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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

#211

Post by yreg »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #205
yreg wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also continues >Normal part of flying satellites (or should be). Does BA announce every time one of its airplanes steers around a Ryanair aircraft?

airplanes will refuel when they land, satellites have limited propellant, so it really is a game of chicken or dare!

I don't understand the matter first hand, but I believe this comment I read on reddit today:

  The % of fuel used in this type of maneuver is negligible.
  
  A sat in LEO like this uses fuel to:
  
  - correct their orbit from the initial release from the rocket
  - maintain orbit
  - deorbit
  - avoidance
  
  The breakdown is something like: 66%, 33.5%, 0.45%, 0.05%
  
  The ESA sat in this case boosted their sat...
  which they planned on doing anyways. So it probably
  cost close to nothing. It maybe reduced the lifespan
  of the sat by 0.001%
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/cypvjv/this_morning...

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

#212

Post by DoctorOetker »

yreg wrote: post #211
DoctorOetker wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

airplanes will refuel when they land, satellites have limited propellant, so it really is a game of chicken or dare!

I don't understand the matter first hand, but I believe this comment I read on reddit today: The % of fuel used in this type of maneuver is negligible. A sat in LEO like this uses fuel to: - correct their orbit from the initial release from the rocket - maintain orbit - deorbit - avoidance The breakdown is something like: 66%, 33.5%, 0.45%, 0.05% The ESA sat in this case boosted their sat... which they planned on doi…

it's a matter of precedent, it's much harder to change rules and agreements when multiple stakeholders have planned on an assumed state of laissez faire, compared to learning from the first "conflicts".

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

#213

Post by mlindner »

This is a false article. There is no evidence SpaceX refused to move and ESA calling out the fact that they moved for a SpaceX satellite is ESA playing politics. LEO is full of space debris and satellite owners move satellites for space junk all the time. This is called political grandstanding.

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

#214

Post by mlindner »

rocqua wrote: post #30

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?

By international space law full liability is held by the country of launch/license. The US Government would owe the ESA a full paycheck if it was to be damaged. So this is already well covered in international law.

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

#215

Post by mlindner »

dahdum wrote: post #75
avocado4 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 s…

> To me it sounds like there should be clear regulation about right of way in space Common courtesy worldwide would be for the person causing the risk to move aside first. Worse still it was a private company working on a for-profit product forcing a public weather satellite to divert. There's no need for regulation until bad actors show up.

Satellites don't "move" into each other's way. Orbits naturally end up that way. There's no one "causing the risk" in the first place. SpaceX could have just as easily asked the ESA to move their satellite as it was getting in the way of their satellite.

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

#216

Post by mlindner »

optimiz3 wrote: post #83
dahdum wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me it sounds like there should be clear regulation about right of way in space Common courtesy worldwide would be for the person causing the risk to move aside first. Worse still it was a private company working on a for-profit product forcing a public weather satellite to divert. There's no need for regulation until bad actors show up.

Are we then saying there's an equivalent of domain squatting in space? Cause I could see all types of problems showing up if we call that common courtesy.

No, because satellite orbits aren't owned or held by anyone. Not to mention all low orbits have decent amount of junk that's in the process of deorbiting.

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

#217

Post by mlindner »

jurjenh wrote: post #144
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…

I'm not entirely convinced this is the argument. 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…

ESA collision passing distance was over 4km. So there was plenty of room between the satellites.

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

#218

Post by utopian3 »

mlindner wrote: post #215
dahdum wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me it sounds like there should be clear regulation about right of way in space Common courtesy worldwide would be for the person causing the risk to move aside first. Worse still it was a private company working on a for-profit product forcing a public weather satellite to divert. There's no need for regulation until bad actors show up.

Satellites don't "move" into each other's way. Orbits naturally end up that way. There's no one "causing the risk" in the first place. SpaceX could have just as easily asked the ESA to move their satellite as it was getting in the way of their satellite.

You conveniently avoid the fact that SpaceX inserted itself into a collision course with the ESA’s orbit, long after ESA had been there. Being that ESA has a “right of way” they asked SpaceX to take the action

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

#219

Post by mLuby »

"SpaceX, in a new statement, says they were aware of the potential Aeolus/Starlink collision, but at first the probability was low. When the probability increased, “a bug in our on-call paging system prevented the Starlink operator from seeing the follow on correspondence.”" https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1168919094265044996

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

#220

Post by Excel_Wizard »

utopian3 wrote: post #218
mlindner wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Satellites don't "move" into each other's way. Orbits naturally end up that way. There's no one "causing the risk" in the first place. SpaceX could have just as easily asked the ESA to move their satellite as it was getting in the way of their satellite.

You conveniently avoid the fact that SpaceX inserted itself into a collision course with the ESA’s orbit, long after ESA had been there. Being that ESA has a “right of way” they asked SpaceX to take the action

The risk of a crash was 1 in 1,000. This is 10 times the threshold of 1 in 10,000 that requires a maneuver. Both of these satellites have been in orbit long enough for accumulated error to cause the satellite to drift from its predicted path. There are many satellite orbit-crossing events every day, and the accumulated drift is the primary cause of their orbits becoming close enough to require action. An anticipated collision that requires course correction is as close to a no-fault scenario as there can be.
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