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Victoria Bela

A small number of Chinese satellites and space debris forced SpaceX’s Starlink fleet to execute a large number of collision avoidance manoeuvres last year, as both sides complained of safety challenges from rival internet megaconstellations.
The largest culprit was Hongqing Technology’s Honghu-2 satellite, which accounted for 1,143 such manoeuvres. The experimental satellite was launched aboard LandSpace’s Zhuque 2 Y-3 rocket in December 2023.
Such manoeuvres consume fuel and shorten a satellite’s lifespan.
According to a report filed by SpaceX with the US Federal Communications Commission on December 31, Starlink satellites performed 148,696 collision avoidance manoeuvres between June 1 and November 30 last year.


Among the top 20 individual space objects that Starlink satellites had to adjust for, seven from China accounted for 3,732 manoeuvres, according to the report.
Another satellite launched in January last year as part of Yunyao Aerospace’s Yunyao-1 internet satellite constellation accounted for 431 manoeuvres.
Four separate pieces of space debris left from the launch of a state-owned Long March 6A rocket in November 2022 featured in 1,748 manoeuvres, while a piece of debris from a Chinese anti-satellite missile test in 2007 accounted for another 410.
Among the objects most frequently triggering manoeuvres – accounting for just over 7 per cent of the total during this period – were five US-origin satellites and pieces of space debris that accounted for 2,371 movements, plus four Argentine satellites now operated by a US-based company that led to more than 2,000 movements.
Starlink satellites are designed to autonomously dodge other objects with the help of on-board systems and Hall-effect thrusters, which use electric and magnetic fields to accelerate a propellant.
“Effective collision avoidance in space relies on consistent data sharing and reliable communication among spacecraft operators, but data sharing challenges persist,” SpaceX said in its filing.
“International coordination adds another layer of difficulty, especially with Chinese and Russian operators that often do not share ephemerides or contact information despite operating a significant portion of manoeuvrable satellites.”
Ephemerides are data sets or tables often generated through mathematical models that specify the trajectory, position and velocity of a satellite or celestial body at specific time intervals.
In December, Beijing voiced concern that Starlink’s fleet of about 10,000 satellites in orbit presented security challenges and crowded shared orbital resources, increasing the risk of collisions.


SpaceX aims to launch 42,000 satellites and has FCC approval to launch 7,500 more Gen 2 satellites, doubling its Gen 2 allowance to 15,000.
Chinese state entities and commercial space companies are aiming to launch their own massive internet satellite constellations. Several Chinese operators signalled plans to launch more than 200,000 internet satellites in filings to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in late December.
Hongqing Technology, which developed the Honghu-2 satellite, aims to deploy an internet constellation with 10,000 satellites called Honghu-3, according to a 2024 filing with the ITU.
As the density of objects in low Earth orbit rises, it could increasingly risk triggering a theoretical phenomenon called the Kessler syndrome in which collisions between objects could set off a chain reaction that generated even more debris.
In a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Aerospace in May last year, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said collision avoidance manoeuvres could trigger a domino of collisions and that performing these manoeuvres used up propellant and energy reserves, which could shorten a satellite’s operational lifespan.
SpaceX satellites are designed to have a five-year lifespan before they are deliberately burned up in Earth’s orbit. Between December 2024 and May last year, Starlink satellites performed 144,404 collision avoidance manoeuvres, according to a report SpaceX filed with the FCC in July last year.
SpaceX satellites will manoeuvre if the risk of collision is greater than three in 10 million – a threshold more than 300 times more sensitive than the industry standard – triggering additional evasive manoeuvres, according to the latest filing.
At the start of this month, SpaceX announced it would lower the orbit of more than 4,400 satellites this year to reduce the risk of collisions, relocating satellites to orbital regions less crowded by space debris and other planned satellites.
In November last year, researchers from Zhejiang University and Beijing Institute of Technology published research that suggested a distributed jamming strategy deploying thousands of electronic warfare drones could be used against Starlink across a region as large as Taiwan.


The Chinese satellites SpaceX says were on collision course with Starlink

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As orbits become more crowded and littered with debris, the US operator is having to move its devices to dodge damage


As orbits become more crowded and littered with debris, the US operator is having to move its devices to dodge damage.


The Chinese satellites SpaceX says were on collision course with Starlink

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}As orbits become more crowded and littered with debris, the US operator is having to move its devices to dodge damage

As orbits become more crowded and littered with debris, the US operator is having to move its devices to dodge damage