MOSCOW. Oct 25 (Interfax) - An enlargement of the group of Internet satellites of the U.S. company SpaceX could increase the probability of collisions of objects in orbit, chief designer of the space surveillance system (MAK Vympel) Vitaly Goryuchkin told Interfax.
"The enlargement of the Starlink group dramatically increases the number of low-orbit spacecraft, that is, the situation is fairly acute already. And an enlargement of the group will proportionately increase the probability of collisions," Goryuchkin said.
Several collisions, each of which will generate several thousand objects, may have irreversible consequences, he said.
"We also need to bear in mind that the service life of this spacecraft is five years. Accordingly, 2,400 of the 12,000 spacecraft need to be removed from orbit every year to burn up in the dense atmosphere, and the same number of spacecraft need to be launched to take the place of decommissioned ones. All these things generate new launch fragments, a lot of active orbital traffic, that is, the situation will be quite tense and difficult, and it will be fairly difficult to control," Goryuchkin said.
Insufficient regulation of orbital traffic can lead to serious problems, Goryuchkin said. "Good regulation is needed as a foundation for technical control, as well as a legal framework, which currently also requires considerable development, work at the international level," he said.
The SpaceX orbital group already consists of 1,789 satellites.
The company is now the largest satellite operator in the world.
In the future, SpaceX plans to deploy an orbital group of 12,000 spacecraft of this type and subsequently an orbital group of 30,000 to create a full-scale network that will help provide broadband Internet access to people in any place on Earth. The total amount of investment in the project is estimated at $10 billion.