Comment by russdill
10 months ago
The south indian ocean is the re-entry site for the 2nd stage of their next starship flight test, which will (should) re-enter in one piece so the risk of falling debris is certainly not trivial and unfortunately the size of the hazard region is also not trivial.
They've rescheduled a few times now and each time operators flying in this region have to shuffle things around.
They're also going to deploy several fake starlink sats which will re-enter in the same area but with no control AFICT so those will cover more area.
Are they maybe small enough to disintegrate before reaching human altitudes?
Normal starlinks are built like that and it is not easy. Could be just not worth it for one-off mass simulators.
My point exactly. Airplanes are big too, and there are existing procedures to avoid collision with marked objects in the sky e.g. other planes.
By listening to the transponder messages which give altitude, GPS location, velocity and call sign you can 'see' the stage as it moves through the air like any other vehicle traffic.