Sustainability and Safety of Large Satellite Constellations from the Starlink Perspective Looking Forward
Day: Tuesday 06 October
Time: 17:45 - 18:45
Location: D1 and D2 - NEST Congress and Exhibition Centre
SpaceX operates the world’s largest satellite constellation in support of Starlink, which provides broadband connectivity to millions of people globally. Starlink is a constellation consisting of nearly 10,000 satellites operating from 350-550 km in low-Earth orbit (LEO). The operation of Starlink puts SpaceX in a unique position managing the sustainability and safety aspects of Earth-orbiting satellites, which are critical as more constellations are deployed. This highlight lecture will focus on the best practices that Starlink has developed, and the challenges that it faces, in operating the Starlink satellite constellation.
Starlink invests significant resources in ensuring the safety of its constellation. The practices it has developed extend from the launch of the satellites to their end-of-life strategy, and include operating at low altitude where any debris and non-functional satellites reenter rapidly, promoting the active sharing of satellite positions and planned maneuvers with other operators, maneuvering at highly conservative risk levels, and proactive deorbiting of satellites to minimize failures on orbit. Most recently, SpaceX has developed the Stargaze system to provide space situational awareness data on objects in LEO, and opened its space safety sharing platform to other operators to enable the sharing of real-time ephemeris.
SpaceX recently announced plans to deploy a large constellation in LEO for the purpose of AI-based compute, which will require the development of new approaches to operations leveraging the investments already made in Starlink. As access to space accelerates and humanity pushes towards space-based data centers and infrastructure on the moon and other planets, continuing to develop the technologies and defining approaches for safe operations in LEO and beyond could not be more important
