• Wahots@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    NGL, the number of satellites already in orbit is worrying. Even just since prepandemic, I can spot a lot more satellites than I ever could before, because of how rapidly we are adding them to orbit for things like starlink. I really really hope everyone has automatic methods for deorbiting dead satellites within a decade of expiration.

    • IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Starlink satellites will eventually de-orbit by themselves. The low-orbit altitude they fly in is not a completely vacuum. If they aren’t reboosted drag will slow them down enough that in about 5 years they come down and burn up in the atmosphere. We should worry more about those satellite in higher altitudes, like those TV broadcasting satellites that are in a geo synchronous orbit. Those will never come down without human intervention, but they are so far away that it’s difficult and expensive to reach them.

    • uint8_t@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      starlink alone has more than doubled the number of satellites in space. like, they alone have launched more than everyone else combined until that point. it’s ridiculous.

    • Ddhuud@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      The lowest of Starlink supposedly won’t last 5 years in orbit without operating ion thrusters.