SpaceX satellites forced to deviate every 10 minutes

Space is unimaginably vast, so you’d think there would be more than enough room for whatever you want to put into orbit. SpaceX and Starlink engineers would probably tell you that it’s not that simple. A FCC report released by the Elon Musk-led satellite internet provider on June 30 indicated that the more than 4,000 Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit completed more than 25,000 collision avoidance maneuvers in the period from December 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022. May 2023. Gizmodo explains what triggers such a move, with SpaceX having explained that it would move its Starlink satellites if the chance of hitting space debris or another satellite exceeded 1 in 100,000.

As space.com reports, the figures contained in the FCC report turn out to be an average of 137 course adjustments per day, or one every 10 minutes. And the problem is not going to get better with time. Astronautics professor Hugh Lewis says we’re seeing exponential growth in these manoeuvres. “Every six months, the number of maneuvers that are being carried out doubles”, and “if you project that, you will have 50,000 in the next semester, then 100,000 in the next, then 200,000, and so on. ”

This means that Starlink satellites will need to become increasingly agile, with Lewis projecting that within five years, “Starlink satellites will need to maneuver nearly a million times in half a year to minimize the risk of orbital collisions.” Add to that SpaceX’s goal of ultimately launching a total of 42,000 satellites, according to Gizmodo, and suddenly near-Earth orbit is a very crowded place. (Starlink Internet satellites they are not the only ones challenged by this overcrowding.)