SpaceX publishes close-approach data, urges operators to share flight paths

what happened

SpaceX said Starlink encountered about 650 unique maneuvering third-party satellites in 2026, with only about half of their operators sharing flight-path data, and recorded roughly 164,000 close approaches over six months where the closest approach came within four hours of an unannounced maneuver, per WFTV and Teslarati. SpaceX called policies that withhold maneuver plans "counterproductive," saying they "largely only serve to create preventable collision risk between satellites," and said it publishes its own Starlink flight paths hourly and offers other operators a free ephemeris-sharing and screening platform, backed by its 30,000-sensor Stargaze optical-tracking network, that returns conjunction-risk results within a minute. The announcement accompanied new detail on SpaceX's planned Starmind AI-satellite network, which the company said could scale to up to 1 million satellites alongside up to 100,000 Starlink satellites.

why it matters

SpaceX is using its own conjunction data to press other operators and regulators toward mandatory flight-path sharing just as it discloses plans for a satellite population an order of magnitude larger than Starlink today, a push that commercial space-situational-awareness vendors and rival constellation operators will have to respond to either by matching the disclosure or defending their own data-sharing policies.

SpaceX publishes close-approach data, urges operators to share flight paths

what happened

why it matters

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