Expert: Western sanctions increase the risk of satellite collisions

According to Elena Pavlova, the "layers" of the U.S. military constellations Starshield and SDA constitute a distinct threat.

Moscow, October 14. /TASS/. Yelena Pavlova, chief designer of Russia's Automatic Warning System in Dangerous Situations in Space (ASPOS OKP), told TASS: The sanctions regime imposed by the European Union and the United States against Russia and other countries increases the risk of spacecraft collisions with the expansion of satellite constellations.

Large satellite constellations in low earth orbit are mainly developed by Americans and Chinese. While the Americans guarantee collision safety for their own and European spacecraft (Starlink performed more than 350,000 collision avoidance maneuvers last year), they do not directly embargo satellite paths with the Chinese or with satellite operators. by the United States and the European Union against "unfriendly" Eastern countries, as a result, the simultaneous growth of these constellations significantly increases the probability of collision due to the absence of accepted rules of space traffic management.

According to him, the "layers" of the US military constellation Starshield and SDA are a clear threat. The expert believes that the US Space Command does not publish its orbital data, which also creates conditions for possible collisions with other space objects.