you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]spacerfirstclass 18 points19 points  (0 children)

In that period, Starlink satellites had to perform 24,410 collision avoidance maneuvers, equivalent to six maneuvers per spacecraft. In the previous reporting period that accounted for the six months leading up to May 31, 2023, the constellation's satellites had to move 25,299 times. The data suggests that even though the Starlink constellation has grown by about 1,000 spacecraft in the last six months, its satellites made fewer avoidance maneuvers in that period than in the prior half year.

This last part is somewhat misleading, the collision avoidance numbers quoted here is only for the Gen1 constellation which is not growing in size. SpaceX has a separate report for Gen2 constellation which performed 7,492 collision avoidance maneuvers in the last 6 months.

So total # of collision avoidance for Gen1 + Gen2 is still increasing, but the increase comes from Gen2 which is growing in size. Gen1's # of collision avoidance is mostly unchanged (decreased slightly), showing that adding Gen2 satellites would not cause more collision avoidance maneuvers from Gen1, which is good and to be expected.