SpaceX公司一次发射数十颗卫星可能导致轨道交通堵塞

SpaceX公司一次发射数十颗卫星可能导致轨道交通堵塞

SpaceX successfully launched 60 communications satellites on Monday using a single rocket.
周一，SpaceX用一枚火箭成功发射了60颗通信卫星。

It's the second time in less than a year that Elon Musk's company has made such a launch, marking a dramatic increase in the number of satellites in orbit.

这是埃隆·马斯克的公司在不到一年的时间里第二次进行这样的发射，标志着在轨卫星数量的大幅增加。

Over the next year, SpaceX and a rival company, OneWeb, plan to put hundreds of networked satellites in orbit to eventually provide high-speed Internet to any point on Earth. But critics worry that lax regulations, poor infrastructure and Musk's go-fast ethos could lead to chaos.

明年，SpaceX和竞争对手OneWeb计划将数百颗联网卫星送入轨道，最终为地球上各处提供高速互联网。但批评人士担心，松懈的监管、糟糕的基础设施和马斯克的急躁精神可能会导致混乱。

"If things break in space, it's pretty difficult to solve that problem," says Tim Farrar, president of TMF Associates, a consulting and research firm in satellite communications. "It's not like your car breaking down on the side of the road."

卫星通信咨询和研究公司TMF 联合公司的总裁蒂姆•法勒表示:“如果太空中发生了爆炸，这个问题就很难解决。”“这不像你的车在路边抛锚。”

In a statement to NPR, SpaceX said it believes the network can operate safely. "Starlink is on the leading edge of on-orbit debris mitigation, meeting or exceeding all regulatory and industry standards," the company says.

SpaceX公司在向美国国家公共电台(NPR)发表的一份声明中表示，它相信该网络可以安全运行。该公司表示:“Starlink在减少在轨碎片方面处于领先地位，达到或超过了所有监管和行业标准。”

Broken-down satellites, or what's left of them, are already a big problem, particularly in low-Earth orbit, where SpaceX's Starlink network is being deployed. The European Space Agency estimated in January that there are nearly a million pieces of space junk larger than 1 centimeter (about three-eighths of an inch) circling the planet.

出故障的卫星，或者说它们的残余物，已经是一个大问题，尤其是在近地轨道，SpaceX的Starlink网络正在那里部署。欧洲航天局1月份估计，环绕地球的太空垃圾超过1厘米(约八分之三英寸)，约有100万颗。

SpaceX says it's planning 24 more launches next year, adding to this already crowded space environment. In September, ESA's Aeolus Earth observation satellite was forced to fire its maneuvering thrusters to avoid a potential collision with one of the Starlink satellites launched in May.

SpaceX公司表示，他们计划明年再发射24枚火箭，这将使本已拥挤的太空环境雪上加霜。今年9月，欧洲航天局的Aeolus地球观测卫星被迫启动机动推进器，以避免与5月份发射的Starlink卫星发生潜在碰撞。

At the time, Holger Krag, head of the Space Debris Office at ESA, called the incidentan example of how "in the absence of traffic rules and communication protocols, collision avoidance depends entirely on the pragmatism of the operators involved."

当时，欧空局太空碎片办公室的负责人霍尔格·克拉克(Holger Krag)称，这起事故是一个例子，说明“在没有交通规则和通信协议的情况下，避免碰撞完全取决于相关运营商的务实态度”。

But that hasn't dissuaded Musk, whose ambitious goal is to put 1,600 satellites in orbit to get truly global coverage for SpaceX's broadband service, with 400 to 800 needed to start service, Farrar says.

但这并没有阻止马斯克，他雄心勃勃的目标是将1600颗卫星送入轨道，为SpaceX的宽带服务实现真正的全球覆盖，需要400到800颗卫星才能开始服务，法勒说。

Ultimately, the space could grow to as many as 30,000 satellites, according to SpaceX filings to regulators. By contrast, there are only about 2,000 satellites in operation today.

SpaceX提交给监管机构的文件显示，最终，太空可能会发展到多达3万颗卫星。相比之下，目前只有大约2000颗卫星在运行。

Farrar says the project is all about SpaceX's bottom line. The company is valued at about $30 billion, but its revenues are just a small fraction of that.

法勒说，这个项目完全是为了SpaceX的利润。该公司的市值约为300亿美元，但其收入只是其中的一小部分。

"If it's just going to justify that valuation it's going to have to generate an awful lot more revenue in the future, and the only realistic way to do that in the next few years is to get in the communications business with Starlink," Farrar says.

Farrar表示:“如果只是为了证明这个估值是合理的，那么未来它将必须产生更多的收入，而在未来几年实现这一目标的唯一现实途径就是与Starlink合作，进入通信业务领域。”

So SpaceX is moving quickly. It's planning to launch 60 more satellites soon, and more shortly after that. Meanwhile, OneWeb says it will launch more than 30 satellites each month starting next year.

因此，SpaceX正在迅速行动。它计划不久之后再发射60颗卫星，不久之后还会发射更多。与此同时，OneWeb表示，从明年开始，每月将发射30多颗卫星。

"The scale of these systems is unprecedented," says Hugh Lewis, an orbital debris expert at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom who has worked as a consultant for OneWeb.

“这些系统的规模是前所未有的，”英国南安普顿大学轨道碎片专家、OneWeb顾问休·刘易斯说。

Lewis says all these new satellites could increase the chances of collisions that would spread shrapnel throughout low-Earth orbit.

刘易斯说，所有这些新卫星都可能增加碰撞的机会，使碎片散布在近地轨道上。

How big of a problem this might be is unclear, he says, because no one has ever tried something like this before. To try to find out, he has been running simulations.

他说，这个问题到底有多大还不清楚，因为以前从来没有人尝试过这样的东西。为了找到答案，他一直在进行模拟实验。