Starlink will begin a reconfiguration of its satellite constellation ⁠by lowering all of its satellites orbiting at around 342 miles to about 298 miles over the course of 2026, Michael Nicolls, SpaceX's vice president of Starlink engineering, said Thursday.

The company is looking to increase space safety by ‍lowering the satellites' orbit.

This comes after Starlink said in December that one of its satellites experienced ⁠an anomaly in space, creating a "small" amount of debris and cutting off communications with the spacecraft at 260 miles in ​altitude, a rare kinetic accident in orbit for the satellite internet giant.

The company had said the satellite, one of nearly 10,000 in space for its broadband internet network, quickly fell 2 1/2 miles in altitude, suggesting some kind of explosion occurred on board.

"Lowering the satellites results in condensing Starlink orbits, and will increase space safety in several ways," Nicolls said in a post on X, adding "the number of debris ​objects and planned satellite constellations is significantly lower below 500 km [around 310 miles], reducing the aggregate likelihood of collision."

The number of spacecraft in Earth's orbit has jumped sharply in recent years as companies and countries race to deploy tens of thousands of satellites for internet constellations and other space-based services such as ⁠communications and ​Earth imagery.

SpaceX, long known for its rocket launch business, has become the world's largest satellite operator through Starlink, a network of nearly 10,000 satellites beaming broadband internet to consumers, governments and enterprise customers.