Starlink satellite fails, polluting orbit with debris and falling toward Earth

As if to underscore the need to avoid the Kessler Syndrome, a scenario in which cascading debris can make some orbits difficult to use, a Starlink satellite vented propellant and released debris following an onboard "anomaly" late last week. The incident, described by observers as "likely caused by an internal energetic source …

[Steve Aubrey]

Dilbert's pointy-haired boss?

I find it interesting that they are simultaneously looking for the root cause *AND* writing software to fix it.

Wondering if there's a Wally getting ready to code himself a minivan . . .

[Flocke Kroes]

More careful reading

They are currently looking for the root cause and deploying software that is better at dodging fragments.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Re: More careful reading

"They are currently looking for the root cause and... "

According to the article, aren't looking for the root cause, but instead "working to root cause and mitigate...". "root cause" is clearly a verb now, that I suspect means go through a set list of actions in some modern fashionable take on systems engineering without understanding what you are doing or why.

Shuffles off muttering to oneself "in my day ... etc. etc."

[m4r35n357]

Re: More careful reading

Apparently so is "demise". How about a _new_ verb: "to verbify" (a noun) ;)

Aren't "living languages" great?

[Emir Al Weeq]

Re: More careful reading

Verbing words weirds language

- Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

[John Robson]

Re: Dilbert's pointy-haired boss?

You can have a fair idea of, and prevent, and intermediate failure, without knowing the root cause.

But Yes - I agree that it does sound backwards.

[Richard 12]

Re: Dilbert's pointy-haired boss?

The tank clearly ruptured, which is rather unlikely to be software unless they've done something deliberately shoddy to save costs.

[MJB7]

Re: Dilbert's pointy-haired boss?

Unless it was a battery that ruptured because the software commanded something which shorted it out. Or it was a tank with a heater that the software boiled dry. Or it ruptured because the software started shaking the bird at something's resonant frequency. Lots of ways for software could cause the problem.

And don't get me started on the ways that software gets asked to fix up problems in the hardware. (Yes, I've been an embedded programmer. How did you guess?)

[John Robson]

Re: Dilbert's pointy-haired boss?

The likelihood of this being a purely mechanical failure in a tank is relatively small given the number of these birds which have been deployed. It's always non zero, and the number of birds obviously runs the risk of exposing that small chance.

Scott Manley's latest "data centres in space" video points out that they go into a low power mode when over oceans to aid in cooling - if that didn't happen for some reason then you very quickly have a potential software cause for a battery overheat and failure...

Not that I suspect that will turn out to be the issue, but it's one example of the type of things that software can get wrong and cause a hardware failure.

[iron]

If you are still trying to determine the root cause then what the hell are you "already in the process of deploying"? And did you think we wouldn't spot this blatant lie?

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

You don't need to know the origin of a rogue packet to block it's egress at the firewall. Likewise a function doesn't have to know how an argument came to be NaN to reject it. And there are plenty of other situations where you can mitigate a behaviour without understanding it's origin. Indeed, the willingness of software to allow a rogue behaviour is, in itself, a bug; even if it's not the root cause.

[MachDiamond]

"If you are still trying to determine the root cause then what the hell are you "already in the process of deploying"?"

It's the same as Tesla sending out an OTA after one of their cars burst into flames in an underground car park before the car could be retrieved and examined. That sounded like they knew they had settings in the battery management system that were too close to the edge. It may have also been damage or a hardware fault and Tesla (Elon, the head of PR) thought that getting out in front with a "solution" to the problem as quickly as possible was better than learning what was wrong first. Model 3 has braking distance issue, send out an OTA the next day. How does a company do a full test of the new software in one day?

[Ropewash]

In the case of breaking distance there's no testing required.

All they did was change the gap at which the software switches off and pretends it was never there from 5m to 10m. <!--sarcasm>

[cd]

So it didn't last as long as Liz Truss...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not content

Not content with destroying America, he wants to now destroy the world.

Who'd have known that the first real life James-Bond villain would be such a dumb screwup?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Not content

Could he re-purpose his "Rescue Submarine" that's lying idle - do some modifications and launch it to LEO for it to "hoover up" the mess he's made?

icon: fingers crossed it does not suffer a RUD before getting up there and cleaning up

[IvyKing]

Re: Not content

The satellite and debris are in a low orbit, which means the drag from the atmosphere will quickly remove the objects from orbit. IIRC, SpaceX deploys the satellites at a lower orbit and then has the satellites boost themselves to the operational orbit. That way, a DOA bird will de-orbit in a relatively short time.

