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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

#61

Post by semi-extrinsic »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #34
cameronbrown wrote: post #25

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.

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…

Why are they deorbiting? Didn't they just launch these?

Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite

#62

Post by dahdum »

mabbo wrote: post #33

The 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

SpaceX is planning to put 12,000 more satellites up, so their refusal to move to avoid a possible collision they caused is notable.

They've also refused to comment, and Musk's reputation doesn't engender faith in their reasons.

Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite

#63

Post by SiempreViernes »

debatem1 wrote: post #56
SiempreViernes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so by which physical method do they have better telemetry?

Definitely GPS, probably star trackers too. Not a good idea to have a single point of failure on position knowledge when your whole scheme depends on putting small beams in the right places.

They do seem to have star trackers, but rely on NORAD for other satellites

Details towards the end: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/24/spacex-reveals-more-starli...

Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite

#64

Post by cdubzzz »

Retric wrote: post #44
sgift wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The "informed" bit really is telling here. It seems to imply that the author knows ESA didn't "ask" for anything from SpaceX. That or the author doesn't actually know what the communication was.

Either way this is sensationalist and worth a flag.

Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite

#65

Post by owl57 »

mLuby wrote: post #46
londons_explore wrote: post #31

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.

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.

> these aren't military assets

Do we know that for sure?

Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite

#66

Post by AndrewBissell »

aperrien wrote: post #54
saagarjha wrote: post #20

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.

> and declined for reasons the author is unaware of. This is such an incomplete report, it reminds me of the old adage "A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can put it's pants on." A proper, less sensational reporter would have waited until they knew why they declined to move the satellite before writing the piece.

Yeah, then all SpaceX has to do is run their usual "we have no comment" playbook and the reporter is left with nowhere to go. Convenient for SpaceX I guess!

Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite

#67

Post by avocado4 »

areoform wrote: post #32

Being 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…

> Either way, it exposes a flaw in SpaceX’s design

What is this statement based on? You are saying yourself that there's no information available to the public about this due to lack of transparency, yet in the next sentence you are making a bold statement about design flaws.

To me it sounds like there should be clear regulation about right of way in space. I haven't seen any information pertaining to SpaceX design so far.

Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite

#68

Post by BurningFrog »

sgift wrote: post #28
saagarjha wrote: post #20

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.

> 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.

Not if they declined because (1) it was impossible for them to do it or (2) they explained it wasn't needed.

Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite

#69

Post by Paul-ish »

konschubert wrote: post #9

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?

Reading the Wikipedia page for a 2009 satelite collision[1]:

> Calculations made by CelesTrak had expected these two satellites to miss by 584 meters (1,916 ft)

Perhaps the calculations aren't straightforward Newtonian mechanics?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision

Re: SpaceX Refused to Move Satellite at Risk of Collision with a European Satellite

#70

Post by duskwuff »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #61
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why are they deorbiting? Didn't they just launch these?

To test their ability to perform a controlled deorbit.
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