The numbers arriving from Vandenberg Space Force Base have a certain rhythm, a relentless cadence that can dull the senses if you let it. On September 28, at 10:04 p.m. Eastern, another Falcon 9 ascended, carrying 28 Starlink satellites. It was SpaceX’s 16th launch for the month, tying a company record. It was the 124th Falcon 9 mission of 2025. The first stage booster, B1063, landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You, completing its 28th flight.
These are just data points. A casual observer sees a successful launch. An enthusiast sees a new record. But an analyst sees the accumulation of overwhelming force. This pace of deployment is no longer just an impressive logistical feat; it is an active geopolitical lever, exerting a gravitational pull on the strategic decisions of entire nations.
The case study for this thesis is currently unfolding in Italy. The Italian government is caught in a classic strategic dilemma: invest in a sovereign capability, a national low-Earth orbit constellation dubbed "MERCURIO," or lease a ready-made solution from an American corporation. The backdrop to this decision is the European Union’s own planned constellation, IRIS², a project still largely in the realm of contractual agreements and industrial PowerPoints. While Rome deliberates, SpaceX is scheduled to launch another 56 `starlink satellites` in the first four days of October alone.
The language coming from officials is telling. An anonymous source close to Italy's Interministerial Committee for Space and Aerospace Policy (COMINT) recently tried to frame the situation with careful neutrality. Acknowledging Starlink's operational maturity, the source insisted, is a "factual observation and does not amount... to a political preference." Starlink is being positioned as a potential "interim solution" while Italy maintains its commitment to European programs.
This is the sort of precise, face-saving language used when a decision is being made for you by external circumstances. The "factual observation" is that SpaceX has launched nearly 10,000 satellites—to be more exact, 9,868 as of this week. Over 7,500 of them are in their final operational orbits, providing `starlink internet` service to millions. The Federal Communications Commission just approved a power increase for its newer user terminals, a move designed to improve `starlink speed` and reliability for a massive, existing customer base. These are facts on the ground, or rather, facts in orbit. They are not aspirations.
A Monopoly Forged by Launch Velocity
The Gravity of an Operational Reality
The discrepancy between the existing `starlink service` and its ostensible competitors is not a matter of small degrees. It’s a categorical difference. A 2024 report from Italy’s own COMINT acknowledged this, noting Starlink’s “clear superiority over IRIS², not yet available and less ambitious.” This isn’t a new revelation; the pressure has been mounting. In January 2025, reports surfaced of the Italian government being in talks with SpaceX for a potential `starlink price` tag of $1.6 billion for services. The government acknowledged the talks, though it denied a contract had been signed.
Contrast this with the competition. Amazon's Project Kuiper, the most credible rival, plans for a constellation of 3,236 satellites, with initial service planned for just five countries by early 2026. It is a serious endeavor, but it is not yet an operational reality. IRIS², the European hope, remains a consortium of commitments. Thales Alenia Space, a key partner, recently took to LinkedIn to reaffirm its "full commitment" to the project—a public relations gesture that reads more like a response to ambient anxiety than a declaration of imminent capability.
Ludwig Möller, the director of the European Space Policy Institute, summarized the situation with clinical accuracy. For countries with urgent connectivity needs, he stated, "de facto, there is nothing comparable to Starlink."
I've looked at hundreds of these kinds of industrial and governmental proposals, and the pattern is almost always the same: a set of ambitious goals, a complex web of stakeholders, and a timeline that invariably drifts to the right. What's unusual here is not that a multinational government project like IRIS² is facing delays or seems less ambitious in scope. That is standard. What is the outlier is the relentless, almost monotonous execution of a private entity that is rendering those government timelines obsolete before they are even finalized. The debate is framed as "build versus buy," but this framing is flawed. It presumes both options are equally tangible.
The core of the issue is that SpaceX’s launch cadence has compressed the decision-making cycle for its customers and competitors to an unsustainable degree. A government committee can spend a year debating the technical specifications and industrial policy of a national satellite system. In that same year, SpaceX will have launched over 1,500 satellites (based on their 2025 run-rate), signed new agreements with major airlines like United and Air France, and likely iterated on their hardware. They are not just out-competing; they are out-pacing the very process of governance and procurement.
The term "interim solution" is a hedge. It allows policymakers to procure a necessary service now without formally abandoning long-term strategic goals of technological sovereignty. But one must question the definition of "interim." When a service becomes deeply embedded in a nation's infrastructure, from `starlink residential` users in remote areas to critical government communications, at what point does the temporary become permanent? The network effect is a powerful force. The more users, the more ground stations, the more regulatory approvals a system has, the higher the barrier to entry becomes for any competitor. SpaceX isn't just building a satellite constellation; it's building an economic and logistical moat, one launch at a time. The choice Italy faces today will be the choice other nations and consortiums face tomorrow, only the numbers in SpaceX’s column will be even larger, the decision even more constrained.
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The Velocity of a Verdict
The ongoing discussion within the Italian government isn't truly about choosing between Starlink and a hypothetical European alternative. That is the political narrative. The analytical reality is that this is a negotiation over the terms of surrender to an established fact. The sheer velocity of SpaceX's deployment has created a new form of leverage. It has established a fact on the ground—7,547 operational satellites—that has rendered the strategic debate about a not-yet-real competitor almost entirely academic. The choice was effectively made, not in a committee room in Rome, but on a launchpad in California, 28 satellites at a time.
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