A potentially dangerous collision in space was narrowly avoided last week after a newly launched Chinese satellite passed within just a few hundred meters of a Starlink satellite in low Earth orbit.
SpaceX says the close call happened because the satellite operator did not share accurate location data.
Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink Engineering, said that when satellite operators fail to share orbital information, the risk of dangerous encounters increases. He explained that nine satellites were deployed from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and, to SpaceX’s knowledge, no coordination was done with existing satellites. As a result, one of the newly deployed satellites came as close as 200 meters to Starlink-6079 at an altitude of about 560 kilometers.
Starlink satellites are designed to automatically maneuver to avoid collisions, but this system only works when other objects in orbit are properly tracked and known. In the first six months of 2025 alone, Starlink satellites carried out more than 144,000 avoidance maneuvers to steer clear of potential threats.
The satellite involved in the incident was launched by CAS Space, a commercial launch company based in Guangzhou, China. Responding to the claims on X, the company said its team is in contact to gather more details. CAS Space stated that all of its launches use ground-based space monitoring systems to select launch windows that avoid known satellites and debris, calling this a mandatory procedure.
However, the company also suggested the incident was not directly linked to the launch itself, noting that the close approach occurred nearly 48 hours after the satellites separated from the launch vehicle, a point at which the launch mission had already ended.
The incident highlights growing concerns about congestion in low Earth orbit. More than 24,000 objects, including active satellites and space debris, are currently being tracked there. This number has increased by 76 percent since 2019, according to Space magazine. By the end of the decade, experts estimate that as many as 70,000 satellites could be operating in the same region, largely driven by space internet projects from the United States, China, and Europe.
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News of this near-miss is likely to add to fears about the long-term safety of space operations. Scientists warn that even a single collision could trigger what is known as the Kessler syndrome, a chain reaction in which debris from one crash causes multiple others. Such a scenario could destroy large numbers of satellites and potentially make low Earth orbit unusable for years.
