SpaceX\u2019s Starlink division confirmed yesterday that it lost contact with a satellite on Sunday and is trying to locate space debris that might have been produced by\u2026 whatever happened there.<\/p>\n
Starlink said there appeared to be \u201cno new risk\u201d to other space operations and did not use the word \u201cexplosion.\u201d But it seems that something caused a Starlink broadband satellite to break apart into at least tens of pieces. LeoLabs, which operates a radar network that can track objects in low Earth orbit, said in an X post that it \u201cdetected a fragment creation event involving SpaceX Starlink 34343,\u201d one of the 10,000 or so Starlink satellites in orbit.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeoLabs Global Radar Network immediately detected tens of objects in the vicinity of the satellite after the event, with a first pass over our radar site in the Azores, Portugal,\u201d LeoLabs said. \u201cAdditional fragments may have been produced\u2014analysis is ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n
LeoLabs said the breakup was \u201clikely caused by an internal energetic source rather than a collision with space debris or another object.\u201d Because of \u201cthe low altitude of the event, fragments from this anomaly will likely de-orbit within a few weeks,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
Starlink said in an X post yesterday that \u201cStarlink satellite 34343 experienced an anomaly on-orbit, resulting in loss of communications with the satellite at ~560 km above Earth.\u201d Starlink said its \u201canalysis shows the event poses no new risk\u201d to the International Space Station, its crew, or NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission that could launch as soon as Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to monitor the satellite along with any trackable debris and coordinate with NASA and the US Space Force,\u201d Starlink said. \u201cThe event also posed no new risk to this morning\u2019s Transporter-16 mission, which was designed to avoid Starlink with payload deploys well above or well below the constellation. The SpaceX and Starlink teams are actively working to determine root cause and will rapidly implement any necessary corrective actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
LeoLabs said yesterday that the new event is similar to one from December 17, 2025, which also produced \u201ctens of objects in the vicinity of the satellite\u201d and appeared to be \u201ccaused by an internal energetic source\u201d rather than a crash with another object. LeoLabs said it wants more information on the anomalies.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
\u201cThese events illustrate the need for rapid characterization of anomalous events to enable clarity of the operating environment,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
Starlink provided a few details shortly after the December 2025 incident, saying on December 18 that an \u201canomaly led to venting of the propulsion tank, a rapid decay in semi-major axis by about 4 km, and the release of a small number of trackable low relative velocity objects.\u201d Starlink added that the satellite was \u201clargely intact\u201d but \u201ctumbling,\u201d and would reenter the Earth\u2019s atmosphere and \u201cfully demise\u201d within weeks.<\/p>\n
In December, Starlink seemed confident that it could prevent future anomalies. \u201cOur engineers are rapidly working to [identify the] root cause and mitigate the source of the anomaly and are already in the process of deploying software to our vehicles that increases protections against this type of event,\u201d Starlink said in the December 18 post.<\/p>\n
We asked SpaceX today whether it has determined the cause of the December anomaly or the one on Sunday, and will update this article if we get a response.<\/p>\n
Starlink also had a near-crash in December, in a different incident about a week before the \u201ctumbling\u201d satellite. Starlink Senior VP Michael Nicolls wrote on December 12 that a Chinese company had launched nine satellites without coordinating with other space users. Lack of coordination increases the risk of collisions, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as we know, no coordination or deconfliction with existing satellites operating in space was performed, resulting in a 200 meter close approach between one of the deployed satellites and STARLINK-6079 (56120) at 560 km altitude,\u201d Nicolls wrote at the time, referring to the Chinese launch. \u201cMost of the risk of operating in space comes from the lack of coordination between satellite operators\u2014this needs to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coordination can only become more important if SpaceX goes through with its stated plan of launching a million satellites to create an orbital data center.<\/p>\n
Under normal circumstances, Starlink satellites reaching their end-of-life date follow \u201ca targeted reentry approach to deorbit satellites over the open ocean, away from populated islands and heavily trafficked airline and maritime routes,\u201d Starlink says in a document on \u201csatellite demisability.\u201d But satellites that fall to Earth unexpectedly should pose no risk to people on the ground because they are designed to \u201cdemise with extremely low impact energy,\u201d according to Starlink.<\/p>\n
\u201cA critical aspect of sustainable satellite design is demisability, which ensures that satellites fully break up and burn up during atmospheric reentry,\u201d Starlink says in the document. \u201cAny fragments that do not completely demise should have negligible impact energy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SpaceX\u2019s Starlink division confirmed yesterday that it lost contact with a satellite on Sunday and is trying to locate space debris that might have been produced by\u2026 whatever happened there. Starlink said there appeared to be \u201cno new risk\u201d to other space operations and did not use the word \u201cexplosion.\u201d But it seems that something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}