WHO'S WHO IN SATELLITES? There are a number of companies and government entities responsible for the satellites currently in orbit.

• Author: Lancaster, Joe
• Position: EXPLAINER

State operators are government entities that operate satellite networks for everything from weather to navigation to military uses.

The federal Landsat program is a series of observational satellites. The program produces a massive amount of mappable data for both public and private use: Search giant Alphabet uses Landsat data for its Google Earth and Google Maps programs.

In fact, all GPS-enabled devices use government satellites: The original Global Positioning System was a military program that was opened up to civilian use in the 1980s.

Non-geostationary satellites orbit at a different rate than Earth. They are typically used by smaller companies with large fleets of mass-produced satellites.

The largest player in the satellite space falls into this category: Starlink, owned by SpaceX. The company offers broadband-speed internet to hundreds of thousands of subscribers worldwide. As of August 2022, the company had 3,000 satellites in orbit, and it plans to accelerate its launch rate when its super heavy-lift system Starship enters operation. The Federal Communications Commission says it cannot have more than 12,000 in operation, but the company hopes to raise the cap to 42,000.

The company most equipped to eat into Star-link's market share is Amazon. As part of what it's calling Project Kuiper, the e-commerce giant will spend $10 billion to launch more than 3,200 broadband satellites over the next decade.

Geostationary satellites orbit the Earth at the same speed the planet rotates. They tend to be used by larger companies with small fleets of expensive satellites.

DirecTV maintains a fleet of...