SpaceX has won US approval for a brand-new Starlink Mobile constellation of up to 15,000 satellites that talk straight to ordinary phones. The Federal Communications Commission granted the licence on Tuesday 6 October, US time, in an order signed by the heads of its Space Bureau and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. It's the next generation of Starlink Mobile, and it'll fly lower and carry far more traffic than the roughly 650 satellites doing the job now.

Photo: U.S. Space Force/Olga Houtsma / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)