# Report: Gen3 Starlink satellites – a Starship-level upgrade? > Source: > Published: 2026-07-23 20:25:39+00:00 SpaceX last month wrote to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking to secure permission to orbit 100,000 new third-generation (Gen3) Starlink satellites to populate the constellation it is seeking to build. These machines would “provide the communications backbone of the AI age … [with] ultra-low latency, multigigabit broadband service to orders of magnitude more users around the world,” according to the company’s documentation. Starlink’s proposed design for their third-generation satellites quotes a dry mass of between 4,400 and 5,500 pounds, a weight seemingly reliant on the significant jump in payload capacity claimed by [SpaceX’s Starship](https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/spacexs-starship-test-flight-manages-soft-landing-in-the-ocean/) rocket, a skyscraper-sized projectile capable of carrying 100-tons of payload, loosely three-times the mass of today’s heavy-lift rockets. SpaceX’s current Falcon 9 would only be able to safely carry two third-generation satellites per launch, an unacceptable cadence for a company now regularly orbiting payloads of its second-generation satellites in the high 20s every launch. Despite that extra mass, plans are to launch the third-generation satellites into very low-Earth orbit (VLEO) at altitudes between 200 and 300 miles above the planet. This is considered a more volatile altitude where orbits must be frequently maintained with thrusters as opposed to the loftier LEO orbit where satellites can orbit for longer and more efficiently in the lower microgravity. These lower altitudes grant a slight improvement in throughput and greater safety from debris given this part of Earth’s orbital space sees debris elements enter destructive re-entry in as little as a week. The new weight going into these third-generation spacecraft is intended to equate to a tenfold increase in capability compared to the second-generation units, with a network of electronic beam-steering antennas intended to deliver a downlink volume total of 1 Tb/s per satellite down to Earth. In its FCC application, SpaceX restated in its FCC application interest in the Ku-, Ka-, V-, and E-Bands, and requested new permissions to operate in the unconventional W- and D-Band frequencies between 92 GHz and 275 GHz, potentially plumbing new regions of wavelength as spectrum becomes increasingly congested in orbit. These speeds, if they can be delivered, answer concerns about the downlink bottleneck [proposed by skeptics of the orbital data center (ODC) trend](https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/plans-for-space-data-centers-labelled-ridiculous-ai-snake-oil-and-peak-insanity/), who doubt the volume of data center content can be sent down from space. Questions around the third-generation satellites remain, though if SpaceX can deliver even half of what it claims, it’ll be a significant leap forward for the Starlink network, a leap coming just as Amazon’s competing Leo efforts look to enter the market for satellite-based broadband services.