SpaceX said that due to Russian anti-satellite missiles launched during the war with Ukraine, their satellites have been moved thousands of times.
The dispute between Russia and Ukraine is still ongoing. The losses caused are not even in the atmosphere, but have reached outer space.
This was revealed by SpaceX who revealed that due to the launch of a Russian anti-satellite rocket last year, they had to constantly change the position of the Starlink satellites. They even admit to having done this more than a thousand times.
This report was filed earlier this month and describes the steps Starlink is taking to ensure that its satellite is safe to orbit Earth as soon as it is launched on a Falcon 9 rocket.
The spacecraft are initially placed in a parking orbit, where their systems are checked and then after the tests are complete, they can upgrade their orbits to provide Internet coverage.
The satellite will first be parked at an altitude of 350km, and then its altitude will be increased to 550km.
According to SpaceX, between early December 2021 and late May 2022 the company carried out 6,873 maneuvers to ensure that none of its satellites were at risk of colliding with each other or with other carriers’ spacecraft, Wccftech reported (17/7).
Altitude This is also said to be higher than the action to be taken if Starlink chooses to comply with industry standards. This is due to the fact that SpaceX maneuvers when there is a 0.00001 chance of a collision whereas the industry follows the 0.0001 standard.
As part of a list of events that prompted it to take evasive action, SpaceX outlined that a geomagnetic storm in February 2022 and a Russian anti-satellite missile test in November 2021 prompted the company to steer its spacecraft.
SpaceX has launched 49 satellites on February 3, and the report outlines that 38 of them had to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere due to a solar storm that saw solar particles moving at a speed of 662 km/s.
Not to forget, the company also explained that the storm caused its satellites to experience a 50% higher drag (friction between the spacecraft and the surrounding environment) which then caused only 11 to be able to achieve a safe orientation to withstand the event.
To avoid such occurrences in the future, the Starlink satellites have received a flight software update and SpaceX plans to improve their communications with ground stations for better control.
SpaceX also shared that due to the Russian Federation’s anti-satellite missile test in November, the company had to maneuver its satellite more than 1,700 times to avoid the debris cloud.
The test saw Russia’s A-235 Nudol anti-satellite ballistic missile target a satellite (Kosmos 1408) in low Earth orbit (LEO) at a slightly lower altitude than the Starink satellite.
This produced at least 1,500 pieces of debris according to State Department estimates, and a near-miss event (48 feet) between the debris and a Chinese science satellite in January 2022.
Witnessing the scale of the event, SpaceX reported that it had to move its satellites more because of the A-235 test than any other event in history.
Finally, SpaceX concludes the report by sharing some of the reasons why it failed to properly dispose of its satellites. According to the latest data and other reports shared with the FCC in April, so far six Starlink satellites have faced this problem in 2022.
Of these, two were due to suspected computer failure, two were due to faulty actuators, and the rest saw power system and attitude control system failures, respectively.
52 operational satellites had to be deorbited during the time period of the most recent report and of these, only five lost control completely, SpaceX said.
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