SpaceX said on Dec. 13, 2025, that a satellite deployed from a recent CAS Space launch had passed within about 200 meters of one of its Starlink satellites. CAS Space said it was seeking details and would coordinate with satellite operators, but did not independently confirm the reported encounter.
Michael Nicolls, SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink engineering, said the close approach involved STARLINK-6079 (56120) at an altitude of about 560 kilometers. His post did not identify which of the launch’s nine payloads approached the Starlink spacecraft or state whether it performed an avoidance maneuver.
“As far as we know, no coordination or deconfliction with existing satellites operating in space was performed,” Nicolls wrote on X. He attributed the reported encounter to that lack of coordination and called for satellite operators to share orbital trajectory data.
CAS Space seeks details
CAS Space said all its launches undergo mandatory screening using a ground-based space situational awareness system to select launch windows that avoid collisions with known satellites and debris. The company said it would establish the details of the reported encounter and provide assistance as the launch services provider.
In a follow-up post, CAS Space said that, if confirmed, the encounter occurred nearly 48 hours after payload separation, when the launch mission had already concluded. It said it would coordinate with the satellite operators and called for renewed collaboration between the two commercial space sectors.
Nicolls welcomed the response, saying SpaceX looked forward to coordinating on future launches. He reiterated his call for data sharing among satellite operators.
The Kinetica 1 rocket launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Dec. 10 in China, corresponding to Dec. 9 in the United States. It carried six Chinese multifunctional satellites, an Earth-observation satellite for the United Arab Emirates, a scientific satellite for Egypt and an educational satellite for Nepal.
Starlink’s collision-avoidance activity
SpaceX’s Dec. 8 launch carried its 3,000th Starlink satellite of 2025. Starlink satellites use an autonomous collision-avoidance system to respond to potential collisions predicted from tracking data.
In his analysis of SpaceX’s July 1 filing with the Federal Communications Commission, Hugh Lewis said the company reported 144,404 conjunction-risk mitigation maneuvers during the six months through May 2025.
Lewis noted that a growing fleet and a lower collision-probability threshold for triggering avoidance action affected the maneuver totals, complicating comparisons with earlier periods. He also said the filing did not disclose the number of conjunction events or clarify whether maneuvers combining orbit maintenance with collision-risk mitigation were included.
