hurtling into the sky.

And over the next few decades,

Elon Musk is hoping to send 42,000

of these satellites to space,

15 times the number of operational

satellites in orbit today.

It's part of Starlink,

the expansive constellation from Musk and SpaceX

that hopes to bring the world

low-latency high-speed internet,

promising no more buffering

and nearly instantaneous internet

in every corner of the world.

But experts worry it may come

at a hefty cost for space exploration.

Nearly half of the world's population

does not have access to the internet,

because most internet options

require an extensive track of costly underground cables,

leaving many rural locations offline.

And while satellite internet can reach those areas...

Dave Mosher: Traditional satellite internet

is provided by a bus-sized spacecraft

that is launched 22,236 miles

into space in orbit around Earth.

Narrator: That distance means the satellite

can reach places that cables can't.

But since that one satellite

is meant to service a lot of people,

its data capability is limited,

which then limits connection speeds.

And that signal has to travel a long way,

creating a lot of lag.

This is where Elon Musk and SpaceX come in.

Mosher: Starlink is a globe-encircling network

of internet-beaming satellites

that is trying to get you online

no matter where you are in the world.

Narrator: And there's a rather persuading element

for SpaceX as well.

Mosher: Elon Musk has said he's just trying to grab

a small percentage of a trillion-dollar-a-year

telecommunications industry around the world.

If SpaceX can pull this off,

the company could net about $30 to $50 billion a year.

Narrator: Musk and SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell

say that much money could single-handedly

fund the development of Starlink, Starship,

and SpaceX's Mars-launch infrastructure.

As of early October,

SpaceX has launched more than 700 satellites into orbit,

with a plan to release a total of 12,000

over the next five years,

half of them by the end of 2024.

And Musk wants to add another 30,000 to that,

coming to a total of 42,000 satellites circling Earth.

All of these satellites will also be much closer,

anywhere from 200 to 400 miles

above the planet in low-Earth orbit.

Mosher: This reduces the connection delay

that is found with traditional internet satellite.

Narrator: Once in orbit,

these Starlink satellites will be constantly on the move,

which is why so many are necessary.

Mosher: The problem is you have to have many satellites

orbiting to make up for the fact that

you can't stay in one spot above the Earth.

Because you need several satellites overhead

at any one time to cover many users.

Narrator: Every satellite will connect

with several others via laser beams,

creating something like the network's backbone.

And to actually bring this internet into your home,

you'll need to get a pizza-sized antenna.

This phased-array antenna can aim its beam

at whatever satellite is overhead,

which will maintain an internet signal in your home.

But this scheme isn't without problems.

Starlink satellites are bright.

They reflect the sunlight and shine it back towards Earth,

so they end up looking like bright moving stars.

As cool as it may look, that comes with problems.

Mosher: Starlink satellites are most visible

in the night sky right before dawn and right after dusk,

which is the exact time that astronomers

are hunting for near-Earth objects or asteroids,

objects that could hit Earth and possibly harm us.

Narrator: And as more satellites go up,

so does the likelihood that

they'll interfere with astronomers' views.

Mosher: If Starlink continues to be a problem

for these type of sky surveys,

we may not have as much notice as we want

to detect a near-Earth object

and thwart it and prevent it from hitting Earth.

Narrator: Beyond detecting deadly asteroids,

the wall of satellites could also obstruct

the search for new planets or even black holes.

Mosher: SpaceX realized it had to do something, and it did.

It created what's called a DarkSat,

which is a satellite that has all of its shiny parts

coated in a very black, dark material.

Narrator: It also tried adding visors

to shield those shiny parts from the ground.

But unless the satellites are cloaked

like a spaceship in "Star Trek,"

technology that does not exist,

none of this will fully solve the problem.

And even if it did, there is a much bigger issue at hand.

Mosher: There's a concern about space debris,

because when you have so many satellites

in the closest, tightest, densest orbits around Earth,

there's a higher chance that those satellites

could collide with each other or with other satellites.

Narrator: Those crashes would create

clouds of debris that can orbit the Earth

for years, decades, or even centuries.

Mosher: And that debris can then disable

or cause other satellites

to crash into each other, creating even more debris,

and this problem spirals out of control

in an effect called the Kessler syndrome.

And if we reach that,

then essentially space is too unsafe to access.

Narrator: To be clear, the risk

of a runaway Kessler syndrome is very low.

Mosher: But the potential impacts of that are so high

that scientists are working very hard

to control such an event from ever happening.

Narrator: SpaceX has said its satellites

can automatically move out of the way to avoid collisions.

But dozens of SpaceX satellites are already disabled

and can't move at all, posing a potential threat.

And those concerned with SpaceX's plans

are lobbying the FCC to rein in the company

and more strictly regulate low-Earth orbit.

And that could make it more expensive

and harder to deploy the planned 42,000 satellites.

But it doesn't stop at Starlink.

Amazon's Kuiper project, OneWeb,

China's Hongyan, and other projects

are looking to challenge SpaceX

by launching their own global networks

of hundreds or thousands of satellites.

If they all got their way with little to no regulation,

we could end up with 100,000 satellites

encasing our planet within the next 10 years,

dramatically increasing the risk

of blocking off space for everyone.