(Credit: SpaceX)
To prevent Starlink satellite collisions, SpaceX has announced Stargaze, or what’s basically a space traffic control system that’ll supply free data about all the objects floating in Earth’s orbit.
Stargaze takes real-time data from Starlink satellites, which currently number over 9,600 in orbit. To navigate, the satellites have been outfitted with "star trackers," or sensors that continuously survey the surrounding stars to help determine a satellite's location, altitude, and orientation.
(Credit: Starlink.com)Those star trackers—which number nearly 30,000—can also detect other orbiting objects, giving SpaceX a way to plot out and predict the “position and velocity for all detected objects in near real-time,” it wrote in the announcement.
To improve space safety, the company is preparing to open the data to the satellite industry after beta testing the Stargaze system. “SpaceX is now providing precise positional awareness of objects in Earth orbit to all satellite operators for free," CEO Elon Musk tweeted. “This will greatly reduce the probability of collisions that create orbital debris (space junk) hazards.”
The company announced Stargaze over a month after a satellite deployed from a Chinese rocket was at risk of colliding with a Starlink satellite. A SpaceX executive blamed the near-accident on a “lack of coordination between satellite operators” and demanded change. It turns out the Chinese-deployed satellite made a relatively abrupt maneuver, putting it within 60 meters (196 feet) of the Starlink satellite, giving the company only five hours to respond, SpaceX said.
“With so little time to react, this would not have been possible by relying on legacy radar systems or high-latency conjunction screening processes,” SpaceX said. “If observations of the third-party satellite were less frequent, conjunction screening took longer, or the reaction required human approval, such an event might not have been successfully mitigated.”
The company adds that current “conventional methods typically observe objects only a limited number of times per day, causing large uncertainties in orbital predictions, further compounded by volatile space weather.” In contrast, Stargaze promises to provide data on potential collisions “within minutes, compared to the current industry standard of several hours.”
(Credit: Starlink.com)So far, Stargaze has been available only as a closed beta to “over a dozen participating satellite operators.” But this spring, the company is opening it up to all satellite operators that submit data to the platform. We're also curious to see if the Stargaze data could be used for other purposes, such as asteroid detection. In the meantime, the company has been publishing Starlink trajectory data and creating an API for satellite operators to use.
SpaceX is currently working to launch tens of thousands of additional Starlink satellites into Earth’s orbit. On top of this, Musk has been talking up space-based data centers. These plans could drastically increase Earth's satellite count, since other companies, including those in China, have been developing their own megaconstellations, raising concerns about satellite crowding in low-Earth orbit.
In SpaceX’s case, Starlink satellites have thrusters, enabling them to maneuver to avoid potential collisions. From June to November 2025, the satellites performed 148,696 propulsive maneuvers to stay in safe orbits, the company recently told the FCC. That's up from a mere 6,873 maneuvers back in 2022, when the constellation numbered around 2,300 satellites.