[Watch]There’s Traffic Jam In Space! Read It Right, ISRO Forced To Delay PSLV Launch Tonight

Sriharikota: If you though road congestion is only a thing of earth, time to rethink. There is traffic jam in space as well! Such has been the congestion that ISRO was forced to delay the launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) by two minutes today.  The PSLV-C60 that would launch the SpaDeX mission or the Space Docking Experiment was to be launched today at 9.58 pm. But it has now been pushed to 10 pm.

🎉 Launch Day is Here! 🚀

Tonight at precisely 10:00:15 PM, PSLV-C60 with SpaDeX and innovative payloads are set for liftoff.

SpaDeX (Space Docking Experiment) is a pioneering mission to establish India's capability in orbital docking, a key technology for future human… pic.twitter.com/147ywcLP0f

— ISRO (@isro) December 30, 2024

Dr S Somanath, Chairman of ISRO, said ‘conjunctions with other satellites in the same orbit’ was the reason for the delay, NDTV reported.

Reports stated that experts at ISRO observed that some satellites from the Starlink constellation were coming in the way. There are about 7,000 Starlink satellites in the low Earth orbit today (Monday), reports claimed. Starlink constellation is owned by American billionaire tech leader Elon Musk and his company SpaceX. Starlink gives satellite-based broadband internet connectivity across the world.

In the past, scientists and engineers from many space agencies had complained that these massive constellations would cause traffic jams in space. The jam is also caused due to the presence of space debris in copious amounts.

In 2023, India had to postpone the launch of its Chandrayaan-3 mission by a few minutes for similar reasons.