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It's interesting to see SpaceX doing PR around this. They've quite visibly declined (possibly failed) to maneuver things in the past: https://www.forbes.com/sit

It's interesting to see SpaceX doing PR around this. They've quite visibly declined (possibly failed) to maneuver things in the past: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/09/02/spacex-refused-to-move-a-starlink-satellite-at-risk-of-collision-with-a-european-satellite/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/09/02/s...

pdabbadabba 3y ago
This is extremely old news. Here's SpaceX's explanation (included at the end of the Forbes article), which I think is quite cogent: > Our Starlink team last exchanged an email with the Aeolus operations team on August 28, when the probability of collision was only in the 2.2e-5 range (or 1 in 50k), well below the 1e-4 (or 1 in 10k) industry standard threshold and 75 times lower than the final estimate. At that point, both SpaceX and ESA determined a maneuver was not necessary. Then, the U.S. Air Force's updates showed the probability increased to 1.69e-3 (or more than 1 in 10k) but a bug in our on-call paging system prevented the Starlink operator from seeing the follow on correspondence on this probability increase – SpaceX is still investigating the issue and will implement corrective actions. However, had the Starlink operator seen the correspondence, we would have coordinated with ESA to determine best approach with their continuing with their maneuver or our performing a maneuver.
- apawloski 3y ago
  I agree, specifically the part where they note that probability of collision was greater than 1 in 10k but that they were unable to address the situation (forcing an Earth observation satellite to maneuver). edit: Maybe I'm being unnecessarily salty, but it's worth noting on their track record.
  - pdabbadabba 3y ago
    I guess this is just a matter of perspective. Nothing that you say is false, but it seems relevant to predicting future issues that this was ultimately due to a bug in their on-call paging system that was detected and remedied three years ago. The thousands of maneuvers they've executed since them without incident seem much more probative.

pdabbadabba 3y ago

This is extremely old news. Here's SpaceX's explanation (included at the end of the Forbes article), which I think is quite cogent: > Our Starlink team last exchanged an email with the Aeolus operations team on August 28, when the probability of collision was only in the 2.2e-5 range (or 1 in 50k), well below the 1e-4 (or 1 in 10k) industry standard threshold and 75 times lower than the final estimate. At that point, both SpaceX and ESA determined a maneuver was not necessary. Then, the U.S. Air Force's updates showed the probability increased to 1.69e-3 (or more than 1 in 10k) but a bug in our on-call paging system prevented the Starlink operator from seeing the follow on correspondence on this probability increase – SpaceX is still investigating the issue and will implement corrective actions. However, had the Starlink operator seen the correspondence, we would have coordinated with ESA to determine best approach with their continuing with their maneuver or our performing a maneuver.

apawloski 3y ago
I agree, specifically the part where they note that probability of collision was greater than 1 in 10k but that they were unable to address the situation (forcing an Earth observation satellite to maneuver). edit: Maybe I'm being unnecessarily salty, but it's worth noting on their track record.
- pdabbadabba 3y ago
  I guess this is just a matter of perspective. Nothing that you say is false, but it seems relevant to predicting future issues that this was ultimately due to a bug in their on-call paging system that was detected and remedied three years ago. The thousands of maneuvers they've executed since them without incident seem much more probative.