SpaceX executive urges satellite operators to share orbital data
SpaceX's Michael Nicolls told the International Astronautical Congress that all operators must share satellite trajectory data.
Michael Nicolls, SpaceX's vice president for Starlink, has called for better data-sharing among satellite operators. He spoke in a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Turkey, following near-misses involving Starlink satellites. His message was that space has room for more megaconstellations only if all operators share where their satellites are and where they are going.
Starlink now has more than 11,000 satellites, about two-thirds of all active spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. Radars and telescopes routinely track thousands more pieces of space junk. SpaceX has revealed plans to launch up to a million satellites for a new constellation called Starmind. Amazon is in the early stages of launching a network of thousands of satellites, and two Chinese megaconstellations are in full-scale deployment.
A collision in orbit could create thousands more pieces of space junk and potentially set off a self-perpetuating cycle of debris generation. The risk on any given day is very low, and SpaceX and most other Western operators de-orbit their rockets and satellites at the end of their missions. "The law of large numbers says that if it can happen, it will happen," Nicolls said.
Sourcearstechnica.com