The FCC approved Logos Space Services' application for a 3,960-satellite low Earth orbit constellation on February 5, marking another step in the U.S. push to diversify beyond Starlink's dominance.
The approval, granted under Chairman Brendan Carr's streamlined licensing regime, allows the startup to deploy Ka/Q/V/E-band satellites at 860-925km altitude. Logos must launch 1,980 satellites (half the constellation) within seven years to maintain its license. The company plans 1,092 satellites by 2027, scaling to the full constellation by 2035.
What this means in practice: Logos targets enterprise and government customers, not residential broadband. The company was founded in 2023 by Milo Medin, formerly of NASA and Google, and raised a reported $50M Series A in 2025. Its focus on higher-frequency bands and business customers differentiates it from Starlink's consumer-heavy model.
The competitive landscape is crowded but concentrated. Starlink operates roughly 9,600 satellites of the 14,000+ total LEO satellites in orbit. Amazon's Project Kuiper faces launch delays due to rocket shortages. The Progressive Policy Institute urged the FCC on February 2 to grant Kuiper a deployment extension, warning that failure would cement Starlink's monopoly position.
Notably, SpaceX recently filed with the FCC for approval to launch up to 1 million solar-powered satellites for orbital data centers and AI workloads. That's almost certainly a maximum request scenario, but it illustrates the scale ambitions in this sector.
The European Space Agency projects 100,000 satellites in orbit by 2030. The real constraint isn't regulatory approval but launch capacity, funding, and whether enterprise demand materializes at the scale needed to justify these constellations.
Logos filed its FCC application on October 30, 2024. The approval came 98 days later, reflecting the agency's intent to accelerate U.S. LEO competition. Whether the company can execute on its seven-year deployment timeline while securing enterprise contracts remains the test.