I presume there are liability rules if your satellite hits another one. What about if your satellite makes another one waste fuel on a diversion?
Would ESA satellite hit Space X or the other way around? How do they determine it?
SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
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Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
#42Why 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.
The likely answer is that the satellite in question was out of control and they couldn't move it. 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 decayi…
The article clearly states that the SpaceX satellite was at this position because they were deorbiting it under power.
Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
#43The ESA is sure making a huge deal out of this. I wonder if politics is involved. 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
> In 2018, ESA performed 28 #collisionavoidance manoeuvres across its fleet.
Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
#44Of 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.
> they were politely asked to do so and declined for reasons the author is unaware of. So, they refused. That's what that word means.
Now it’s true the article used refused, but it does not actually back that up. ESA does not have the authority to tell satellite operateors to do something.
“we informed SpaceX” They where informed of a 1/1,000 risk and declined to take action. Refused implies someone was telling them to do something rather than notifying them of the situation.
Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
#45Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
#46The 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.
That's fine, but then share that data and there'd be no need to waste delta-v for either satellite.
Also these aren't military assets, their specs and locations aren't secret, so if they have better tracking, they should be sharing that.
Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
#47Being a lover of Space and SpaceX, this incident highlights why a goldilocks paradigm for regulation needs to exist for space. Not too much that it stifles innovation. Not too little that someone ends up Kesslerizing Near-Earth space. 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. Transpa…
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Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
#48How is it the case that StarLink didn't realize they were launching into orbits that would intersect with others? I find it foreboding that the number of intersections with space debris and live constellations is to the point where ESA is moving towards non-deterministic algorithms to hopefully avoid the worst. How will Musk ever leave this planet if we make a shell of debris around ourselves? See also: the anime "pl…
They don't plan like that at all. Since all these orbital parameters change over time due to atmospheric drag, solar pressure, gravity irregularities, etc, organizations like NORAD constantly monitor and determine the orbital parameters of every object they can find circling the Earth. So, they watch for when the likelihood that one satellite will come within some small distance (say, 5km) of another is high. For exa…
I think the issue is that people have some vague affinity for the way space travel was depicted in old science fiction, where you could blast off and manually control everything with possibly the assistance of a slide rule.
And it's slightly discomfiting to realize that just traffic control is so complex that it needs modern computers to track and react. Space is supposed to be vast and empty! And it is, but not in LEO.
Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
#49The ESA is sure making a huge deal out of this. I wonder if politics is involved. 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
> "It is very rare to perform collision avoidance manoeuvres with active satellites. The vast majority of ESA avoidance manoeuvres are the result of dead satellites or fragments from previous collisions."
Basically they think SpaceX is driving recklessly, which is why they put out the press release; they don't do it when they dodge dead satellites.
Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite
#50From the twitter thread: It is very rare to perform collision avoidance manoeuvres with active satellites. The vast majority of ESA avoidance manoeuvres are the result of dead satellites or fragments from previous collisions. [ ... ] 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 p…
This is unreadable on mobile due to the use of code formatting. https://i.imgur.com/562ORgL.png EDIT: Said comment is now one full screen tall due to manual insertion of linewraps, and is very wasteful of space on desktop and landscape layouts: https://i.imgur.com/H15eCXo.png
There was a post on HN yesterday thanking the operators for never updating the site. While I mostly agree with that sentiment, this code formatting BS is an outlier and very much needs to be addressed. Either take the feature away altogether, or just make it work well on mobile. But this middle ground where HN visitors inadvertently ruin their contributions for mobile users is bad.