There is a traffic jam in space! It has forced the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to postpone the launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) by two minutes. Earlier, the PSLV-C60 that would launch the SpaDeX mission or the Space Docking Experiment was to be launched at 9.58 pm, but now it has been pushed to 10 pm.
The launch has been postponed due to “conjunctions with other satellites in the same orbit”, Dr S Somanath, Chairman of ISRO, told media.
This is not the first time ISRO has had to reschedule its launch due to congestion in the orbit and flight path of the rocket.
Experts at ISRO found that some satellites from the Starlink constellation were coming in the way. Today, there are about 7,000 Starlink satellites in the low Earth orbit. This is a constellation owned by American billionaire Elon Musk and his company SpaceX. Starlink provides satellite-based broadband internet connectivity across the world. Ultimately, the total number of Starlink satellites is expected to go up to about 12,000.
For long, scientists and engineers from many space agencies have been complaining that these massive constellations will cause traffic jams in space. On top of that, there is the presence of space debris in copious amounts that also poses a huge risk to satellites.
In 2023, India had to postpone the launch of its Chandrayaan-3 mission by a few minutes almost for the same reasons.
