Satellites come within 60m of collision

[Eldorado]

Elon Musk's SpaceX satellite prompted a 'red alert' warning after coming within 60m of smashing into another satellite owned by a British-backed firm.

Engineers at OneWeb and SpaceX scrambled to avoid what could have been a disastrous collision last month after the United States Space Force sent multiple "red alert" warnings that the two companies' satellites were about to crash.

Both SpaceX and OneWeb are in direct competition to establish an infrastructure of satellites that can provide high-speed and low-latency internet access to remote or rural locations around the world that were left behind by traditional cable-based providers.

Uk Telegraph report

Edited April 13, 2021 by Eldorado

[Eldorado]

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has accused British rival OneWeb of “misleading” the public by claiming that their satellites nearly collided in orbit.

It comes after a SpaceX satellite came within 190ft of a OneWeb craft earlier this month, prompting OneWeb to make evasive manoeuvres.

Following the incident, Chris McLaughlin, the regulatory head at OneWeb, told The Wall Street Journal that Mr Musk’s business “has a gung-ho approach to space.”

SpaceX forcefully denied this claim in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

UK Telegraph

[Eldorado]

SpaceX and OneWeb spar over satellite close approach

OneWeb said that initial estimates of the potential conjunction provided by the U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron (SPCS) March 30 projected that the two satellites would come within about 60 meters of each other, with a 1.3% chance of a collision, on April 3.

https://spacenews.com/spacex-and-oneweb-spar-over-satellite-close-approach/