48:15 UTC (1,411 KB) [v3] Wed, 20 Sep 2023 16:03:28 UTC (1,445 KB) [v4] Sat, 7 Oct 2023 17:19:51 UTC (1,431 KB) [v5] Thu, 7 Mar 2024 20:18:12 UTC (2,519 KB) [v6] Mon, 13 Apr 2026 21:32:42 UTC (5,154 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Emissions Assessment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Broadband Megaconstellations; Starlink, OneWeb and Kuiper, by Ogutu B. Osoro and 3 other authors View PDF view license Current browse context: astro-ph.EP < prev | next > new | recent | 2023-09 Change to browse by: astro-ph cs cs.SY econ econ.GN eess eess.SY q-fin q-fin.EC References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from

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