Slingshot Aerospace, Inc., a company building space simulation and analytics products to make space safer, today announced that it is offering a free version of Slingshot Beacon to help prevent satellite collisions in orbit. Slingshot Beacon enables satellite operators anywhere in the world to receive urgent collision alerts; coordinate satellite manoeuvres; and seamlessly communicate, especially during high-risk moments.
“Ensuring the safety of current and future satellites in orbit is paramount to maintaining space as a safe operating environment. This is why we are offering Slingshot Beacon for free so that all space operators around the world can coordinate, communicate and deconflict spaceflight risk.” said Melanie Stricklan, Co-founder and CEO, Slingshot Aerospace.
There are more than 9,800 satellites in orbit today according to Slingshot’s space object database, Seradata SpaceTrak, with more than 115,000 planned to be in space by 2030. Slingshot’s data shows that 30% of alerts for potential collisions are with other active satellites. This means space operators need to avoid more than just debris when manoeuvring in space, and underscores the need for active coordination amongst the global space community. Accidental collisions can produce fast moving debris clouds that can spread and damage additional satellites with a cascading effect rendering havoc on spaceflight operations and limiting the use of space in the future. Previously, owner-operators would resolve collision alerts by communicating via email and phone, wasting valuable time cross-referencing positional data to ensure they were looking at the same information. Slingshot Beacon transforms how operators work together, saving precious time, reducing uncertainty, and promoting space safety.
“Having the means to easily communicate with other operators and plan manoeuvres more effectively is crucial to ensuring a safe space environment and protecting our on-orbit assets,” said Robert Sproles, Vice President, Constellation Planning and Operations at Spire Global. “Slingshot Beacon arms us with the tools needed to be responsible stewards of space while also saving us time by analyzing and evaluating the important alerts for us.”
Slingshot Beacon capabilities are designed in collaboration with commercial space operators that represent more than 70% of satellites in Low Earth Orbit to help:
Visualize the current and future state of satellites in a customizable dashboard
Analyze risk using more accurate models to cut through the noise of irrelevant data
Enable coordination based on the same data with seamless chat and file sharing
Guide decision stages for manoeuvres to eliminate uncertainty
Slingshot Aerospace recently announced acquisitions of Numerica’s Space Domain Awareness division and Seradata, which differentiate Slingshot’s portfolio of products as the most robust and authoritative space situational awareness and space traffic coordination solutions available in the market. Slingshot Beacon leverages the company’s new global autonomous network of telescopes and sensors to generate precise collision assessments and Seradata’s SpaceTrak to show comprehensive insights about space objects.