Prof. Sam LawlerOct 13, 2023

Not worried enough about corporate over-development of orbit yet? New article: companies have now filed asking for a total of ONE MILLION satellites: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi4639

Non-paywalled version here: https://www.outerspaceinstitute.ca/docs/One%20million%20(paper)%20satellites%20-%20Accepted%20Version%20.pdf

There is no way we can have anywhere near one million satellites in orbit without going into full Kessler Syndrome and destroying everything in orbit - making satellite science, communication, and interplanetary exploration impossible for decades.

Show threadΣ(i³) = (Σi)²Oct 15, 2023

@sundogplanets a single LEO is ~40000 km in length, i.e. 40 million m. One million satellites in a single orbit around the earth would be spaced 40m apart. Spread them over, say, 50 orbit s and you have ~2km between them - that's entirely feasible without super interesting collisions between them (anything with a low enough delta vee not to create debris I shall consider a nuisance, not a problem).

I'd say there's room for several million objects in LEO 🤷 (and many, many more in MEO)

Show threadMorten
@SvenGeier @sundogplanets But they travel about 3 km per second. I feel like your buffers are very narrow.
Oct 15, 2023 at 1:53pmWeb