How Is Starlink Manoeuvring? An Analysis of Patterns in the Manoeuvres of Starlink Satellites

David Shorten, Wathsala Karunarathne, Wathsala Karunarathne, Matthew Roughan, Matthew Roughan

2024

Abstract

The rapid increase in the number of active satellites orbiting earth along with the simultaneous increase in the amount of space debris is causing earth’s exosphere to become ever more crowded. This crowding forces satellites to perform a rising number of collision-avoidance manoeuvres. At the time of publication, of the roughly 7700 active satellites orbiting earth, over 5000 belonged to the Starlink constellation. These satellites not only substantially contribute to the crowding of space, but are required to perform tens of thousands of collision-avoidance manoeuvres per year. As Starlink does not publish information on the timing of these manoeuvres, little is known about them beyond their total number. This work uses a recently-proposed algorithm for detecting satellite manoeuvres from the publicly-available 18th Space Defence Squadron TLE data to study the patterns in the manoeuvres of this constellation. Rich structure was found in the patterns of these manoeuvres, including regular synchronous bursts of station-keeping manouevres within launch groups (the groups of satellites launched on a single day) and a cyclical pattern of station keeping amoung the launch groups.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Shorten D., Karunarathne W. and Roughan M. (2024). How Is Starlink Manoeuvring? An Analysis of Patterns in the Manoeuvres of Starlink Satellites. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Internet of Things, Big Data and Security - Volume 1: IoTBDS; ISBN 978-989-758-699-6, SciTePress, pages 174-184. DOI: 10.5220/0012619900003705

in Bibtex Style

@conference{iotbds24,
author={David Shorten and Wathsala Karunarathne and Matthew Roughan},
title={How Is Starlink Manoeuvring? An Analysis of Patterns in the Manoeuvres of Starlink Satellites},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Internet of Things, Big Data and Security - Volume 1: IoTBDS},
year={2024},
pages={174-184},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0012619900003705},
isbn={978-989-758-699-6},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Internet of Things, Big Data and Security - Volume 1: IoTBDS
TI - How Is Starlink Manoeuvring? An Analysis of Patterns in the Manoeuvres of Starlink Satellites
SN - 978-989-758-699-6
AU - Shorten D.
AU - Karunarathne W.
AU - Roughan M.
PY - 2024
SP - 174
EP - 184
DO - 10.5220/0012619900003705
PB - SciTePress