In case of a real Kessler Syndrome event, the lowest orbits will be cleared out in a relatively short time, but the more useful orbits will need some sort of active clearing to become usable.

[John Robson]

Re: Not content

Not sure you can really describe the lowest orbits as "not useful".

It's definitely the higher orbits that have the greatest risk associated with them though.

[Joe W]

Re: Not content

Starlink typically flies higher than the ISS and Hubble. I'd say those are pretty useful orbits (and platforms).

[Alan Brown]

Re: Not content

Yes, however the low initial orbit gives time to shakedown the birds and ensure and DOA ones come down very quickly.

There's a massive need to get some form of international agreement to actively bring down anything out past about 800km. Below that things clear out naturally in a reasonable timeframe

One of the biggest problems is that anything capable of deorbiting junk - whether a ground based system like a laser broom, or a space based tugboat - is also capable of deorbiting active hardware belonging to people who don't want it deorbited. That results in the simgle biggest impediment to solving problem being political, not technical. GIven human nature and politicians in particular, it's quite likely that agreements on cleanup won't ha[[en until something has already gone catastrophically wrong

"Why do we need to spend money on this? Nobody's been hurt in 75 years. Why do we need to worry about this now?"

[Gary Stewart]

Re: Not content

Just don't tell him it won't work unless you want to be called a pedo. And it all went over the cliff in spectacular fashion after that.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: Not content

If enough of us tell him it won't work and then sue when he calls us pedos then maybe we could bankrupt him

[Omnipresent]

Like falling stars

Merry Christmas everyone, and to all a good night:

[that one in the corner]

I missed the Geminids

for all the usual reasons (cloud, a different type of cloud, fog) so maybe this will make up for it when the whole sky comes Alive With Lights.

[mistersaxon]

Re: I missed the Geminids

This is starting to remind me of Day of the Triffids. Anyone been experimenting with ambulatory carnivorous plants recently to your knowledge?

[John Robson]

Re: I missed the Geminids

There was a sign down the road: Heavy Plant Crossing

[Alan Brown]

Re: I missed the Geminids

I'm sure Interflora have something up their sleeves.

"Say it with flowers. Send a Triffid"

[Michael Hoffmann]

Great...

This one was only deployed a month ago?

More signs of demoralisation at SpaceX and other Musk corps, QA going down the drain?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Great...

QA? Did he try out DOGE doctorine on SpaceX and get rid to QA

[Gary Stewart]

Re: Great...

Perhaps you should take a look at the Falcon 9 record and there are over 9300 closing in on 9400 Starlink satellites in orbit, almost but not all of them operational so I'm not surprised that ONE of them went boom. Obviously it would be much better for this to not happen but we are not very good at getting 100% no boom with complex space systems. And for the record I would like Elon to stay as far away from SpaceX as possible. Well at least I can dream.

[Grumpy Fellow]

Re: Great...

Just a genuine question here. Can you point me to any data showing the number or percentage of Starlink satellites that remain operational? I have not been able to find even a crummy AI summary that offers that data. It's easy to find how many have been launched, but I just don't see anything hinting at reliability numbers.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Great...

"Can you point me to any data showing the number or percentage of Starlink satellites that remain operational?"

I believe there is a wikipedia page. I've seen a website that keeps track pointed to by others so it (likely) exists.

[Gary Stewart]

Re: Great...

Via Google using "how many starlink satellites in orbit are not operational" and Space.com

"As of Dec. 19, 2025, there are currently 9,357 Starlink satellites in orbit, of which 9,347 are working, according to Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks the constellation on his website."

Not sure how he determines which ones are operational and I the "AI" response said that 1200 were not operational. However that response doesn't say how many of these are due to not being in the correct orbit yet or why any of the others are nonfunctional such as being in the process of de-orbiting after reaching expected lifetime. I believe that neither are completely accurate for the reasons stated and further googling did not provide any useful information, at least that I saw.

P.S. I have found on at least three occasions where Google "AI" was blatantly wrong so add that to the reasons for being uncertain.

