{"id":547564,"date":"2026-01-27T20:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T20:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/547564\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T20:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T20:28:09","slug":"chinese-satellite-forces-4400-of-its-starlink-rivals-into-lower-altitude-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/547564\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese satellite forces 4,400 of its Starlink rivals into lower altitude: study"},"content":{"rendered":"

A team of researchers in China has claimed that a recent near-miss between a Chinese satellite and one of SpaceX\u2019s<\/a> Starlink devices was behind the US company\u2019s decision to move more than 4,000 of its satellites into lower orbit.<\/p>\n

The two satellites passed within about 200 metres (656 feet) of each other on December 10, shortly after a launch from northwestern China, according to a social media post last month by Michael Nicolls, SpaceX\u2019s vice-president of engineering.<\/p>\n

Three weeks later, in another social media post, Nicolls said the company planned to lower nearly half of its more than 9,000 operational internet satellites from an orbit of about 550km (340 miles) above the Earth to 480km to \u201cincrease space safety\u201d<\/a>.According to the researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences\u2019 Institute of Software, even though no collision occurred, \u201cthe close call was still unsettling and directly triggered Starlink\u2019s<\/a> decision for large-scale orbit lowering\u201d.<\/p>\n

The researchers said the Chinese spacecraft involved was a high-resolution Earth imaging satellite that launched alongside eight other payloads on board a Kinetica-1 rocket on that day.<\/p>\n

In an article published on Monday by commentary outlet Space and Network, the team said it used the institute\u2019s mega-constellation research platform to identify the orbital device, built by Chang Guang Satellite Technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A team of researchers in China has claimed that a recent near-miss between a Chinese satellite and one…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":547565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[240699,74,9191,240700,240701,219756,159,240702,2527,11182,3622,67,132,68,44853],"class_list":{"0":"post-547564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-chang-guang-satellite-technology","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","11":"tag-institute-of-software","12":"tag-kinetica-1-rocket","13":"tag-michael-nicolls","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space-and-network","16":"tag-spacex","17":"tag-starlink","18":"tag-tiangong-space-station","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-us-space-force"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}