Something caused a Starlink satellite to tumble and its fuel tank to vent
According to an update yesterday by SpaceX on X, one of its many Starlink satellites is now tumbling with its fuel tank venting, and is thus losing altitude.
On December 17, Starlink experienced an anomaly on satellite 35956, resulting in loss of communications with the vehicle at 418 km. The anomaly 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. SpaceX is coordinating with the @USSpaceForce and @NASA to monitor the objects.
The satellite is largely intact, tumbling, and will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise within weeks. The satellite’s current trajectory will place it below the @Space_Station, posing no risk to the orbiting lab or its crew.
Either the tank burst, or got hit with something causing it to burst.
The media reports I’ve seen have tried to make this event more significant than it is. First, it is remarkable how few of SpaceX’s thousands of Starlink satellites have failed in this manner. These low numbers show how this incident is rare and not very concerning. Second, the spacecraft’s orbit is decaying, and will soon burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere. It will not add any space junk to low Earth orbit.
In fact, that this event illustrates more than anything how well SpaceX manages its Starlink constellation. Thousands of satellites launched, and only a handful have failed like this.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
According to an update yesterday by SpaceX on X, one of its many Starlink satellites is now tumbling with its fuel tank venting, and is thus losing altitude.
On December 17, Starlink experienced an anomaly on satellite 35956, resulting in loss of communications with the vehicle at 418 km. The anomaly 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. SpaceX is coordinating with the @USSpaceForce and @NASA to monitor the objects.
The satellite is largely intact, tumbling, and will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise within weeks. The satellite’s current trajectory will place it below the @Space_Station, posing no risk to the orbiting lab or its crew.
Either the tank burst, or got hit with something causing it to burst.
The media reports I’ve seen have tried to make this event more significant than it is. First, it is remarkable how few of SpaceX’s thousands of Starlink satellites have failed in this manner. These low numbers show how this incident is rare and not very concerning. Second, the spacecraft’s orbit is decaying, and will soon burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere. It will not add any space junk to low Earth orbit.
In fact, that this event illustrates more than anything how well SpaceX manages its Starlink constellation. Thousands of satellites launched, and only a handful have failed like this.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
And, more than that: Kudos to SpaceX for being so transparent about this incident, and so quick in its transparency.
A model for all constellation operators to follow.
That’s well and good.
Upper stages that swell up and burst are a much greater concern, such as Boca’s Briz-M on steroids.
The movie GRAVITY can never occur due to anything happening in the Clarke Belt.
A depot rupturing is a different story.
When one of those things comes apart–it is going to hurt the private space movement than Biden ever could.
SuperHeavy doesn’t worry me–even after it’s recent split. It can never turn LEO into a mess.
This is a sign. Satellites raining from the sky closely precedes the stage where dogs and cats start sleeping together. The horror.
VAST may not even need Elon if this keeps up:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O0enZVKNT0A
Assuming that isn’t CGI….
I thought they were a payload company…but that rocket is…kerolox?
What do they know behind the scenes at Boca to make them get into the rocket business?
This has me scratching my head.
At least Elon is lettering them have the holiday off
Richard M,
The description of this incident makes it seem most likely to have been the result of an encounter between the sat and some quite small pit of orbiting space debris. As I’ve been noting in comments here and elsewhere for years, now, it is the operators of satellite mega-constellations whose assets are most at risk from this stuff and who, therefore, have the most concentrated economic incentive to do something decisive about its remediation.
If it isn’t already, SpaceX should be talking with Amazon and perhaps even with the PRC about ways and means of accomplishing that end. Whether or not SpaceX was to get any cooperation from either party, though, it should certainly proceed with measures to at least sweep debris particles that regularly cross the orbits in which the Starlink constellation resides.
Jeff Wright,
A depot rupturing, especially from an impactor of the size class most likely to have been the cause of the recent Starlink anomaly, would not be a catastrophe any more than is the Starlink loss.
As you note, depots will be huge. But they will also be in LEO. The lower in LEO they are, the more the tankers that fill and refill them can carry to their operating altitude. So anything spalled off in a debris collision won’t take long to de-orbit.
A small puncture also won’t produce much delta-V from escaping gas. A depot with a small hole in one or the other of its tanks will not produce an explosion and will not deviate from its orbit much before it can be visited by a repair mission that can weld a patch over the injury site.
Given that they will operate fairly low in LEO, depots will also likely be equipped with thrusters to keep their orbits maintained. The same argon-fueled Hall Effect thrusters used on Starlink birds would be sufficient for this purpose at some given level of multiplicity. Thus, if it was decided to re-enter and replace, rather than repair, a depot, it should be possible to do so in a controlled fashion even if it has a slow leak. Being Starship variants, the depots will still have engines so the de-orbiting could be impelled by either the thrusters or the main engines once the latter have done a burn to suitably settle the propellants in the tanks. A controlled descent into Point Nemo or any other equivalently convenient disposal locus should be readily manageable.
There are a lot of space-related things far more worthy of losing sleep over than the prospect of an errant SpaceX depot ship squashing you like a bug.
Jeff Wright,
You seem unacquainted with some key aspects of Vast’s history. Launcher was a company started by Max Haot – now Vast’s CEO – some years ago with a business plan built around a small space tug that could either fly as a rideshare payload on a SpaceX Transporter or Bandwagon mission or independently, on a small Electron-class orbit-capable vehicle the company would build itself. Generic orbit – ride SpaceX. Bespoke orbit – take their own vehicle. This engine was being developed to power Launcher’s launch vehicle.
Vast’s founder bought Launcher a few years ago to get an instant crew of space-savvy people on-board and part of the deal was that Haot would become CEO of the combined company as Vast’s founder was a crypto guy, not a space guy. The Launcher space tug seems to be on ice for the nonce and may never appear as a product. That’s still TDB I gather. This engine has continued in development with the intent that it be sold as a commodity to any user wanting a ready-made kerolox engine of this size – an Ursa Major-like sales proposition.
Vast is not going to be building its own rocket to replace the F9s, FHs or Starships it intends to use to orbit its Haven-1 and Haven-2 station components. It isn’t even going to build the small launch vehicle Launcher was founded, in part, to make.
Elon and Boca Chica have nothing to do with any of this and vice versa. Vast is HQed in Long Beach. Their engine test facility is up in the Mojave.
Everything clear now?
Whew! Thanks for the update…. It’s what I get from being a pessimist