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Stargaze: SpaceX's Space Situational Awareness System
- drivingmenuts 9mo agoWho knew that Big Brother would name himself after a 1990s movie about a completely different premise?
- Hextinium 9mo agoSeems like a generally good idea, the satellites already need to use star trackers, they need an almanac of what should be there so deviations need to be tracked. I can entirely see the military perspective though, this is almost a direct challenge for any adversary that any maneuver you perform, we will know about it.
- reed1234 9mo agoThe Space Force already tracks satellites (and debris). I imagine this is more of an improvement for small debris such as bolts, etc.
- sfblah 9mo agoIt's not.
- pjscott 9mo agoIf you're familiar with the technical specs, I'd be interested in hearing what size of objects the star trackers can sense and at what range. In theory the fancier star trackers can see objects around 10 cm diameter hundreds of kilometers away, without needing to worry about a pesky atmosphere [1], but I don't know how sensitive the sensors on Starlink's current generation satellites are, and this web site isn't saying. They're mostly touting the improvement in latency over existing tracking, from delays measured in hours to ones measured in minutes. Which is very nice, of course, but the lack of other technical detail is mildly frustrating. [1] https://www.mit.edu/~hamsa/pubs/ShtofenmakherBalakrishnan-IAA-STM-2023.pdf https://www.mit.edu/~hamsa/pubs/ShtofenmakherBalakrishnan-IA...
- mikkupikku 9mo agoNASA tracks debris 10cm or larger. They also detect and statistically estimate debris as small as 3mm in LEO. This is my source, from 2021 fwiw: https://oig.nasa.gov/office-of-inspector-general-oig/ig-21-011/ https://oig.nasa.gov/office-of-inspector-general-oig/ig-21-0...
- pjscott 9mo agoSo it looks to be just the latency improvement that's noteworthy, then. Thank you!
- wolvoleo 9mo ago10cm is huge, that could even be a functioning 1U cubesat.
- jcims 9mo agoNote from analysis in the paper: (CST = Commercial Star Tracker, for which they model several common ones flown on satellites) >From Fig. 1, it is clear that many typical CSTs can be used to detect debris with characteristic length less than 10 cm at distances as far as roughly 50 km. These same sensors have the potential to detect debris as small as 1 cm in diameter as far as 5 km away. Even space-limited CubeSats using nanosatellite-class CSTs can detect 10-cm-class debris at roughly 25 km away or 1-cm-class debris at a distance of 2.5 km. Higher-performing imagers like the MOST telescope can further characterize orbital debris of 10 cm diameter as far as 400 km away or be used to characterize orbital debris smaller than 1 cm at ranges not exceeding 40 km.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- pjscott 9mo agoHonestly, these two paragraphs are one of the most compelling things they could possibly say in a press release: > Stargaze already has a proven track record in its utility for space safety. In late 2025, a Starlink satellite encountered a conjunction with a third-party satellite that was performing maneuvers, but whose operator was not sharing ephemeris. Until five hours before the conjunction, the close approach was anticipated to be ~9,000 meters—considered a safe miss-distance with zero probability of collision. With just five hours to go, the third-party satellite performed a maneuver which changed its trajectory and collapsed the anticipated miss distance to just ~60 meters. Stargaze quickly detected this maneuver and published an updated trajectory to the screening platform, generating new CDMs which were immediately distributed to relevant satellites. Ultimately, the Starlink satellite was able to react within an hour of the maneuver being detected, planning an avoidance maneuver to reduce collision risk back down to zero. > With so little time to react, this would not have been possible by relying on legacy radar systems or high-latency conjunction screening processes. If observations of the third-party satellite were less frequent, conjunction screening took longer, or the reaction required human approval, such an event might not have been successfully mitigated. Looks like a non-trivial upgrade to previous systems, and they're making Stargaze's data available to other satellite operators free of charge. Nice!
- globalnode 9mo agoall this tech is nice and dandy n' all but the guy in charge of it is so distasteful that id rather live in a cave with stone tools than rely on any of it.
- alphabetag675 9mo agoI wonder what you have to say about our new generation fertilizers and vaccines.
- sidcool 9mo agoI was just having this discussion in the other thread where people were blatantly lying about Tesla because they hate Elon Musk. Hate him all you want, but his companies are truly successful.
