Starlink Gen3.

Gen3 is 100,000 satellites in two bands of thin, closely stacked shells, one band at 323 to 327.5 kilometres and one at 473 to 477.5 kilometres. Ten shells sit in each band, at inclinations from 26 degrees to a sun-synchronous 96.9, and the table caps every shell, and the whole system, at the same 100,000: the ask is flexibility to spread the fleet across the listed shells, under one hard total.

Altitude is the design's signature. Today's Starlink shells sit around 340 to 550 kilometres; Gen3's lower band flies beneath the International Space Station, where atmospheric drag deorbits a dead satellite in months rather than decades. The filing gives each spacecraft an operational lifetime of five years and argues the split-layer design "leaves ample room around crewed space stations". Low also means close, which is the latency argument: the narrative promises "extremely low-latency and multi-gigabit symmetrical throughput" for consumers, enterprises, governments and "billions of AI-powered devices".

Gen2 runs on what the narrative calls the "workhorse Ku-, Ka-, V-, and E-band spectrum". Gen3 keeps all of it and reaches beyond: the filing says the system "will pioneer greenfield W- and D-band frequencies between 92 and 275 GHz", sub-terahertz territory no commercial constellation uses today. The frequency table runs from 10.7 GHz at the bottom of Ku-band to 275 GHz at the top, for both directions of the link.

The application asks for waivers of seven Commission rules, and SpaceX's August supplement argues the FCC's own Space Modernization order of July 2026 supports granting them. High frequencies buy enormous bandwidth and suffer badly in rain; flying very low is part of the answer, because a shorter, steeper path through the atmosphere loses less.

Coverage of the filing repeats a satellite mass of 2,000 to 2,500 kilograms, and it is worth knowing what those numbers are. They appear on pages 40 and 41 of the technical attachment as inputs to NASA's Debris Assessment Software: bounding cases, a 2,000 kg satellite of 300 square metres and a 2,500 kg satellite of 400 square metres, run to show the re-entry and collision numbers hold even for the heaviest plausible spacecraft. The filing declares them as modelling assumptions.

The four filed documents cover orbits, spectrum, power limits and debris behaviour.