Mastodon MigrationSo in addition to cluttering up low earth orbit, wrecking terrestrial astronomy, creating the potential for a Kessler Syndrome cascade which could close access to space, and creating a national security nightmare, Starlink internet access is a climate catastrophe using up to 30 times more carbon footprint per internet subscriber than land based internet.
AGTMADCAT 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇵🇸@mastodonmigration Hey you're making good points but the altitude is far too low to be any kind of Kessler risk, you should take that off your list.
@AGTMADCAT Not true. Starlink orbits at 550 km. Should there be a Kessler cascade natural deorbit is up to 25 years depending on debris size and mass.
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Mastodon Migration (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] This is not true. They orbit at 550 km which is low earth orbit, but relatively high. The ISS for instance is at 420 km. The 5 year deorbit claim comes from a powered deorbit of the space craft. Unpowered spacecraft take 8 to 10 years if intact. However, once the Kessler collision cascade begins the spacecraft will be smashed apart and the bits will take between 5 and 25 years for their orbits to naturally decay. 1/3 #Musk #ISS #KesslerSyndrome #Starlink
@mastodonmigration Okay so I went and looked it up and holy shit the new Starlink satellites weigh a literal metric ton. That's a massive increase over the initial ones, and will definitely keep them up much longer than the old designs, unless they've deployed some very aggressive drag chutes. I didn't realize they'd grown so much, that definitely changes things.
fedops 💙💛@AGTMADCAT "much longer" being 5 years: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/01/spacex-launch-first-starlink-mission-2021/
What a gigantic waste of resources.
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@fedops @mastodonmigration That's the operational life, which is shorter than what we're discussing, which is how long it takes them to fall out of the sky. With these increased masses it'll likely be closer to 15 years.
But yes, they're very wasteful in several ways.
@AGTMADCAT that was already for the new ones which have a mass of 800kg.
As far as I understand they will be deorbited after the service life expires. Otherwise they wouldn't have 40,000 but 120,000 up there, or 3 satellites for each service spot. That will not be possible.
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@fedops @mastodonmigration Assuming they don't fail or get hit by something, which again, is what we're discussing.
There are no "service spots" though - the shell doesn't work like a traditional higher GEO satellite.