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I bet spacex themselves know the location of their satellites to within a few meters. With more accurate data, you can come up with a far more accurate collision risk estimate.
Current regulations are largely successful at promoting commercial space flight, but there is a big transparency gap between civilian space flight agencies and private entities. Transparency should be one of the cornerstones of space regulations, but it isn’t. This incident raises multiple policy questions. Why can’t SpaceX move their satellite? Is it a no because an ion drive takes days to burn or is it a no because they don’t wanna? Either way, it exposes a flaw in SpaceX’s design and raises concerns about StarLink. When there are hundreds of StarLink satellites in the air, will SpaceX say no again if there’s a chance for collision? Will SpaceX be a responsible steward of Near-Earth space? If ion drives are insufficient to address this problem, should they be required to take a small amount of monopropellant as a precaution?
Transparency is essential for answering these questions and asking new ones. The one I’m most concerned about is the question, what are the pollution risks of LEO constellations? Ideally, before StarLink and other networks are up and running, I feel there should be a study of the pollution risk StarLink poses be it light pollution or debris. We shouldn’t repeat the failings of the 20th century in space.
https://twitter.com/IridiumBoss/status/1168582141128650753
> Hmmm. We move our satellites on average once a week and don't put out a press release to say who we maneuvered around... -Matt Desch, CEO of Iridium
Why would they refuse to move the satellite? It's not like only the European satellite would be affected by a collision, both are in danger, so either they couldn't or they didn't think it was likely.
I don't know which Starlink sat this was, but the the other satellite that did dodge seems to be flying at ~300km. This is much lower than what the functional Starlink constellation is. Some of the initial launch failed to unfold their solar panels, and the batteries would have ran down by now, so they are rapidly decaying space trash.
Others are being deorbited under power but SpaceX would have no reason not to do dodge with those.
Everytime I see these kind of events I think about Kurzgesagt video [1] about how the domino effect of satellite collisions would release such a high amount space debris that would trap us all on earth forever. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU
The US military tracking isn't very accurate. Errors of hundreds of meters are common. I bet spacex themselves know the location of their satellites to within a few meters. With more accurate data, you can come up with a far more accurate collision risk estimate.
>“What I want is an organized way of doing space traffic. It must be clear when you have such a situation who has to react. And of course automating the system. It cannot be when we have 10,000 satellites in space that there are operators writing the email what to do. This is not how I imagine modern spaceflight.”
SpaceX simply saying it would "not act" is negligent, and I really hope there was more to it that the author just wasn't privy to. If they had better sensors and knew there'd be no collision, say so. If they couldn't maneuver, say so. Otherwise it's just a game of space chicken, risking not only those two sats but all of LEO.
I wonder if AI is really the right tool to automate the process. Couldn’t it be done more robustly with a simple algorithm that takes todays collision probability models as input?
How much thrust? How high should it go? And on what information? Data sources will become more complex, risks need to be weighed. I'm not sure 'AI' is the right answer as most (all?) of AI is probably today just ML or more often simple BS - but certainly what ESA & co need won't be a simple one-variable algorithm. I'm actually wondering if there's not a need to communicate more between all the bodies having satellite…
I think that's a phenomenon much older than autonomous car theory.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hallway%20da...
Of course, inside the article it’s explained that SpaceX didn’t “refuse” to move the satellite, they were politely asked to do so and declined for reasons the author is unaware of. Possibly because they couldn’t move the satellite or had a higher collision tolerance.
> the satellites, each weighing 227 kilograms, are “capable of tracking on-orbit debris and autonomously avoiding collision.” But for this incident, this system does not seem to have been used for some reason
"does not seem to have been used" - if SpaceX made no statement we can't really tell? Maybe they were confident that their collision avoidance would simply work.
Of course, inside the article it’s explained that SpaceX didn’t “refuse” to move the satellite, they were politely asked to do so and declined for reasons the author is unaware of. Possibly because they couldn’t move the satellite or had a higher collision tolerance.
> SpaceX didn’t “refuse” to move the satellite > they ... declined for reasons "Declined" and "refused" are synonyms. SpaceX did refuse to move the satellite.
> 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.
Not acting because you don’t have choice doesn’t count as refusing.