SpaceX's Starlink company reported that one of its satellites experienced an anomaly in space on Wednesday, which created a "small amount" of debris and interrupted communication with the spacecraft at an altitude of 418 km, a rare kinetic accident in orbit for the satellite internet giant, writes UNN with reference to Reuters.
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"The satellite is largely intact, it is spinning and will re-enter Earth's atmosphere and completely disintegrate within a few weeks," Starlink's X post said.
The company said the satellite, one of nearly 10,000 in space for its broadband internet network, experienced a sharp four-kilometer drop, indicating some kind of onboard explosion, the publication writes.
It has been working with the U.S. Space Force and NASA to monitor the debris, the amount of which SpaceX did not disclose in its statement.
Space observation company LeoLabs said it detected "dozens" of probable debris fragments during the accident, and that additional fragments may be detected during further analysis of the event.
LeoLabs added that the rapid drop in altitude likely indicates that the accident was caused by an internal problem rather than a collision with another object in space.
As the publication writes, since the Starlink satellite still remains relatively intact after shedding a relatively small amount of debris, the event seemed smaller in scale than other orbital accidents, such as the disintegration of the Intelsat satellite, which created more than 700 fragments, or the disintegration of a Chinese rocket body last year.
The number of spacecraft in Earth's orbit has sharply increased in recent years, as companies and countries compete to deploy tens of thousands of satellites for internet constellations and other space services such as communications and Earth imaging.
Many space policy officials and industry leaders around the world advocate for clearer international rules for orbital traffic to better coordinate satellite avoidance maneuvers and deployments between spacefaring nations, including the United States and China.
Last week, SpaceX's Vice President of Starlink Engineering Michael Nicolls said on X that a spacecraft from a recently launched Chinese mission approached a Starlink satellite within 200 meters, a dangerously close approach that satellite operators often try to avoid.
"To our knowledge, no coordination or conflict resolution with existing satellites operating in space was carried out," Nicolls said. "Most of the risks of operating in space are related to the lack of coordination between satellite operators - this needs to change."