Comment on Bad news for Starlink: Earth’s atmosphere is shrinking
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 3 days agoImagine if Mr. “Occupy Mars” ends up being the guy to trap us here on Earth forever by clogging up space.
The starlink satellites orbit far too low for that to happen. Without expelling limited propellants to periodically boost their orbits, every satellite in the constellation will fall to earth in less than 10 years, most in less than 1.
kibiz0r@midwest.social 3 days ago
I’ve heard that before. But the main point of the paper is that drag is decreasing. So I’m curious to know how that impacts the stability of Starlink going forward. I doubt they have new figures after one day.
dgriffith@aussie.zone 3 days ago
They aim to actively deorbit starlink sats.
As far as I know, apart from the first few batches, the “production run” of sats has a pretty low failure rate and are proactively sent to their demise.