Swiss Town Approves Spacex Antenna Project

The rejected citizens' committee has announced its intention to appeal to the Council of State, according to Swiss public broadcaster RTS.

“Our association and 25 other interested parties received a letter from the local council on 28 November stating that the objections had been rejected”, explained co-presidents Hanna Schnyder-Etienne and Roman Kuonen in a press release issued on Monday.

+ Swiss village divided by SpaceX anntennae plan

With the building permit now in force, the citizens' collective, which takes a dim view of the project's materialisation, has already announced that it will appeal to the Council of State.“The appeal is being prepared”, it adds.

Opponents are raising concerns about the environment (electricity consumption, light pollution), health (electromagnetic radiation) and data sovereignty (control by a private company).

Launched several years ago, Starlink is a network of low-earth orbit satellites that provide an Internet connection in remote areas or areas with no communications infrastructure.

SpaceX claims to have more than 6,750 satellites in orbit and more than five million subscribers. The company is now looking to set up in canton Valais, in Leukerbad to be precise.

These 40 LEO (Low Earth Orbit) dome antennae, around 2.5 metres high, will form part of a future ground station for the Starlink satellite network developed by SpaceX. This would be one of the largest enclosures of its kind in Europe.

Elon Musk's company applied for a radio licence from the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) at the beginning of the summer.

“On 9 October last, OFCOM granted Starlink a radiocommunications test licence authorising it to use the frequency spectrum for test and development purposes”, the Office stated in response to a request from Keystone-ATS.“The purpose of this licence is to test under real conditions new radiocommunications equipment, technologies or systems for which international standardisation work has not yet been completed.”

“A regular licence can only be granted once the legal bases for frequencies for gateway connections to satellite constellations have been defined in Switzerland and Europe. This is not yet the case for the Leukerbad installation”, concludes OFCOM.

This content was published on Jun 12, 2025 Elon Musk's company SpaceX wants to set up 40 antennas in Leuk in the Swiss canton of Valais.