The European Space Agency (ESA) says one of its satellites was forced to avoid a satellite from SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, raising concerns about the impact of Starlink on low Earth orbit operations, after SpaceX refused to move their satellite out of the way.
, Monday, September 2, ESA’s Aeolus Earth observation satellite had to use its thrusters to move itself out of a potential collision with a Starlink space internet satellite dubbed “Starlink 44”. The incident took place 320 kilometers above Earth as the two orbital paths of the two vehicles intercepted each other. Aeolus returned to its operational orbit after the maneuver.
As to why SpaceX refused to move their satellite, that is not entirely clear . Krag suspected it could be something to do with SpaceX’s electric propulsion system, which “maybe is not reacting so fast” as the chemical propulsion on board Aeolus. “There are no rules in space,” he says. “Nobody did anything wrong. Space is there for everybody to use. There’s no rule that somebody was first here. Basically on every orbit you can encounter other objects. Space is not organized. And so we believe we need technology to manage this traffic.”automated collision avoidance systems
“We see it as part of our changing environment,” says Stijn Lemmens, a space debris analyst at ESA. “We want to raise awareness in this sense, that there’s quite a bit of work that needs to be done on how to make sure that these type of operations will run smoothly in the future.” SpaceX alone plans to launch a total of 12,000 Starlink satellites into orbit in the coming years, with considerable concerns about how busy Earth orbit will become. “As the number of satellites in orbit increases, due to mega constellations such as Starlink comprising hundreds or even thousands of satellites, today's 'manual' collision avoidance process will become impossible...
SpaceX has so far remained tight-lipped on how it will handle the growing concerns around its Starlink constellation, including collision avoidance maneuvers and. As for this most recent incident, Krag and his team just hope that SpaceX will be more responsive in the future, so that situations can be avoided when more Starlink satellites are launched, and more stringent rules are put in place.
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