Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) ✅🚀🛰️"With Starfall, SpaceX eyes an edge in global cargo delivery from orbit" by @arstechnica / Stephen Clark - #SpaceX #Falcon9 launch today had a surprise experimental payload called "Starfall", announced just before launch to be a re-entry pod for #cargo delivery on suborbital flight or re-entry from orbit, landing by parachute wherever a probably-military cargo needs to go. Most details so far are from a public environmental statement for FAA. https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/with-starfall-spacex-eyes-an-edge-in-global-cargo-delivery-from-orbit/ #NewSpace #space #business
Prof. Sam Lawler@AstroHawk @arstechnica I've already seen SpaceX's cargo delivery service from orbit. It sucks!
@sundogplanets @arstechnica Yup. You wrote about it to help inform the news media and the public on the issue of space debris falling uncontrolled from orbit. Let's bring one of your articles into this thread. https://theconversation.com/spacex-space-junk-crashed-onto-saskatchewan-farmland-highlighting-a-potential-impending-disaster-233322
SpaceX space junk crashed onto Saskatchewan farmland, highlighting a potential impending disaster
As the number of satellites and rocket launches increases, so does the amount of discarded rockets and components. This space junk risks falling to Earth, as it did in Saskatchewan this spring.
@sundogplanets Fortunately that led to public pressure over debris found in multiple countries and pressured SpaceX to move crew & cargo Dragon splashdowns from Florida to California in 2025. And they release the trunk from Dragon after de-orbit burn, putting it on a controlled re-entry path aimed at the Pacific. Much better plan. (article from @arstechnica ) https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/spacex-moving-dragon-splashdowns-to-pacific-to-solve-falling-debris-problem/
@AstroHawk @arstechnica Thanks for bringing this in!
Definitely better, from a ground casualty risk perspective, but of course still leaves the issue of disposal unsolved: whatever doesn't ablate and get deposited in the atmosphere on their "fully demisable" cargo trunk now gets dumped into the ocean. And of course SpaceX won't tell anyone what materials they are using, so who knows what the environmental effects are. Hopefully minimally bad.
@sundogplanets @arstechnica Is there a more economical solution than building a heat shield for every Low Earth Orbit object? That's a lot of extra mass that companies and militaries can't be convinced to comply with.
@AstroHawk @arstechnica My answer to questions like this does not make me popular with satellite operators: there's a hard limit to how many satellites can launch and reenter every year without severe environmental consequences, and we're already well above that. Satellites are *incredibly* useful, and we are currently not doing a good job of using them wisely
@sundogplanets @arstechnica So it sounds like the answer is a combination of rate limiting or heat shields.