Qantas has been forced to delay flights over the risk of fast-moving, fiery rocket debris re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
Qantas says it has been forced to delay several of its flights to South Africa at the last minute due to warnings of falling debris from Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets re-entering Earth.
Qantas has been forced to delay flights between Johannesburg and Sydney at short notice by up to six hours.
SpaceX’s launches include the Transporter-12 on January 14, Starlink missions on January 6, 8, 10 and 13, the NROL0153 mission on January 9 and the Thuraya 4 mission on January 3.
Ben Holland, the head of Qantas’s operations centre, said there was often little advance notice of where the rockets would fall over the southern Indian Ocean – the re-entry zone chosen by the space company due to its remoteness – causing the airline to delay flights on its Sydney-Johannesburg route.
“Over the past few weeks we’ve had to delay several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney due to advice received from the US Government regarding the re-entry of SpaceX rockets over an extensive area of the Southern Indian Ocean,” Holland said.
