• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.118-143
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• 2023

Space is becoming more commercialized. Despite of its delayed start-up, space activities in Korea are attracting more nation-wide supports from both investors and government. May 25, 2023, KSLV II, also called Nuri, successfully transported, and inserted seven satellites to a sun-synchronous orbit of 550 km altitude. However, Starlink has over 4,000 satellites around this altitude for its commercial activities. Hence, it is necessary for us to constantly monitor the collision risks of these satellites against resident space objects including Starlink. Here we report a quantitative research output regarding the conjunctions, particularly between the Nuri satellites and Starlink. Our calculation shows that, on average, three times everyday, the Nuri satellites encounter Starlink within 1 km distance with the probability of collision higher than 1.0E-5. A comparative study with KOMPSAT-5, also called Arirang-5, shows that its distance of closest approach distribution significantly differs from those of Nuri satellites. We also report a quantitative analysis of collision-avoiding maneuver cost of Starlink satellites and a strategy for Korea, being a delayed starter, to speed up to position itself in the space leading countries. We used the AstroOne program for analyses and compared its output with that of Socrates Plus of Celestrak. The two line element data was used for computation.