Nobody says the chance of a collisions is zero. That's why it being in LEO is relevant. Internet fools who just get scared by the big number without considering the details of the situation always get this wrong.
So, because the 10,000+ Starlinks launched so far (and the countless future satellites Bezos and others want to launch for their own constellations) are in LEO, nothing bad can happen (it can only good happen)?
That is, if you disregard the following quote from the article:
> Each re-entry deposits about 30 kg of aluminum oxide into the upper atmosphere--an uncontrolled chemistry experiment on a planetary scale.
The bad that can happen is limited by it being in LEO. If these were MEO sats but 50x fewer (Bezos sats BTW) you wouldn't be whining about it even though the potential debris would last thousands of years instead of less than ten. And appealing to the fear of the unknown is little more than motivated reasoning, the amount of rocks and rock dust entering the atmosphere dwarfs Starlink reentries.
And so what if they collide? This isn’t Kessler syndrome territory, it’s low enough orbit that debris would re-enter and burn up rapidly. You’d lose the colliding satellites, and that’s likely all.
Not that there has been a single starlink collision, but y’know.
> How sure are you that that would be made public?
Extremely sure. There are both numerous private, academic, and governmental agencies that are constantly searching for both collision paths, and collision debris.
The debris cloud alone would generate an extremely visible signature.
> Would it be always observed and caught outside of SpaceX?
There are a great many eyes on the sky, and you can’t hide stuff up there - even every secret military satellite is known and tracked - so something as substantial as a collision would likely be known about before it even happens, as ephemera don’t change without an input.
Large operators like SpaceX and OneWeb do coordinate with each other. Ground based radar tracking data from the government is also made available to operators, and SpaceX has developed their own optical space-based detection system (Stargaze) which makes data available to other operators as well.
There's a lot of money in this stuff, lot's of planning. It's being managed by competent people who give a shit.
Nobody says the chance of a collisions is zero. That's why it being in LEO is relevant. Internet fools who just get scared by the big number without considering the details of the situation always get this wrong.
So, because the 10,000+ Starlinks launched so far (and the countless future satellites Bezos and others want to launch for their own constellations) are in LEO, nothing bad can happen (it can only good happen)?
That is, if you disregard the following quote from the article:
> Each re-entry deposits about 30 kg of aluminum oxide into the upper atmosphere--an uncontrolled chemistry experiment on a planetary scale.
The bad that can happen is limited by it being in LEO. If these were MEO sats but 50x fewer (Bezos sats BTW) you wouldn't be whining about it even though the potential debris would last thousands of years instead of less than ten. And appealing to the fear of the unknown is little more than motivated reasoning, the amount of rocks and rock dust entering the atmosphere dwarfs Starlink reentries.
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And so what if they collide? This isn’t Kessler syndrome territory, it’s low enough orbit that debris would re-enter and burn up rapidly. You’d lose the colliding satellites, and that’s likely all.
Not that there has been a single starlink collision, but y’know.
> Not that there has been a single starlink collision
How sure are you that that would be made public?
Would it be always observed and caught outside of SpaceX?
If not, is that proof that if there such collisions they don't matter?
> How sure are you that that would be made public?
Extremely sure. There are both numerous private, academic, and governmental agencies that are constantly searching for both collision paths, and collision debris.
The debris cloud alone would generate an extremely visible signature.
> Would it be always observed and caught outside of SpaceX?
Yes.
1 reply →
There are a great many eyes on the sky, and you can’t hide stuff up there - even every secret military satellite is known and tracked - so something as substantial as a collision would likely be known about before it even happens, as ephemera don’t change without an input.
1 reply →
Wait until multiple, non-coordinated copy-cat constellations are sent up there ...
Large operators like SpaceX and OneWeb do coordinate with each other. Ground based radar tracking data from the government is also made available to operators, and SpaceX has developed their own optical space-based detection system (Stargaze) which makes data available to other operators as well.
There's a lot of money in this stuff, lot's of planning. It's being managed by competent people who give a shit.