I did a calculation yesterday that made me want to scream. If you look at the *current* density of satellites in 1km altitude bins in Low Earth Orbit, and assume they are travelling at circular velocities (generally true), then Starlink satellites pass within <1km of each other EVERY 30 SECONDS.
At Starlink altitudes, everything is travelling at 7 km/second, so <1 km close approaches are terrifyingly close. Every 30 seconds. WHY.
Why do they have to be in such a dense orbit? Why do they need 42,000 of them?! They are launching more into this same super dense orbit and we're supposed to just trust that their "autonomous collision avoidance system" will be good enough to keep going at higher and higher densities?
There's an opportunity for error about every 30 seconds. One small mistake and we're in Kessler Syndrome, no more LEO satellites for decades.
"Oh don't worry, SpaceX has amazing engineers! They know what they're doing!"
Well yes, they're amazing. But they definitely make giant mistakes. Like... you know... dropping hundreds of pounds of debris from a "fully demisable" spacecraft by my house. Whoopsie.
SpaceX, please don't whoopsie us into Kessler Syndrome.
@sundogplanets And even if we can assume these engineers are the best of the best, that 1) doesn’t mean our best can manage the intricacy necessary to manage so many high velocity satellites and 2) said engineers also answer to their bosses.
For anyone looking for an understanding of what happens when engineers and their bosses disagree, the Challenger accident provides a good example.
Prof. Sam Lawler
Jay