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Don't they need to get approval in each country they operate?

• bpodgursky 6y ago
  For now, but only because SpaceX is playing nice. If SpaceX decides to transmit to rural Syria against the wishes of the Assad regime, and the people on the ground find a receiver, who's going to stop them*? (other than the US, if it so chooses)
• howlgarnish 6y ago
  Interestingly enough, the extent of a country's sovereignty in (air)space is legally quite unclear. It's pretty well established that countries can regulate planes and such flying at an altitude of ~10 km, and the Outer Space Treaty bans claims on celestrial bodies, but everything in between (including Starlink's satellites in LEO, some 2,000 km from the Earth's surface) is in a grey zone. Legal issues aside, they're also quite literally beyond the reach of all but a small handful of spacefaring nations, and even a nation like China that has the technical capability would not resort to actively shooting them down unless other avenues were exhausted.