Hello, Benedetta Cattani here, Ecosmic's CEO.
Last week, while reading about SpaceX’s Stargaze announcement, I felt a familiar mix of excitement and curiosity. What they’re proposing is genuinely cool: more data sharing, better transparency, and a real contribution to the safety and sustainability of the space environment.
Their decision to introduce star tracker data is the final confirmation of one of the core beliefs we hold at Ecosmic: it doesn’t make sense to keep building more sensors on Earth when there is an exponentially growing infrastracture in space! Our data strategy has been a frequent topic in conversations with investors, as we deliberately took an approach opposite to that of many Space Domain Awareness (SDA) competitors. Seeing SpaceX now validate the same insight we reached two years ago is incredibly encouraging.
As soon as the news dropped, my co-founders and I started asking the same question many of you probably did: what does this mean for the SDA ecosystem, and where do we all fit once Stargaze is live?
Disclaimer: this newsletter is based on a single press release, which I fully expect to be followed by deeper technical explanations. I raise a few questions below, for SpaceX and for the broader community, not out of skepticism, but because these are important conversations to have openly.
What is Stargaze?
Last Friday, SpaceX announced Stargaze1: a platform aggregating data from Starlink’s space-based star trackers, and aims to become a global hub where satellite operators can share orbital information and assess collision risks.
The core offering seems to boil down to three elements:
- a central hub for ephemeris2 exchange
- additional observations from star trackers
- Conjunction Data Messages3 (CDMs) generation
Let’s unpack that.
Do We Really Need Another Ephemeris Hub?
This is not a new idea. Today, operators can already upload ephemerides and receive CDMs through Space-Track and EU SST.
Space-Track, run by the U.S. Space Force’s 18th Squadron, has been the backbone of civil SSA for decades and remains the most widely used catalogue (at Ecosmic, we also rely on their special perturbation data). Its successor, TraCSS, was designed to separate civil and defense uses and had already entered beta.
EU SST is the European counterpart. It has been improving steadily, but still relies heavily on Space-Track data and does not grant database access to commercial SSA providers, which is… puzzling. With recent EU space law mandating the use of third-party SSA providers, this mismatch is something European operators should be paying close attention to.
Commercial SDA providers (including Ecosmic) also support ephemeris exchange and screening. At the same time, we strongly agree with Richard DalBello’s view4 that:
“Civil space traffic coordination needs a neutral, standards-based backbone that isn’t tied to any single operator’s platform, incentives, or service terms.”
That’s why we integrate with Space-Track: we ingest ephemerides from satellites that don’t use our services, including SpaceX’s, and upload those of our customers. From that perspective, one can only speculate about what is the added value of SpaceX running yet another ephemeris hub, or why it should be the hub.
Are Star Trackers a Game Changer for SSA?
This was, personally, the most interesting part of the announcement.
SpaceX reports roughly 30,000 star trackers and 30 million “passes” per day — about 1,000 passes per tracker. Given that Starlink operates around 10,000 satellites, the numbers are internally consistent. That said, a “pass” doesn’t automatically mean a detectable or trackable object: geometry, illumination, background noise, and object size all matter.
So naturally, a few questions come up:
- What exactly qualifies as a “pass”?
- What object sizes are detectable, and at what ranges?
- Under which lighting conditions?
Another consideration is orbital coverage. These observations are heavily concentrated in Starlink’s operational altitude band (roughly 450–580 km, with a higher density near the upper end5). That likely improves situational awareness locally, but its value for other orbital regimes is less clear.
For context: an Ecosmic analysis for a satellite at ~630 km shows roughly 10 objects per day passing within 5 km. Will Stargaze significantly improve mapping in this region, or mainly refine awareness where SpaceX already operates most densely?
Collision Warnings, Not a New Paradigm
If you aggregate ephemerides, it makes sense to also generate CDMs. What remains unclear is which data sources SpaceX plans to use beyond operator-provided ephemerides and their own star tracker observations.
