Is Starlink satellite threat to humans? Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and a tech billionaire, called the Federal Aviation Administration’s report on the risks the Starlink satellite constellation poses to people on Earth “inaccurate” and urged the regulators to “improvise” instead.
Elon Musk’s company said in a letter Tuesday that the report relied “on a deeply flawed analysis that falsely characterizes reentry disposal risks associated with Starlink.”
The letter read: “To be clear, SpaceX’s satellites are designed and built to fully demise during atmospheric reentry during disposal at end of life, and they do so.”
The Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit organization that contributed to the report, was also charged with failing to take into account SpaceX’s analysis of the satellite disposal.
The FAA’s report, which painted a dire picture of the threats posed by Musk’s Starlink satellite constellation, was delivered to members of Congress on October 5.
It suggested: “By 2035 if the expected large constellation growth is realized and debris from Starlink satellites survive reentry … one person on the planet would be expected to be injured or killed every two years.”
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The likelihood of an aircraft being involved in an accident with falling space debris could be 0.0007 per year by 2035, according to the report’s estimation.
325 satellites have been deorbited since February 2020, according to SpaceX, and no debris has been discovered.
In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, the Aerospace Corporation said, “Our technical team is in communication with SpaceX and others to review and update the data.”
“It was approached by the FAA more than two years ago to do an independent assessment of collective risks associated with satellite re-entry, based upon the projection of all planned operators under US regulation in 2021,” it stated in a statement.
“The data included existing and planned constellations through 2035. The greatest percentage of satellites were those in Low Earth Orbit.”
Is Starlink satellite threat to humans?
The FAA acknowledged that there is no risk when Starlink satellites fall back to Earth at the end of their operational life because they completely burn up in the atmosphere.
However, the Aerospace Corporation noted that “with the thousands of satellites expected to reenter, even a small amount of debris can impose a significant risk over time.”
SpaceX while rejecting the report regarded the assessment based on “egregious errors, omissions and incorrect assumptions.”
SpaceX also criticized the 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.”
The report noted that by 2035, Elon Musk’s satellites will account for “85% of the expected risk to people on the ground and aviation.”
