So, everyone worrying about the Venus probe reentry: yes, it's not designed to burn up in the atmosphere, and that's bad.
But, remember Starlink? There's something like one Starlink per day reentering now, and they weigh more than the Venus probe! SpaceX says they will burn up completely, but now one Starlink piece has been discovered in my province. (And if they don't make it to the ground, that means that half-ton of metal and plastic is deposited in the stratosphere instead. Yum).
More than 7,000 Starlinks in orbit now, and they have permission for 42,000. Even conservatively, at peak operation, they'll dump 25x more aluminum into the stratosphere than falls naturally as they launch and burn up 20-25 sats PER DAY. What will that do? We actually don't know. That metal is already measurable. SpaceX is just running this experiment.
We need fewer satellites in orbit with longer operational lifetimes. THAT is the new engineering challenge in LEO.
LEO sat disposal is a new environmental disaster brewing, mostly because of the actions of a single private company, but really, it's everyone's operating procedure in LEO. Just burn those sats up in Earth's atmosphere when they're done! They just disappear! And if they don't, they probably won't hit anyone anyway.
Ok, this is turning rambly and I'm tired and need to put my goats in the barn. I hope the Venus probe reenters with no injuries, and just to be abundantly clear: fuck Starlink.
https://bsky.app/profile/planet4589.bsky.social/post/3lostcdm6qk2v
The probe is down, probably in the ocean.
Also there is no way I'm going to be able to answer all the questions that people have posted in this thread while I was asleep haha...yikes. Glad to see people are interested! I"ll try to answer a few at least. (I'll also be ignoring and likely blocking annoying mansplaining/sealioning)
ESA reports K482SA reentered between 0604 UITC (seen by radar on pass over Europe) and 0732 UTC (not seen by European radars on the next orbit). Roskosmos reports that reentry was at 0624 UTC over the Indian Ocean, but with no details on how they conclude that.
@benroyce @sundogplanets I think that was my absolute favourite tweet of all time. 💥
* pours one out *
you might enjoy this: https://youtube.com/shorts/x9b_eTtKRS4
@sundogplanets "The Kosmos 482 probe, a relic from the first Space Race, crashed harmlessly into the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta, Indonesia at 2:24 a.m. EDT (6:24 a.m. GMT), the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced on Telegram. No damage or injuries have been reported, and it remains unclear whether the lander reached the ocean in one piece."
🗣 LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!!!
@sundogplanets
God I spent hours ranting about this to anyone who would listen back when starlink started talking about putting these up, because holy shit unearned faith in 'they will burn up safely '
I still can't believe that this is where things went...
@sundogplanets
It's difficult to distinguish between someone innocently agreeing - and expanding or underlining - and someone arrogantly mansplaining online, eh?
I try to roll with words to the effect of, "I realise *you* know this already, but for others reading..." (or words to that effect).
It must be especially annoying when you spent several years studying a subject and Joe Shmo is up in your comments telling you something you learned in 101. 🙄
@ApostateEnglishman @sundogplanets
Sometimes I run into "I didn't understand this aspect of the post, so I did some reading up on it, and here's what I learned, just in case someone else is also confused."
Like, I'm not mansplaining. It's something that I feel like the author (who is clearly conversant with it better than myself) simply didn't explain well enough, and that OTHER people may have been as confused as I was.
Sometimes, experts are just over-familiar.
Prof. Sam Lawler
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