The capability to generate CDMs already exists across the industry. Adding star tracker data mainly allows SpaceX to detect maneuvers faster, but it is yet to be proven how much that will impact their CDM generation. There’s no indication (yet) of fundamentally new screening algorithms.
So, what does this mean for the industry?
SpaceX is doing what any company would do, if they had the means: leveraging scale to expand into adjacent domains and protect their operations, paving the way for their next big move. That’s not a criticism, but it does mean operators should think carefully about concentration risk. We’ve already seen what happens when nearly the entire industry depends on a single launch provider.
Beyond Stargaze, on Saturday SpaceX also filed with the FCC6 to deploy up to one million satellites in LEO. There is only so much useful orbital regime available, and if a single actor is first to occupy this space at scale, it effectively boxes out other companies and countries, gaining disproportionate control over how parts of LEO are used. In that light, Stargaze can be seen both as a tool to enable further expansion and to protect existing assets, and as a consequence of the power SpaceX already holds, a dynamic that increases systemic risk by concentrating too much influence in the hands of one company.
If SpaceX is indeed positioning itself for an IPO, recent moves, including the xAI acquisition7 and FCC filing for data centers in space, may be part of a broader pre-listing strategy. The bigger question is what follows. Once incentives change, so do priorities. In that scenario, the future of Stargaze becomes uncertain: does it stay free, or does it evolve as SpaceX adapts to the realities of public markets?
Our approach at Ecosmic
At Ecosmic, we’re building our SDA stack around three pillars: data, algorithms, and people.
Data
We deliberately avoid single-source dependencies. Our platform combines institutional and semi-public catalogues with commercial ground-based sensors, and increasingly with space-based data such as star trackers and onboard cameras. Just as importantly, our supply chain is diversified across operators and orbital regimes, since literally any satellite can become a data provider. The goal isn’t to chase the biggest dataset, but to build one that is resilient, explainable, and fit for long-term space traffic coordination.
Algorithms
Data alone is never enough. We continue to invest heavily in transparent, physics-based algorithms, and we publish our methods whenever possible8. Transparency is key for decision quality, that is why we are not hiding complexity behind a black box. We’re currently in the beta testing phase with of our new orbit determination feature, which is designed to better fuse heterogeneous data sources and reduce uncertainty where it actually matters for operators, and it is currently being tested by one operator.
People (and trust)
Most importantly, we care about each individual SAFE user. Our role is not just to deliver “optimised” outputs, but to help operators understand where the data comes from, which sources to trust and why, and what assumptions underpin each recommendation. We want to give all the right tools to decision-makers, so that they can take an informed decision, based on reliable and transparent intelligence.
If and when SDA providers gain access to Stargaze, we’ll integrate SpaceX inputs into our stack as well, alongside many other sources. Not as a replacement, but as additional context, so our users retain clarity, choice, and control in an increasingly complex SDA ecosystem.
I’d genuinely love to talk with the team behind Stargaze - if you are among them, do not hesitate to reach out to me!
If you want to have a conversation about SAFE and Ecosmic, reach out to me via LinkedIn or at info@ecosmic.space, or come find us next week in Munich for the European Defence & Security Days and in March in D.C. for SatShow.
1 Stargaze - SpaceX news release.
2 Ephemerides describe the position and velocity of a space object over time. They are used to predict and propagate an object’s orbit. An OEM (Orbit Ephemeris Message) is a standardized file format for sharing ephemerides between space operators. It ensures orbit data is exchanged in a consistent, interoperable way.
3 A Conjunction Data Message (CDM) is a standardized alert about a predicted close approach between two objects in space. It provides timing, miss distance, and collision probability so operators can assess collision risk.
4 LinkedIn post. Richard DalBello, former Director of the Office of Space Commerce, NOAA, US Department of Commerce.
5 Overview of Starlink’s orbits.
6 SpaceX filing with the FCC - SpaceNews.
7 SpaceX acquires xAI - SpaceNews.
8 SAFE White Paper - Ecosmic.