[Oneman2Many]

Re: Great...

All the stats you ever wanted to know about starlink,

Jonathan's Space Report | Space Statistics https://share.google/tBD9Zh2POQvtzBOsu

[Grumpy Fellow]

Re: Great...

That site is amazing! Thank you for posting the link! They do show very impressive reliability as previously mentioned.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Great...

They'd better have an impressive reliability, because give the numbers of satellites planned, even an infinitesimal chance of failure will mean hundreds of incidents, some of which are statistically bound to be serious.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Great...

Jonathan McDowell has a website

[chololennon]

Re: Great...

> Just a genuine question here. Can you point me to any data showing the number or percentage of Starlink satellites that remain operational?

You can download the dataset (and do your maths) from:

https://www.space-track.org/

If you don't want to create a free account to download the datasets, you can get a copy, updated in February 2025, from:

https://github.com/EnzoRg/space_debris/tree/main/data/raw

[Dr B]

Re: Great...

What does a micrometeorite hit have to do with staff morale??

[BackToTheFuture]

Surely it's a loot cause they should be looking for? Think I can help point them in the right direction......

[Winkypop]

Full Self Drive satellites

Or is that Falling Star Debris?

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: Full Self Drive satellites

Full Self Destruction

[Christoph]

"the release of a small number of trackable low relative velocity objects."

"hundreds" of debris objects associated with the incident were being tracked

So according to Musk, "hundreds" is "a small number".

And how many untrackable objects?

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

And good use of the word "relative" in there too, just to make it all sound calm and relaxed.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Low relative velocity" just means they all have (unsurprisingly) about the same speed. Much like a machine gun bullet has a low relative velocity compared to the other bullets of the same burst. It doesn't say anything about its potential of destruction.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

"And how many untrackable objects?"

Depends on your threshold of trackable, but rough rule of thumb is that for every trackable object, there are about 10 (smaller) untrackable ones.

If there are 100s of trackable bits of debris, that means 1000s of bits of total debris. Starlink satellites are only 575 kgs, so for one to turn into 1000s (or even 100s) of bits seems like it would have been a highly catastrophic event.

Images of the satellite in question seen to show it largely intact, so even "hundreds" of bits of trackable debris seems a bit of an exaggeration. https://x.com/michaelnicollsx/status/2002419447521562638?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2002419447521562638%7Ctwgr%5E2197582c8443b96c2fa07bf9cd9fbb8e65f896cf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.space.com%2Fspace-exploration%2Fsatellites%2Fdoomed-spacex-starlink-satellite-photographed-from-orbit

[Ozumo]

"Highly catastrophic" - can something be only a little bit catastrophic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Standard definition:

- Highly catastrophic = It might affect you.

- Little bit catastrophic = It will only affect other people.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Fair point. I meant catstrophic as in killing the satellite, highly meaning to kill the satellite and scatter it in many pieces at the same time.

[schofiel]

Incoherence

It's worrying that their "engineers" apparently don't have a grasp of basic English grammar, let alone space vehicle design.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Re: Incoherence

That doesn't bother me too much, it's probably not the engineers chucking out the banal twisted media speak announcements. And you can design space craft in other languages.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Incoherence

"And you can design space craft in other languages."

In the US, you must be a "US Person" to work in aerospace. That doesn't exclude people born elsewhere, but the majority will be native USAins. Except for finance. Elon seems to prefer native born Indian people with thick accents for senior financial roles.

[Will Godfrey]

Prison?

So is humanity creating it's own cage to ensure we won't bother the rest of the galaxy.

[X5-332960073452]

Re: Prison?

I hope so !

[Tron]

An internal energetic source.

For any parents who bought toys for their kids, let's hope they remembered to bag some back up internal energetic sources.

Commiserations to anyone whose loved ones fully demised this year.

And whilst you are on holiday, don't forget to work to root cause and mitigate that wonky shelf.

How do these fcukers get jobs in science talking BS like this? They should be ashamed of themselves.

[Judge Mental]

That's a pretty poor failure rate.

Move fast and break things.

Now I know what that means. Any other product failing that often will cause a firm to go bankrupt.

[samam95124]

The bad news: Kessler probably gonna happen.

The good news: LEO space is self clearing.