SpaceX has opened its space situational awareness network to the wider industry, offering a free collision-screening platform built on imagery from Starlink’s own satellites.
SpaceX introduced the platform, called space-safety.com, on Aug. 24 at the Small Satellite Conference, where it hosted a side session for operators. The system draws on Stargaze, an SSA capability announced in January that uses star tracker images from Starlink spacecraft to detect and track objects, calculate orbits and flag potential conjunctions.
Stargaze, the sensor network behind the service, tracks objects down to a meter across using images from star trackers aboard Starlink satellites. With thousands of sensors, it can revisit tracked objects up to 10 times an hour and refresh orbits within five minutes of a new observation.
The platform screens more than 500,000 ephemeris files daily, compared with Space-Track’s three checks a day, and issues conjunction data messages within a minute of an ephemeris submission. In the past week alone, it drew ephemeris contributions from more than 30 operators covering over 700 spacecraft.
Hoot described the service as complementary to radar rather than a replacement, and said SpaceX is not trying to make money from SSA. The motivation is self-interest: Starlink is the largest constellation in existence, with more than 11,000 satellites, and SpaceX wants low Earth orbit kept safe for its own fleet.
The move puts a mega-constellation operator at the center of orbital traffic awareness, raising questions about how much of the space safety picture will be controlled by the largest single player in orbit.
