The number of satellites in LEO, a region that spans up to 1,424 miles (2,000 kilometers) from Earth, will continue to increase at an exponential rate in the coming decades. That's because private companies are setting up their own megaconstellations, each containing thousands of individual satellites, which will be used to develop faster online networks and deliver a range of other services, such as monitoring
climate change.
This increased activity is happening now largely because of dropping costs, said Aaron Boley, an astronomer at The University of British Columbia. "We know SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon and StarNet/GW [China's satellite network] have proposed a combined satellite total of 65,000 when including all phases" of their satellite programs, Boley told Live Science. And "well over 100,000 satellites have been proposed" in total, he added.
In October 2021, Rwanda also announced its own megaconstellation, named Cinnamon, which could contain over 320,000 satellites. It is unclear when this project might become a reality, but the country has requested permission to begin the project, according to a
tweet by the Rwanda Space Agency.