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Comment by madaxe_again | Hacker News Reader

And so what if they collide? This isn’t Kessler syndrome territory, it’s low enough orbit that debris would re-enter and burn up rapidly. You’d lose the colliding satellites, and that’s likely all.

Not that there has been a single starlink collision, but y’know.

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> Not that there has been a single starlink collision

How sure are you that that would be made public?

Would it be always observed and caught outside of SpaceX?

If not, is that proof that if there such collisions they don't matter?

There are a great many eyes on the sky, and you can’t hide stuff up there - even every secret military satellite is known and tracked - so something as substantial as a collision would likely be known about before it even happens, as ephemera don’t change without an input.

Thank you for the answer. I'm aware of the degree of coverage over land but I was wondering about the ocean side of things as well.

> How sure are you that that would be made public?

Extremely sure. There are both numerous private, academic, and governmental agencies that are constantly searching for both collision paths, and collision debris.

The debris cloud alone would generate an extremely visible signature.

> Would it be always observed and caught outside of SpaceX?

Yes.

Thank you for the answer.

Wait until multiple, non-coordinated copy-cat constellations are sent up there ...

Large operators like SpaceX and OneWeb do coordinate with each other. Ground based radar tracking data from the government is also made available to operators, and SpaceX has developed their own optical space-based detection system (Stargaze) which makes data available to other operators as well.

There's a lot of money in this stuff, lot's of planning. It's being managed by competent people who give a shit.

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