SECOND GENERATION STARLINK SATELLITES
Since the original license to operate the Starlink Generation 1 network was granted in March 2018,
SpaceX has rapidly deployed satellites to bring internet to the hardest to reach places in the UnitedStates and abroad. Five years later, SpaceX has launched nearly 4,000 satellites and is providing highspeed internet to more than one million locations around the world, the majority of which arehouseholds. Starlink continues to grow rapidly, and SpaceX has raced to keep up with a surging demandfor connectivity across the globe, especially in areas where few, if any, options for broadband
connections have existed before now.
With the recent authorization of our second-generation network, or "Gen2," SpaceX will provide evenfaster speeds to more users. This new authorization enables SpaceX to launch additional, much-improved
spacecraft with significantly more throughput per satellite than the first-generation systems. For the end
consumer, this means more bandwidth and increased reliability. As a result, millions of more people will
have access to high-speed internet no matter where they live.

V2 MiniSpaceX will soon launch a new generation of satellites that are larger and more capable than earlier
generations. We call these satellites "V2," and there will be two separate versions of this satellite design:
one that is compatible with the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, and one that is compatible with the Starship
launch vehicle. When we launch V2 satellites on Falcon 9, they won’t be the full-size version that aredesigned to be launched on Starship. The V2 satellites launched on Falcon 9 are a bit smaller, so we
affectionately refer to them as "V2 Mini" satellites. But don’t let the name fool you, a V2 Mini satellite
has four times the capacity for serving users compared to its earlier counterparts.

Space Sustainability and Safety
As we begin to deploy our Gen2 network, SpaceX will continue to lead the industry in creating a safe andsustainable space environment. SpaceX includes sustainability as a critical design element for its satellite
operations, ensuring that no debris remains in space longer than five years, should a satellite become
non-maneuverable. SpaceX adheres to, and significantly exceeds, any applicable requirements orindustry best practices, and operates with full transparency, even going beyond what is required by U.S.
regulations. As we've detailed in a previous update, numerous filings with the Federal Communications
Commission ("FCC"), and an "Industry Best Practices" guide, SpaceX’s space safety approach includes
many elements that greatly enhance sustainability.
These include:•Design and build reliability. SpaceX satellites are designed and built with high reliability,
around 99% after the deployment of nearly 4,000 satellites.

•Operations below 600 km. SpaceX has chosen to operate the vast majority of our satellites at analtitude below 600 km. At these altitudes, objects will decay and reenter due to atmospheric dragwithin a short period of time in rare off-nominal scenarios, eliminating the risk of persistent orbital
debris.

•Deployment into low-insertion orbit below space stations. At these low altitudes (below 400 km),any SpaceX satellites that do not pass initial system checkouts are quickly deorbited actively, or byatmospheric drag.

•Radical transparency and data sharing with the U.S. government and other satellite
owners/operators to ensure full space situational awareness. SpaceX openly shares high-fidelity
future position and velocity prediction data for all SpaceX spacecraft, along with uncertainties on
those predictions. In addition, SpaceX is the only operator that provides routine system “healthreports” to the FCC.

•Advanced collision avoidance systems protect SpaceX and other satellites. SpaceX satellites utilize
an autonomous collision avoidance system that ensures spacecraft have the most up to date
information to mitigate close approaches with tracked objects (including debris and activesatellites). SpaceX’s autonomous collision avoidance system has been scrutinized by NASA’sConjunction Assessment and Risk Analysis (CARA) program, which deemed it sufficiently
trustworthy to rely on to avoid collisions with NASA spacecraft.

•Post-mission disposal. SpaceX satellites are propulsively deorbited within weeks of spacecraft endof mission. This vastly exceeds the international standard of 25 years.

•Starlink spacecraft are 100% demisable. At end of life, SpaceX satellites are designed to fully
demise upon atmospheric reentry, eliminating the risk of falling debris.

•Best Practices. SpaceX’s approach to space safety relies on extreme transparency in operations,and SpaceX has collaborated with other operators and experts in developing “Industry BestPractices” based on operational lessons learned. SpaceX encourages all operators to implement
these best practices to keep space safe and sustainable.

Brightness Mitigations
SpaceX has also prioritized collaboration with astronomers and scientists to mitigate the impact ofStarlink satellite streaks on their observations. For our Gen1 network, SpaceX proactively requested twolicense modifications from the FCC to reflect two different deployment phases to lower the operating
altitude of the satellites. These modifications were a crucial mitigation for astronomers and one
endorsed by the American Astronomical Society to reduce impacts on astronomy, as well as improve
space safety with respect to orbital debris mitigation. More recently, the National Science Foundationand SpaceX announced an updated coordination agreement to protect astronomy and continue
collaboration on mitigation practices.
As we've detailed in an earlier update, SpaceX has proactively collaborated with astronomers and theU.S. government by dedicating engineers and resources to design and deploy mitigations and run
experiments to test their efficacy. Initially, for example, SpaceX experimented with a dark paint toabsorb sunlight. But when in-space experiments showed this mitigation was less effective than desired,SpaceX pivoted to development of a visor—VisorSat—to block sunlight from hitting the satellite andreflecting back to the Earth. SpaceX also implemented flight configuration changes to minimize thesurface area of the spacecraft from which a reflection could result—both highly effective mitigations.
SpaceX also started using dielectric mirror film on many surfaces of the satellite, which reflects lightaway from the ground and leads to less reflectivity.
Since the first use of mirrors on our satellites, we’ve made significant improvements in mirror film
technology and its application. We’ve also developed an industry leading space-qualified black paint forangled surfaces or those not conducive to mirror adhesion. SpaceX continues development withadditional technologies, including a combination of dielectric mirror film (developed and made bySpaceX), which reflects sunlight away from the Earth, and the SpaceX-developed, low-reflectivity black
paint, which reduces lower specular peak by a factor of five compared to the darkest available spacestable paint. These improvements are implemented on our V2 satellites. With several years ofexperience and the ability to design, test, and field mitigation strategies, mitigations were able to be“baked into” the design of the V2 satellites from the start. Additionally, we’ve designed our solar arrays
to allow off-pointing to reduce reflections as a satellite approaches the terminator. So, while our V2 Mini
satellites are larger than earlier versions, we’re still expecting them to be as dark or darker once the fullrange of mitigations are implemented and the satellites reach their operational orbit.
However, we want to emphasize that even though brightness component measurements, groundmodeling, and analysis show effective brightness mitigations, we won’t know the full efficacy of ourefforts until on-orbit observations are made of the satellites and data is collected and analyzed. What
we learn from early observations will help us improve and refine mitigations. These V2 Mini satellites
may be somewhat bright initially, especially during orbit raising and initial operations, but as our trackrecord demonstrates, SpaceX will work tirelessly to refine design/manufacturing/materials andoperational mitigations and continue to work with astronomers toward reducing the brightness of oursatellites. Critically, we will also share our insights with other operators to protect the shared spacedomain. To that end, SpaceX will continue to make the dielectric mirror film and dark paint we’vedeveloped available at cost to other satellite developers and owner/operators.