- sfblah 9mo agoI was just thinking about that the other day while relaxing in my Hyperloop pod from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I was reminiscing about how I'd avoided all the traffic in LA by using the Boring Company's tunnels in my second-generation Tesla Roadster. I'd been in LA for a conference about the hugely successful Starship space launch system, which has revolutionized cost to orbit with fully reusable second stages. When I got to San Francisco, I hopped in a Tesla fully self-driving robotaxi, and when I got home, my Optimus robot served me tea after I instructed it to do so using my Neuralink probe. I then sent a video voicemail to my parents, who live in a city of 1 million people on Mars, which has recently been terraformed. I flipped on CNN and was gratified to see that, for the first time in 25 years, the US government was operating at a surplus, thanks to the $2T of annual savings delivered by DOGE.
- sidcool 9mo agoStarship is iterating fast and flying in another 5 weeks. Boring company is executing slowly but steadily, the Vegas tunnel is progressing. Unsupervised robotaxis has started in Austin. Optimus started a few years ago only, it is disingenuous to expect it to be available immediately. Neuralink has 18 patients now. Mars is happening, Elon never promised it will be possible this decade. Your comment makes it seem that Elon's companies have done nothing. I know you are being disingenuous, but I am trying my luck to respond.
- wtcactus 9mo ago"To maximize safety for all satellites in space, SpaceX will be making Stargaze conjunction data available to all operators, free of charge, via its space-traffic management platform." Many people don't still realize it, but the problem of low orbit debris is only getting worse. So, this is a really nice gesture. Thank you, Elon Musk.
- lionkor 9mo agoIt sounds like a hook, like "don't like all the space debris? use our management platform" and then it'll suddenly start costing money
- bigfatkitten 9mo agoSpaceX has a very, very large financial interest in avoiding collisions. Providing this service helps ensure that.
- wtcactus 9mo agoSeveral governments have an even bigger interest in avoiding these collisions, so, these systems should have existed for decades now. But, you can always trust the government to spend 10x more to do 10x worst...
- mikkupikku 9mo ago> so, these systems should have existed for decades now. Dubious. Perhaps if Congress could be persuaded to invest in tons of radio telescopes / radars, positioned all around the world, but good luck with that. The space-based approach used by SpaceX is something that presently only SpaceX is equipped to implement. Tracking star conjunctions only gives you high quality data on space debris / satellite maneuvers if you have a huge net of star trackers in orbit, and that's something which only SpaceX has been able to do.
- notahacker 9mo agoThe US already provides publicly accessible conjunction avoidance data based on data points they have. They don't have the same number of satellites in the sky to make real time observations in as many different directions though.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 9mo agoDamn it. I wanted to use that name
- w10-1 9mo agoThis seems necessary and desirable, but pretty much a government function. I can't see how simple good-faith cooperation prevents abuse. Possible abuses: (1) Use the information to actually interfere or collide with satellites (2) Use the information to track secret satellites by excluding traces from non-secret ones (3) Free riders gaining secondary access without providing data (4) Use access to this when traffic is more contended to enforce hegemony (5) Anti-competitive coordination under the rubric of cooperation And while the system might be helpful under ordinary peacetime conditions, will it make a war more or less destructive? It's silly that NASA is planning for Mars and the moon but hasn't already solved this coordination problem on a world scale.
- nlitened 9mo agoAs far as I understand, bad faith actors already have wide possibilities for disruption and abuse. This system allows for better good-faith coordination for mutual benefit.
- notahacker 9mo agoNASA already provides publicly accessible tracking data. They don't have 30,000 star trackers in orbit though, whereas the world's largest satellite constellation does and therefore has a lot more data points.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- Fricken 9mo ago[flagged]
- bryant 9mo agoI get the emotion behind this comment (and the previous one you deleted), but putting leadership credit where it's due, 99.999% of the operational and strategic leadership at SpaceX is Gwynne Shotwell's. She's essentially the CEO, even if not in title. And she does a great job isolating and insulating SpaceX and its staff from the specific tilts of its named CEO.
- LightBug1 9mo agoI 100% agree with that. Shotwell appears to be one of those few great leaders that don't appear to have the need for adulation at every turn (unlike the founder). Musk is lucky to have her. However, the combined talents of her and her team, the profits they generate, and their accumulated incredible achievements all still accrue to the benefit of said N'azi.
- soiax 9mo ago[flagged]
- t1234s 9mo agoYour thinking of Fairchild Industries.
- thatjoeoverthr 9mo agoKessler problems require Kessler solutions
- user3939382 9mo agoDARPA from long back had a project for tracking space debris related to this. I have an impossibility proof and some other math after many years of thinking about this problem which proves that what they really need (and have explicitly asked for) is impossible but also how theoretically close to it we could get. Hoping to publish soon but working on other things.
