- [Announcer] Five, four, three, two, one, zero, ignition.
- [Narrator] In less than three years,
Space X has launched about 1800 satellites
to build a network called STARLINK.
- The world seems to have an insatiable appetite
for bandwidth.
- [Narrator] STARLINK is one of several projects
to bring super fast internet
to basically every corner of the earth using satellites.
Its rivals include Britain based OneWeb
a nascent initiative by Amazon,
but also China's own satellite industry.
- The amount of traffic in space
and particularly in low earth orbit
has increased dramatically largely due to the STARLINK.
- [Narrator] Now rivals and countries are complaining
that STARLINK satellites have endangered other spacecraft.
According to one tally by a British university.
STARLINK is involved in as many as 2,400 close encounters
every week, about 58% of all such known incidents.
- Things have gotten louder in recent times
as STARLINK is growing.
- [Narrator] After China complain to the United Nations
that its space station had to maneuver
to avoid hitting a STARLINK satellite,
Musk responded that there's plenty of space in orbit.
But as Space X alone
wants to launch tens of thousands more satellites,
sciences and critics are now raising safety concerns
and calling for more regulation in space.
To understand why STARLINK has drawn so much criticism
first, you need to know where the satellites are
and how they work.
- [Jonathan] Space X astronomy.
They're in low earth orbit.
- [Narrator] Jonathan McDowell is a scientist
at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
and he's been studying space programs around the world
for over 40 years.
- The majority of the STARLINK satellites
are orbiting at their operational height of 550 kilometers.
- [Narrator] And that's different
from the traditional broadband satellites we had before,
which usually operate about 36,000 kilometers
above the earth ground.
The closer distance allows the STARLINK satellites
to more easily provide faster internet speed.
But the flip side is.
- You need thousands instead of like three or four
to cover the whole world because a low orbit satellite
is gonna go overhead rise above the horizon and set again
in just a few minutes.
- [Narrator] One issue is that low orbit
is already quite crowded.
There are other satellites used for purposes
like monitoring weather or taking pictures
as well as older devices launched since the 1950s
and also the International Space Station
and China's space station are located in that area.
Not to mention tons of space debris
from leftovers from earlier space missions and tests.
On top of that critics say STARLINK's satellite's movements
are hard to predict
because of the particular technology they use.
- They use what's called electric propulsion.
STARLINK is the only large constellation
that's using electric propulsion on a regular basis
in low earth orbit.
It fires all the time very slowly.
Gradually it's mood changing its orbit all the time.
- [Narrator] OneWeb also uses similar technology,
but it only has a few hundred satellites.
On the other hand, many satellites
use chemical rocket engines to change course
only when needed.
And so most of the time they sit in a fixed orbit.
So what are the actual risks of an accident happening
in low orbit?
In its recent complaint China detailed two instances
in which its space station found itself
in the way of STARLINK satellites.
- So this complaint kind of mirrors the complaints
that have been made in the past about similar incidents.
The European Union had a complaint like that in 2019.
And then one year later OneWeb,
the British based constellation
has made a similar complaint.
- [Narrator] China didn't call for specific action
by Space X, but said countries are responsible
for what happens in space under international treaties.
Space X didn't respond to our request for comment
on these incidents, but Musk has pushed back
in a recent interview claiming that space is big
and there's room for tens of billions of satellites.
STARLINK has said its satellites are equipped
with artificial intelligence to help avoid collisions,
but it hasn't revealed details of the system.
- It's quite a large object.
And if something that big hits you at that speed,
it's gonna completely disintegrate your spacecraft.
And if it were to hit the Chinese space station,
it would destroy it and kill all the people aboard.
- [Narrator] Satellites must fly
at about 17,000 miles per hour in low earth orbit,
which is roughly 250 times faster than a car on the highway.
Although no collision has been reported,
such accidents could also be catastrophic
because of the chain reactions
they would potentially create,
which is illustrated in this animated simulation
by the European Space Agency.
- [Jonathan] These objects smashed together,
generate thousands of pieces of debris,
which then hit other objects,
which then carry more thousands of pieces of debris.
- [Narrator] Scientists say all these risks
need to be factored in by everyone, not just STARLINK
and the fast-growing industry.
- STARLINK is the market leader at the moment
and other companies are trying to catch up.
So I don't think we will see the frequency
of launching these satellites subside.
- [Narrator] China hasn't started launching
its own satellites, but has plans to build a constellation
of more than 10,000.
Amazon's project KUIPER, which is set to test satellites
in 2022 aims to build a network of more than 3000.
And OneWeb, which is controlled by Indian conglomerate,
Bharti global and the UK government
wants to send more than 600 satellites into space.
As all these satellites head to the skies,
the race sets the stage for global debate
about how to regulate them.
- One of the points that that critics and scientists
are making is that this regulation
needs to become more advanced and more uniform
in order for countries to kind of work together
in the same framework.
- But unfortunately, that process is a slow process,
much slower than the rate at which commercial development
and technology development is going.
So I think it's actually a good sign
that China is engaging in this in a public way,
presented to the UN
really puts the issue of space traffic management
higher on the agenda.