January 29, 2026
Space cops or sky spies?
Stargaze: SpaceX's Space Situational Awareness System
SpaceX turns satellites into space traffic cops — fans cheer, critics yell Big Brother
TLDR: SpaceX’s Stargaze will send real-time collision warnings and share the data free with satellite operators. The crowd splits between praising a saved near-miss and warning of ‘Big Brother’ vibes and military snooping, with Elon debates and memes asking if we just got space cops.
SpaceX just rolled out Stargaze, its Space Situational Awareness (SSA) system — think Waze for orbit — promising near‑real‑time collision warnings and sharing the data free with other satellite operators. It uses tens of thousands of onboard star cameras to spot nearby objects and fires off Conjunction Data Messages (CDMs) (plain English: “heads‑up, you might bump into something”) within minutes. The highlight reel: a late‑2025 near‑miss where Stargaze spotted a surprise maneuver that shrank a safe gap to just ~60 meters, letting a Starlink satellite dodge in time.
The comments? A full‑on space soap opera. One snark dubbed it “Big Brother in a 90s movie,” while a security‑minded take warned this is a flex: “any maneuver you perform, we’ll know.” Supporters fired back, calling the demo “the most compelling thing” in the release and praising SpaceX for making safety data free. Then came the inevitable Elon discourse: one user insisted, “hate him all you want” but the companies deliver; others rolled their eyes. Bonus chaos: a random detour into fertilizers and vaccines because, well, internet. Jokes landed, too: “space cops vs sky spies,” “satellites gossiping,” and memes about Starlink’s cameras being the neighborhood watch of low Earth orbit (LEO). Drama aside, most agree faster warnings beat the old hours‑late alerts — and could keep the skies less smashy.
Key Points
- •SpaceX launched Stargaze, an SSA system for LEO that uses data from ~30,000 star trackers to detect ~30 million transits daily.
- •Stargaze provides near real-time orbit estimates and conjunction screening, delivering CDMs within minutes.
- •SpaceX will provide Stargaze conjunction data free of charge to operators via its space-traffic management platform.
- •The platform’s closed beta enabled low-latency ephemeris sharing among over a dozen satellite operators; broader access starts this spring.
- •A late-2025 case showed Stargaze detecting a last-minute maneuver, enabling a Starlink avoidance maneuver and reducing collision risk to zero.