141–150 of 229 posts
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> There's no need for regulation until bad actors show up. What a ridiculous statement. I suppose you'd also suggest no need for traffic laws until there's a 50 car pileup?
Historically, that is exactly how we arrived at traffic laws.
Don’t we know what needs doing? Why do we have to reinvent the wheel?
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Domain squatting is on unused domains while this was an active public weather satellite already on an established orbit. Not at all comparable.
I don't follow - domain squatting takes a domain and makes it unusable for others, orbit squatting would take an unused orbit and make it unusable for others. The fundamental question is whether you have the right to the exclusive use of an orbital path just because you were there first. This is unresolved but I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Assigning value (public/private, research/commercial, etc.) to each partie…
Assigning value is also necessary. We reserve spectrum for public safety and eventually may need to reserve orbital paths in the same way. Seems like we are pretty far from filling up the sky even with current avoidance tech though.
>ESA noted that it performed 28 collision avoidance maneuvers in 2018, but it was mostly to avoid dead satellites or bits of space debris. Maneuvers to avoid active satellites were “very rare”, they said, but the arrival of mega constellations like Starlink raises concerns that many more such maneuvers will be needed in future. >“What I want is an organized way of doing space traffic. It must be clear when you have s…
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…
From what I've read so far, it seems that ESA was uncomfortable with the possibility of a collision to a degree that SpaceX could possibly be quite comfortable with - ESA wants > 1km distance, whereas SpaceX might be comfortable with much closer - they are quite different constellations.
Who has the right to dictate who has priority / which criteria is the right one?
I'm going to assume that the cost of ESA's satellite is much greater than SpaceX's StarLink module so obviously they have much more of an interest in preserving full functionality - BUT avoiding collisions is in everybody's best interests. Who is going to use their fuel? Who has right of way, and to what terms?
NORAD 44278 is a Starlink satellite presently being de-orbited by SpaceX in a controlled fashion to simulate end-of-life disposal. [1] The current altitude (~330km) [2] puts it well below the operation envelope and it’s currently the lowest sat of the Starlink constellation at this point. It appears SpaceX does continue to have some level of control of the craft. [3] Some speculation I’ve read is that the much higher…
This was not about “SpaceX refused to move” but “we need money to build this automated system so we don’t have to do it all by hand,” and an additional level which is, how should the various satellite operators make their orbital parameters available to interested parties?
The situation is that ESA didn’t even know what kind of object the track represented, and they had to contact SpaceX to ask about it in the first place. Their job would have been easier (whether manual or automated) if SpaceX made the orbital parameters available for automated queries.
The last thing this is about is SpaceX being “arrogant” or “refusing to move a satellite.”
>ESA noted that it performed 28 collision avoidance maneuvers in 2018, but it was mostly to avoid dead satellites or bits of space debris. Maneuvers to avoid active satellites were “very rare”, they said, but the arrival of mega constellations like Starlink raises concerns that many more such maneuvers will be needed in future. >“What I want is an organized way of doing space traffic. It must be clear when you have s…
Can you describe what action SpaceX should have taken to prevent their inert space debris from potentially colliding with someone else’s active satellite?
If they didn’t have control over it they could have easily stated as such to ESA and avoided any bad PR at all, or even just in response to this story.
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
The ESA asked SpaceX to move to avoid a collision, and they refused. What would happen if a private airline refused the FAA telling them to redirect to avoid a collision, forcing another aircraft to take evasive action? It definitely is political, and it's going to become a bigger problem if SpaceX's approach to potential collisions is just to play chicken.
That it was SpaceX that ESA got to throw under the bus was the cherry on the cake.
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> ESA noted that it performed 28 collision avoidance maneuvers in 2018, but it was mostly to avoid dead satellites or bits of space debris. The reason why it's a big deal is that SpaceX is planning on putting up a LOT more.
The reason why it's a big deal is that SpaceX is planning on putting up a LOT more On one side is a multimillion-dollar weather satellite, on the other side 1536 throwaway satellites, 5 % of which failed during commissioning (the track record of the initial batch gives you an idea what to expect for the future). It's easy to see who will move their asset out of the way and also easy to see who has no business being u…
>ESA noted that it performed 28 collision avoidance maneuvers in 2018, but it was mostly to avoid dead satellites or bits of space debris. Maneuvers to avoid active satellites were “very rare”, they said, but the arrival of mega constellations like Starlink raises concerns that many more such maneuvers will be needed in future. >“What I want is an organized way of doing space traffic. It must be clear when you have s…
One is a throwaway satellite of a huge constellation - the other a unique billion euro research satellite. Easy to see who will give in first to protect their assets, but plainly it is equally easy to see who should move first.
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> In 2018, ESA performed 28 #collisionavoidance manoeuvres across its fleet.
... typically of dead satellites or debris that is unable to move itself. ESA had a weather satellite in orbit, SpaceX actively moved an active satellite _into_ the same orbit as ESA's satellite (to practice maneuvers) and then said "no, we won't move it back out the way".
All deorbiting objects (“satellites” or debris, whatever you want to call them) are going to pass through the orbit of the ESA satellite which is intentionally in a very low orbit.
It is the ESA that actively moved into that orbit by design, intention and active navigation. SpaceX intended their satellite to lift to a higher orbit but it couldn’t make it, so it is being deorbited by atmospheric drag.
All orbits at the same altitude will cross at least twice. This is not a deliberate act of interception but just part of the way orbits work.