Representatives from the U.S. Space Force and OneWeb said that last weekend, two Internet satellites from OneWeb and SpaceX nearly collided. Fortunately, they avoided it in time. This is the first known collision avoidance incident when the two companies are expanding their own space Internet business.

Picture: In April 2020, the orbit of SpaceX Starlink satellites across the night sky

On March 30, just five days after OneWeb launched the latest batch of 36 Internet satellites from Russia, the company received a "red alert" from the US Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron, warning that it might be related to SpaceX’s Starlink Internet satellites. Collision. Since OneWeb’s satellites are operating in higher orbits from the surface, the company’s satellites must traverse SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, which has an orbit approximately 550 kilometers above the ground.

This warning from the US Space Force shows that two of the satellites are only 57.9 meters away, and the probability of collision is 1.3%, which is very dangerous for satellites in orbit. If two satellites collide in orbit, it may cause a series of disasters, and hundreds of pieces of debris may collide with other nearby satellites.

At present, no authoritative organization will force satellite operators to take action on possible collisions. The emergency alert issued by the U.S. Space Force made OneWeb engineers race against time to email SpaceX’s Starlink technical team to coordinate their actions so that the two satellites were at a safer distance.

OneWeb government affairs director Chris McLaughlin (Chris McLaughlin) said that while coordinating with OneWeb, SpaceX turned off the artificial intelligence automatic collision avoidance system on the satellite so that OneWeb can guide its satellite to avoid it.

SpaceX's satellite automatic collision avoidance system has also caused concerns among other satellite operators. They have said that if their satellites come into close contact with Starlink satellites, they have no idea in which direction the automated system will move the Starlink satellites. "Coordination is a problem," McLaughlin said. "It's not enough to just say'I have an automated system', because other people may not have it, and they don't know what your system is doing."

SpaceX currently has approximately 1,370 Starlink satellites in orbit, and is preparing to launch thousands of more Starlink satellites, eventually creating a huge satellite network that includes 12,000 satellites in orbit and Internet services that can cover the world. In contrast, OneWeb has launched 146 satellites so far, and plans to send approximately 650 satellites into low-Earth orbits at similar altitudes. Amazon, led by Jeff Bezos, also announced that it has joined the competition and plans to launch more than 3,000 satellites into low-Earth orbit. All these companies hope to cover broadband Internet to the most remote areas on the planet to meet the growing network demand

Diana McKissock, head of the US Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron Data Sharing and Space Flight Safety Wing, said: “Under the constraints of global best practices, this incident is how satellite operators can An example of taking responsibility." "They share data and connect with each other. I think that without any global regulation, this is...the art of possibility."

Illustration: OneWeb (left) and SpaceX space internet satellite

Nevertheless, the number of satellites in orbit has increased so rapidly that it has exceeded the speed of response by any regulatory agency. Mackissock said that SpaceX has been working to improve the transparency of its satellites in orbit, and the company is currently providing other operators with location data on its satellites. But analysts and operators said that the company's automatic collision avoidance system is still quite closed, and what is most needed is openness and coordination.

"If you have to shut it down in the event of a possible collision, what is the point of this system?" said Victoria Samson, a representative of the non-profit organization. She also said that due to the lack of a clear international framework for the management of moving objects in space, if a collision does occur, it is not clear who should be held responsible.

It is very common to remotely control the operation of satellites in space. But as OneWeb, SpaceX, Amazon, and other companies race to send more satellites into space, industry concerns are growing. It is not the first time that Starlink satellites have nearly collided. In 2019, a satellite of the European Space Agency had to evade in order to avoid Starlink satellites. SpaceX said at the time that it did not have a mobile satellite because a computer malfunction hindered its normal communication with the European Space Agency.

OneWeb plans to launch more satellites every month. The orbits of the satellites that Amazon and Telesat plan to launch are higher than those of the Starlink network. The establishment of clear satellite orbiting rules is more urgent than ever. And SpaceX is particularly important, not only because of the large size of its satellite network, but also because of the location of its satellite network above the earth. Market research company Quilty Analytics satellite industry analyst Caleb Henry (Caleb Henry) said: "The satellites of companies such as OneWeb must traverse the Starlink network to reach their destination, so SpaceX now needs to ensure that other satellite operators can pass safely. "

McKee Sock said that the 18th Space Control Squadron is fully aware of the entire space industry’s concerns about the SpaceX satellite automatic collision avoidance system. "So it's funny," she said. "But like I said, I'm very happy that they can communicate with each other. The most terrible situation is that when you can't reach one of them, you can only pray for good luck." (Chenchen)

Source: NetEase Technology Report, translated by Google Translate