- neom 9mo agoI was kinda hoping the collision risk stuff might be what stops the sky quickly getting totally polluted. This is cool but... I presume just enables more and more and more density.
- lazyfanatic42 9mo agoAt some point in the future, will there be wars fought in LEO? Seems like a cold war already.
- atonse 9mo agoI believe the US and China (and Russia according to the Wendover video [1]) already have anti-satellite weapons to be used in a conflict, but they aren't like "blow this up" because of space debris. I'm not exactly sure how they work, but they aren't what we expect with terrestrial weapons. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0DmliiUFHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0DmliiUFHk
- mgoetzke 9mo agoDidnt russia cause a lot of debris due to one of their tests and endanger the ISS crew ?
- atonse 9mo agoYeah I just watched my own video and was surprised to see exactly that. Because I remember reading somewhere else years ago that an ideal anti-satellite weapon would either de-orbit a satellite (like bumping it off orbit so it burns up) or use some kind of net/capture to push it off orbit, rather than blow it up. Now this is going to have to be a rabbit hole for me (and some AI) this weekend.
- Rebelgecko 9mo agoTheir test was in a low-ish orbit so most of the debris is gone now. I haven't looked at stats lately but I'd guess the #1 source of debris in space right now is still the Chinese ASAT test which threw a bunch of crap into Medium Earth Orbit. Before that, the main source of debris was leaking coolant from some nuclear reactors the Soviet sent up
- krisbolton 9mo agoThis article is a short history of anti-satellite weapons, discussing who has demonstrated their capability: https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/centre-for-air-and-space-power-studies/aspr/aspr-vol22-iss2-3-pdf https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/centre-for-air-and-space-p... I'm sure I read a more recent account of a satellite moving another satellite around in order to degrade its orbit, but I can only find this 2022 instance: https://www.twz.com/44054/a-chinese-satellite-just-grappled-another-and-pulled-it-out-of-orbit https://www.twz.com/44054/a-chinese-satellite-just-grappled-...
- rkagerer 9mo agoDidn't the Pentagon give SpaceX a bunch of money a while back? Any chance this was developed alongside, or as a component of, military applications? Getting 30,000 new eyes in the sky actively monitoring objects in orbit seems pretty appealing if that's your theater... How does this compare in scope and quality to traditional tracking networks (ground or space based)?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- aero-glide2 9mo agoNah sounds like regular starlink they have 10,000 of them
- Rebelgecko 9mo agoThe Pentagon has been giving SpaceX a bunch of money for over a decade
- 6d6b73 9mo agoSpacex creating solutions to the problems they caused.. great
- mrcwinn 9mo agoThat seems... responsible? Maybe you meant "great" literally. In that case, I agree. Good job SpaceX.
- krisbolton 9mo agoThere's an interesting podcast covering space situational awareness from RUSI (Royal United Services Institute, UK). Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/eyes-in-orbit-space-situational-awareness/id1592710863?i=1000664016997 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/eyes-in-orbit-space-si...
- fnord77 9mo agoIsn't this just a twist on celestial navigation?
- dylan604 9mo agoBack in 2020 articles came out on how New Horizons is now so far out that it sees stars differently from its perspective than how we see them on earth. https://www.space.com/nasa-new-horizons-star-shift-parallax-photos.html https://www.space.com/nasa-new-horizons-star-shift-parallax-...
- GMoromisato 9mo agoCasey Handmer was speculating that they could use these Starlink images to detect Near-Earth Asteroids using star occultations: https://x.com/CJHandmer/status/2017124903057838374 https://x.com/CJHandmer/status/2017124903057838374 You basically have thousands of cameras taking constant images of the sky. If you could upgrade the cameras, you could deploy a continuous all-sky astronomical survey as a by-product.
- toomuchtodo 9mo agoRough estimate on the cost delta for the camera upgrades?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- GMoromisato 9mo agoNo idea--but he thinks the asteroid detection could be done even without an upgrade, assuming current cameras can see down to magnitude 7 (which is not that faint--human eye should be able to see down to 7 or 8 in space).
- egl2020 9mo agoDoes anyone know what the "30,000 star trackers" are? There are about that many satellites in orbit, so does this mean almost everyone is contributing data?
- voxic11 9mo agoI think it just means each starlink satellite has multiple star trackers. Probably pointed in different directions so that if one is blinded by the sun the others can still see the stars.
- aero-glide2 9mo agoQuite common for a sat to have 3 star trackers so it is possible just starlinks