A Starlink satellite is adrift in space: the causes of the failure are unknown but it has released a series of debris which is now being monitored in real time. An accident that does not pose risks to the International Space Station (ISS) but underlines once again the growing crowding of objects present in low orbit and the possible risks that may arise from it.
The accident occurred to one of the over nine thousand satellites in the Starlink constellation, in particular a satellite that orbited at 418 kilometers above sea level: «The satellite is largely intact – Elon Musk’s company announced on social media X – it is rotating, will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and will completely disintegrate within a few weeks. The satellite’s current trajectory will take it below the ISS without posing any risk to the orbiting laboratory or its crew.”
The anomaly led to the loss of communications and propellant from one tank, with a rapid loss of 4 km of altitude and the release of a small amount of debris. “As the world’s largest operator of satellite constellations, we are deeply committed to space security,” they added. «We take these events seriously. Our engineers are working quickly to identify the root cause and mitigate the source of the anomaly and are already in the process of implementing software on our vehicles that increases protection against these types of events.”
Starlink is by far the largest constellation of satellites in orbit, alone representing approximately 65% of all artificial objects in orbit, and is destined to continue to grow. Precisely because of the continuous danger of crossing paths with other satellites, Starlink not only monitors all objects in orbit but each satellite is also equipped with an autonomous system to avoid collisions, a mechanism which in the first six months of 2025 alone led the Starlink satellites to carry out 145,000 evasive maneuvers, an average of around four activations per spacecraft per month.