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It's a funny ballet that took place on Monday, September 2, above our heads. The European Space Agency (ESA) has moved one of its satellites urgently. He was in danger of being hit by another, from the American company Space X, Elon Musk. She had refused to do the maneuver.
At 320 kilometers of altitude this Monday morning, the reactors of ADM-Aeolus were lit to raise its orbit. This satellite of the European Space Agency had to give way to "Starlink-44", a satellite of the American company Space X.
While avoidance maneuvers are common in orbit, they usually involve dodging debris. A risk of collision between two satellites is however much rarer. In this particular case, this risk was estimated by the ESA to be 1 in 1,000. That's not enough, but enough to avoid trying the devil. The agency made contact with Space X, and although Starlink-44 was put into orbit nine months after ADM-Aeolus, Elon Musk's company refused to act. The ESA pilots therefore executed themselves.
One of the first concrete cases of bottling
It is unclear why the American society remained unmoved, and has not yet communicated the incident. On the side of ESA however, the mishap had to leave a bitter taste, and the agency decided to make the case public via Twitter.
This is indeed one of the first concrete cases of bottling in orbit caused by what are called mega-constellations.
Starlink is a project that aims to provide an internet connection to the entire planet. For this, SpaceX intends to eventually send 12,000 into orbit. For the moment, only 60 have been launched, but this mishap confirms several fears raised by this type of project. There is indeed no text, no law that regulates these conflicts, while the risk of traffic congestion and therefore collision becomes real, especially as other mega-constellation projects are considered. Many voices, including large companies such as Iridium, which operate many satellites, are rising up in the area to put some order, but this has not been followed for the moment.
Another solution would be to equip the future machines with automatic avoidance mechanisms. ESA is planning to use artificial intelligence to allow satellites to autonomously change their orbit. But again, it will take time for this to find the way to space.
This is not the first inconvenience caused by Starlink satellites. At the time of their launching in May last year, many astronomers on Earth had the unpleasant surprise of seeing their pictures of the celestial vault ruined by these objects. They leave a long luminous trail when they pass the telescope lenses, so much so that we speak of the " Space X train ".