It makes perfect sense for a private space company to land its rockets on the ocean. However, it can sometimes interfere with people’s work even on the water. Falling debris from SpaceX rockets has delayed Qantas flights over the Indian Ocean this month. Australia’s flag carrier was given little warning that its flight paths would be littered with space debris.
Qantas flights on their route between Johannesburg, South Africa and Sydney are experiencing six-hour delays, Bloomberg reports. The flight originates from Australia, the airline is active enough to know the operation of the atmosphere on its routes over the ocean. Qantas regularly communicates with SpaceX, but last-minute changes will affect customers’ flights. The Guardian spoke to Ben Holland, Qantas’ head of operations:
“In the past few weeks, we have had to delay several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney due to the advice we received from the US Government regarding the re-entry of SpaceX rockets in the vast area of the Southern Indian Ocean.”
“Although we try to make any changes to our schedule in advance, the timing of the latest launch has been late which means we have had to delay some flights just before they take off. Our teams notify customers of changes to their flight as soon as we know it will be affected.”
The number of SpaceX launches has grown dramatically over the past few years. The company is launching 33 rockets in 2021, jumping to 134 in 2024. Scraps have to go down somewhere, and isolated oceans are a good place. However, the FAA prohibits flights in areas where rocket activity occurs. The agency also estimates that SpaceX’s massively expanding Starlink satellite constellation could kill one person every two years.
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