Moscow. 20 April. INTERFAX.RU – Elon Musk's SpaceX project to launch Starlink Internet satellites into orbit threatens the safety of space and the environment, according to the company's competitors and experts. Writes about this The Wall Street Journal.
The main argument of opponents of the project is that SpaceX prioritizes speed over quality, and puts satellites into orbit that may need repairs.
“SpaceX is adventurous about space,” says Chris McLaughlin, director of government relations at rival OneWeb. “Each of our satellites, like the Ford Focus, they function the same, they are tested, they work, while the Starlink satellites, like Tesla. They run them, and then they have to modernize or repair them, or replace them altogether. “
In 2019, SpaceX reported a breakdown of approximately 5% of the first batch of Starlink satellites. Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in November 2020 estimated that the proportion of satellites that had failed was 3%. According to the scientist, Starlink has significantly improved the design of satellites since then, so the breakdown rate has dropped below 1%.
However, even with such a low rate, there is a high threat to security in space, given how many satellites the company plans to launch, McDowell warned.
Starlink has deployed more than 1,300 satellites into low-earth orbit and continues to increase the number by 120 units per month. The number of Starlink satellites could exceed the number of satellites launched since the 1950s, WSJ notes.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may approve SpaceX's request to change its license in the coming days to allow the company to launch more satellites at an altitude of about 550 kilometers.
SpaceX rivals have called on the FCC to set conditions for Elon Musk's company, including reducing the proportion of faulty satellites to 0.1%, improving collision avoidance functions, and ensuring that Starlink satellites will not interfere with other vehicles.
“We need to launch fewer satellites and improve their capabilities,” said Viasat founder and executive chairman Mark Dankberg.
Boeing, which also opposes Starlink in the FCC, noted the importance of global competitive standards for the safety of the orbital environment.
Starlink satellites have approached other devices at dangerous distances twice in the past two years. The last time this happened was on April 2, when a satellite controlled by OneWeb was forced to make a maneuver to avoid a collision with the Starlink apparatus. In response to a request from OneWeb, Starlink engineers said there was nothing they could do to avoid a collision, so they disabled the collision avoidance system so that OneWeb could easily maneuver.
A similar incident happened in late 2019, when the Starlink satellite nearly collided with an EU meteorological satellite, according to data from the European Space Agency.
Starlink vehicles are equipped with an artificial intelligence-based collision avoidance system. According to Jonathan McDowell, such systems are difficult to take seriously, as it remains unclear what data they use in their work.
More and more satellites are planned to be launched into low-earth orbit. Amazon.com Inc. expects to launch 3200 satellites within the Kuiper project, OneWeb – about 700, Canadian Telesat – about 300.
The EU authorities intend to present a roadmap for a public-private partnership, the goal of which will be to create a group of satellites for broadband communications worth about 6 billion euros by the end of this year.
Space security experts believe more regulation is needed to prevent disasters. “Musk does what is legal, but” legal “does not necessarily mean” safe, “said Moriba Jah, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
