>>sfblah+Ik
If you're familiar with the technical specs, I'd be interested in hearing what size of objects the star trackers can sense and at what range. In theory the fancier star trackers can see objects around 10 cm diameter hundreds of kilometers away, without needing to worry about a pesky atmosphere [1], but I don't know how sensitive the sensors on Starlink's current generation satellites are, and this web site isn't saying.

They're mostly touting the improvement in latency over existing tracking, from delays measured in hours to ones measured in minutes. Which is very nice, of course, but the lack of other technical detail is mildly frustrating.

[1] https://www.mit.edu/~hamsa/pubs/ShtofenmakherBalakrishnan-IA...

>>pjscot+kn
NASA tracks debris 10cm or larger. They also detect and statistically estimate debris as small as 3mm in LEO.

This is my source, from 2021 fwiw: https://oig.nasa.gov/office-of-inspector-general-oig/ig-21-0...

>>sidcoo+ty1
> “Starship is going to Mars at the end of 2026.”

https://www.futura-sciences.com/en/elon-musk-promises-a-trip...

> New video evidence shows that Tesla’s supposedly “unsupervised” Robotaxis in Austin are being closely followed by black Tesla trailing cars with safety monitors inside. Tesla didn’t remove the safety monitors – it just moved them to a different vehicle.

https://electrek.co/2026/01/22/tesla-starts-robotaxi-rides-w...

>>lazyfa+tC1
I believe the US and China (and Russia according to the Wendover video [1]) already have anti-satellite weapons to be used in a conflict, but they aren't like "blow this up" because of space debris. I'm not exactly sure how they work, but they aren't what we expect with terrestrial weapons.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0DmliiUFHk

>>atonse+eD1
This article is a short history of anti-satellite weapons, discussing who has demonstrated their capability: https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/centre-for-air-and-space-p...

I'm sure I read a more recent account of a satellite moving another satellite around in order to degrade its orbit, but I can only find this 2022 instance: https://www.twz.com/44054/a-chinese-satellite-just-grappled-...

>>hnburn+(OP)
There's an interesting podcast covering space situational awareness from RUSI (Royal United Services Institute, UK). Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/eyes-in-orbit-space-si...

>>hnburn+(OP)
Casey Handmer was speculating that they could use these Starlink images to detect Near-Earth Asteroids using star occultations:

https://x.com/CJHandmer/status/2017124903057838374

You basically have thousands of cameras taking constant images of the sky. If you could upgrade the cameras, you could deploy a continuous all-sky astronomical survey as a by-product.

>>c22+EV
When you're SpaceX and building this[1], others aren't going to try too hard to avoid your satellites..

[1] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_syst...

>>fnord7+tG1
Back in 2020 articles came out on how New Horizons is now so far out that it sees stars differently from its perspective than how we see them on earth.

https://www.space.com/nasa-new-horizons-star-shift-parallax-...