Mastodawn

SpaceX opens the door to "sharing" its spacecraft tracking data with its "StarGaze" Space Situational Awareness (SSA) system.

Stargaze aggregates data from ~ 30,000 star trackers distributed across the StarLink satellite fleet to generate accurate orbit estimates and predictions of position and velocity for all detected objects in near real-time and the system generates Conjunction Data Messages (CDMs). 

SpaceX will make Stargaze conjunction data available to any satellite operator (free of charge) that submits its own ephemeris (trajectory) data to the platform. Stargaze ephemeris is updated and shared publicly every hour.

BIG question: How long will Stargaze be "free of charge" ??? https://news.satnews.com/2026/02/18/spacex-unveils-stargaze-system-to-revolutionize-space-traffic-management/

See my post on Space Situational Awareness here: https://techaptitude.substack.com/p/the-risk-of-satellite-collisions #Space #SSA #SatelliteCollision #StarLink #StarGaze #SpaceX #Satellites #CDMs #SpaceCraft #Deconfliction #TechAptitude

BGDon 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 👨‍💻Jan 28

Orbital House of Cards – CRASH Clock Metric

Researchers have updated the possibility that satellites in low earth orbit (LEO) could collapse after accidental collisions quickly cascade into a vicious cycle where initial collisions create a huge vortex of dangerous space debris, which creates even more collisions, and then even more collisions – just like a massive vehicle pileup on an ice covered interstate highway…this cascading collision scenario is known as the Kessler syndrome.

The researchers propose a new metric, the CRASH Clock, that measures the timescale for a possible Kessler like scenario to occur after a severe loss of space situational awareness. They propose the CRASH Clock is currently 5.5 days, which is the window of opportunity to recover/stop a wide spread cascading collision event. https://futurism.com/space/earths-lower-orbit-rapidly-collapse

DL full paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643 #Space #Satellites #LEO #KesslerSyndrome #Kessler #SpaceCraft #CrashClock #SatelliteCollision #SpaceJunk

AlcorNews Jan 3

Et si l'espace se transformait en embouteillage géant ? Le risque de carambolage entre satellites inquiète les agences spatiales. https://www.lamanchelibre.fr/actualite-1206434-science-et-s-il-y-avait-un-carambolage-de-satellites #Space #Science #Innovation #Astrophysics #AerospaceEngineering #SatelliteCollision #SpaceTraffic

Science. Et s'il y avait un carambolage de satellites ?

Trop de satellites, pas de vraie régulation : le risque d'accidents en orbite menace les services essentiels de notre société.

La Manche Libre

AlcorNews Dec 28

Starlink frôle la collision avec un satellite chinois : l’espace devient un vrai champ de mines orbital ! https://www.vietnam.vn/fr/starlink-suyt-tong-trung-ve-tinh-trung-quoc #Space #Science #Innovation #AerospaceEngineering #SatelliteCollision #SpaceTraffic #Starlink

AlcorNews Dec 27

Le ciel se remplit de satellites et l’astronomie trinque déjà. Starlink & co promettent le futur, mais le chaos orbital n’est plus de la SF
https://www.rts.ch/info/sciences-tech/2025/article/multiplication-des-satellites-menace-pour-l-astronomie-et-risque-de-collisions-29100950.html
#Space #Science #Innovation #Astrophysics #AerospaceEngineering #SatelliteCollision #SpaceTraffic

BGDon 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 👨‍💻Dec 22

Can you say “Deconfliction”? The Risk of Satellite Collisions is going Parabolic – Not a good thing.

The latest TechAptitude post is is live - reviews the current state of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and the growing risk of spacecraft collisions.
https://open.substack.com/pub/techaptitude/p/the-risk-of-satellite-collisions?r=vn8b8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true #Space #Satellites #SSA #SatelliteCollision #Deconfliction #TechAptitude #LowEarthOrbit

N-gated Hacker News Dec 11

🌌🚀 Behold, the cosmic soap opera of satellite near-misses, where the universe plays Jenga with metal clusters and researchers pretend they're not just writing fan fiction for space. Get ready for more tension than a soap bubble on a cactus! 🪐📉
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643 #cosmicsoapopera #satellitecollision #spacejenga #researchfun #spacehumor #HackerNews #ngated

An Orbital House of Cards: Frequent Megaconstellation Close Conjunctions

The number of objects in orbit is rapidly increasing, primarily driven by the launch of megaconstellations, an approach to satellite constellation design that involves large numbers of satellites paired with their rapid launch and disposal. While satellites provide many benefits to society, their use comes with challenges, including the growth of space debris, collisions, ground casualty risks, optical and radio-spectrum pollution, and the alteration of Earth's upper atmosphere through rocket emissions and reentry ablation. There is potential for current or planned actions in orbit to cause serious degradation of the orbital environment or lead to catastrophic outcomes, highlighting the urgent need to find better ways to quantify stress on the orbital environment. Here we propose a new metric, the CRASH Clock, that measures such stress in terms of the timescale for a possible catastrophic collision to occur if there are no satellite manoeuvres or there is a severe loss in situational awareness. Our calculations show the CRASH Clock is currently 5.5 days, which suggests there is limited time to recover from a wide-spread disruptive event, such as a solar storm. This is in stark contrast to the pre-megaconstellation era: in 2018, the CRASH Clock was 164 days.

arXiv.org