SpaceX Accuses Chinese Spacecraft of Nearly Swiping a Starlink Satellite

SpaceX claims that a Chinese Kinetica 1 rocket launch from Tuesday, Dec. 9 passed within 200 meters of one of its Starlink satellites, prompting real concerns over collisions and extensive debris in low Earth orbit. SpaceX and space experts are now calling for greater cooperation between international companies and country's space agencies to avoid potential mishaps like this in the future.

"As far as we know, no coordination or deconfliction with existing satellites operating in space was performed, resulting in a 200-meter close approach between one of the deployed satellites and STARLINK-6079 (56120) at 560km altitude," said Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink engineering at SpaceX (via Space.com). "Most of the risk of operating in space comes from the lack of coordination between satellite operators—this needs to change."

The Chinese space agency, CAS, responded to this commentary by making it clear that "all CAS space launches select ...