Issue 83

17 Oct 2023: It appears both a Chinese and an Australian satellite operating in low Earth orbit (LEO) maneuvered to avoid a potential collision on 9 Oct 2023. Post-event analysis conducted by LeoLabs shows both satellites were predicted to have an “miss” distance of just 100 meters, 24 hours before the anticipated “conjunction.” Analysts believe the Chinese satellite involved was the Yaogan-37, launched in January 2023. The Australian satellite was one of eight Skykraft satellites, all of which were launched in March 2023.

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– Addressing the Space Industry Association of Australia, Air Vice-Marshal Catherine Roberts described how Defence Space Command worked with Canberra based company Skykraft to manage the incident.

-Skykraft chairman Mark Skidmore says good communication with Defence Space Command, as well as the United States Air Force (USAF), was crucial to dealing with the “real-time congestion” threat.

-“We had communication with Space Command, with USAF at the same time because they were providing and feeding us information, so we had all the information we needed to understand our course of action.”

-According to the data, the Yaogan 37 satellite maneuvered 16 hours prior to the conjunction, increasing the miss distance to 978 meters at the closest approach.

“Unfortunately these type of critical conjunctions occur on a nearly daily basis in low Earth orbit,” says Terry van Haren, the managing director of LeoLabs Australia.

-“We are seeing more and more of this because space is becoming more crowded… we’re seeing a lot more of these conjunctions occurring on a regular basis and I think the problem is only going to become more challenging in the future,” added Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst Malcolm Davis.

– There is very little publicly available information regarding the mission and capabilities of the Yaogan-37. It was launched on 12 January 2023 on a LM-2D.Also on that launch were the experimental satellites Shiyan-22A and 22B. All three have unknown missions. The orbit for all three satellites appears to be unique from previous Yaogan and Shiyan missions.

-While the altitudes of the Shiyan-22 satellites do not intersect with the Skykraft constellation, YG-37’s 523.5 x 507.5 km altitude does intersect with Skykraft operating range of 523.4 x 507.7 km.