FAA concerned over SpaceX space debris
October 11, 2023
By Chris Forrester
The FAA last week issued a report to the US Congress expressing concern over how the growing number of satellite constellations will dispose of their failed craft and what the FAA says are the risks to human life and property. The report says: “The dramatic rise of non-geostationary satellites, particularly those in low Earth orbit (LEO), poses an increased risk to people on Earth and aviation due to re-entering debris.”
The FAA instructed The Aerospace Corporation to research and prepare the report for the FAA. One prospect is for the FAA to amend its payload obligations on operators to address the re-entry risk of large constellations through a rulemaking activity.
The report predicts dire consequences, saying: “if the expected large constellation growth is realized and debris from Starlink satellites survive re-entry … one person on the planet would be expected to be injured or killed every two years.”
Additionally, the report says: “A stack of 60 Starlink first generation satellites has a mass of just over 17 tons, whereas the upper stage that placed those satellites in orbit has a mass of over 25 tons. Therefore, the FAA notes in this report that a safety assessment of large constellations must consider all re-entry risks, including both satellite and launch vehicle stages. The FAA regulates purposeful, controlled disposal of upper stages at the end of a launch operation when it is planned, but the controlled disposal is not mandated in FAA regulation.”
SpaceX responded to the FAA, according to a leaked letter to CNN, saying: “To be clear, SpaceX’s satellites are designed and built to fully demise during atmospheric re-entry during disposal at end of life, and they do so.”
The letter also states that 325 Starlink satellites have already deorbited since February 2020, and no debris has been found. SpaceX also criticised the FAA report for focusing “only on Starlink, disregarding other satellite systems like Amazon’s Project Kuiper, OneWeb, or any of the LEO systems being developed and deployed by China.”