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> Starlink satellites are responsible for 1,600 near-crashes in orbit every week, reports Futurism’s Dan Robitzski, a number that he reports is likely to increa

> Starlink satellites are responsible for 1,600 near-crashes in orbit every week, reports Futurism’s Dan Robitzski, a number that he reports is likely to increase as Starlink plans to launch more satellites.

throwhauser 5y ago
I did some googling and there seems to be some truth to this, although following the numerical estimate back toward the source finds "near-crashes" expressed less dramatically as "close encounters", defined as within 1km, most of which occur with other Starlink satellites.
- kiwijamo 5y ago
  I'm curious to see if this could get any worse when all 12,000 of their satellites are up there. Plus not to mention there could be competitors putting up another 12k of their own satellites.
  - tigershark 5y ago
    Do you mean 42k? 11k was only the first phase.
bpodgursky 5y ago
You know this is not true in any meaningful sense of the word "near-crash", because Starlink satellites have been in orbit for years and have not collided with anything. When you drive down the highway, do you consider every passing car a "near-miss"? That is the only way that your statement seems at all plausibly correct.
- noahtallen 5y ago
  I agree with you, but noting that the comment is a direct quote from the article, which includes a bit of controversy at the end to keep the article sufficiently polarizing ;)
HWR_14 5y ago
I thought, space being huge, a near crash would be defined as within maybe 100 miles. It turns out it's within 1 km. Recently, and famously, with an ESA vehicle. Of concern then was that Starlink was either unable or unwilling to move their satellite to avoid a collision. Iassume that there will be in the next decade a Kessler syndrome event that knocks out a huge swath of LEO, including the Starlink orbit zone. The debris may deorbit on it's own, but it may take five years.
- rlt 5y ago
  To be fair, that was fairly early in the Starlink program (2 prototypes were launched in 2018, and 60 more by that incident in 2019). Starlink has actively been dodging their own and other satellites successfully since then. That hasn’t stopped their competitors from trying to smear them: https://m.slashdot.org/story/384516 https://m.slashdot.org/story/384516
throwawaylinux 5y ago
They're responsible for not crashing and they're succeeding? Sounds good.

throwhauser 5y ago

I did some googling and there seems to be some truth to this, although following the numerical estimate back toward the source finds "near-crashes" expressed less dramatically as "close encounters", defined as within 1km, most of which occur with other Starlink satellites.

kiwijamo 5y ago
I'm curious to see if this could get any worse when all 12,000 of their satellites are up there. Plus not to mention there could be competitors putting up another 12k of their own satellites.
- tigershark 5y ago
  Do you mean 42k? 11k was only the first phase.

bpodgursky 5y ago

You know this is not true in any meaningful sense of the word "near-crash", because Starlink satellites have been in orbit for years and have not collided with anything. When you drive down the highway, do you consider every passing car a "near-miss"? That is the only way that your statement seems at all plausibly correct.

noahtallen 5y ago
I agree with you, but noting that the comment is a direct quote from the article, which includes a bit of controversy at the end to keep the article sufficiently polarizing ;)

HWR_14 5y ago

I thought, space being huge, a near crash would be defined as within maybe 100 miles. It turns out it's within 1 km. Recently, and famously, with an ESA vehicle. Of concern then was that Starlink was either unable or unwilling to move their satellite to avoid a collision. Iassume that there will be in the next decade a Kessler syndrome event that knocks out a huge swath of LEO, including the Starlink orbit zone. The debris may deorbit on it's own, but it may take five years.

rlt 5y ago
To be fair, that was fairly early in the Starlink program (2 prototypes were launched in 2018, and 60 more by that incident in 2019). Starlink has actively been dodging their own and other satellites successfully since then. That hasn’t stopped their competitors from trying to smear them: https://m.slashdot.org/story/384516 https://m.slashdot.org/story/384516

throwawaylinux 5y ago

They're responsible for not crashing and they're succeeding? Sounds good.