A Starlink satellite is breaking apart in space and will soon re-enter Earth. The SpaceX-owned company Starlink announced on December 18 that one of its internet-providing satellites experienced an anomaly followed by a loss of signal 418 kilometres above surface.
According to Starlink, the satellite is largely intact but it’s tumbling and creating debris.
On December 17, Starlink experienced an anomaly on satellite 35956, resulting in loss of communications with the vehicle at 418 km. The anomaly led to venting of the propulsion tank, a rapid decay in semi-major axis by about 4 km, and the release of a small number of trackable…
— Starlink (@Starlink) December 18, 2025
“The anomaly led to venting of the propulsion tank, a rapid decay in semi-major axis by about 4 km, and the release of a small number of trackable low relative velocity objects,” Starlink said in a statement. It is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and meet its full demise in a few weeks. Starlink assured that the satellite does not pose any danger to the International Space Station (ISS) since its trajectory is below the orbital lab.
“As the world’s largest satellite constellation operator, we are deeply committed to space safety. We take these events seriously. Our engineers are rapidly working to root cause and mitigate the source of the anomaly and are already in the process of deploying software to our vehicles that increases protections against this type of event,” it further added.
Doomed Starlink photographed from Earth
Michael Nicolls, VP of Starlink engineering, shared a picture of the doomed satellite captured by Vantor. Nicolls noted that the image was taken when the satellite was over Alaska from a distance of 241 kilometres a day after the anomaly occurred. The satellite appears intact although there is some amount of trackable debris.
Imagery collected by Vantor’s WorldView-3 satellite about 1 day after the anomaly shows that @starlink Satellite 35956 is largely intact. The 12-cm resolution image was collected over Alaska from 241 km away. We appreciate the rapid response by @vantortech to provide this… https://t.co/8OcTZsk5Gx pic.twitter.com/1PafjFwuRP
— Michael Nicolls (@michaelnicollsx) December 20, 2025
“Additional data suggest that there is a small number of trackable debris objects from the event, and we expect the satellite and debris to reenter and fully demise within weeks,” Nicolls posted on X.
This comes about a week after another Starlink satellite avoided a collision with one of the nine satellites launched from China. Nicolls had revealed that the satellites came as close as 200 metres from each other at an altitude of 560 kilometres.
Starlink currently has the largest constellation with nearly 9,500 satellites and SpaceX wants to expand it to 42,000. Not only these satellites are reportedly hindering astronomy but their fragmentation is adding to the growing debris problem.
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