By 2035, falling satellites will kill or injure someone every two years, says FAA
Discover the shocking findings from the FAA report on falling satellites. Learn about the potential risks, causes, and proposed solutions.
Absolutely debunked, FAA accepted a report that didn't do proper research and have been called out by SpaceX for it.
Someone downvoted you but you are correct. The report used assumptions based on satellites not even made of the same materials as starlink satellites.
Among other things, SpaceX said the FAA's debris estimates were based on a 23-year-old study of satellites that were made with different materials than Starlink satellites. SpaceX says its own satellites are designed to burn up completely when they reenter the atmosphere.
The FAA report to Congress did include a caveat that said, "If SpaceX is correct in reporting zero surviving debris, as SpaceX reports in FCC filings, and Starlink is a fully-demisable spacecraft, the rise in reentry risk is minimal over the current risk."
“If SpaceX is
correcthonest in reporting zero surviving debris, as SpaceX reports in FCC filings, and Starlink is a fully-demisable spacecraft, the rise in reentry risk is minimal over the current risk.”
Yeah, I was going to say that there is no way that could be correct. There are only like 8000 satellites in orbit. There is no fucking way that small of a number is going to be hurting someone every couple years.
The people that put sats up have to calculate how every component will burn up in the atmosphere before they even get approval. Simply put, there's basically no chance of anyone dying from these things reentering the atmosphere.
Wow, I've never heard about "GIZCHINA". It definitely isn't gizmodo - right? 🤔 Right!
This is my least favourite century yet.
TBF the original article you linked is in Chinese and does not have ads in the middle of the article, so you should compare their translated lengths.
All in all we need the original FAA report.
The thumbnail image isn't even a satellite...
The dragon capsule isn't going to suddenly fall out of orbit somewhere unexpected...
The dragon capsule isn't going to suddenly fall out of orbit somewhere unexpected...
It's highly unlikely, but the possibility isn't 0. Like, what if an untracked asteroid hits it out of orbit?
There are around 50,000 Starlink near misses per year.
Well, the chance isn't zero, but that example, being knocked out (disabled or destroyed) by an asteroid has never happened to any spacecraft, ever. Statically the chances of that happening are very very close to zero.
Injure? Injure?? If someone gets nothing but a boo boo from a falling fucking satellite then they need to go buy a lottery ticket right away.
It can hit in someone's vicinity causing them injury. It would rarely be a direct strike.
Satellites will have thoroughly fragmented by the time they reach the ground, you'd be hit by a piece of a satellite.
Assuming the study being referenced wasn't actually badly flawed, which it appears to be.
One can get hurt without a direct hit. E.g. when a window bursts from a shockwave and hurts people inside a building.
I recommend you never buy a lottery ticket - because clearly you don't understand how luck works.
If a satellite were to smash through the roof of my office and land harmlessly on the floor, I reckon I'd be quite startled and might bump my knee on the bottom of the desk...
There's definitely a risk of injury, and you're far more likely to be injured than killed.
I'd probably also have to pay a couple hundred thousand dollars to repair my home, since I don't think insurance covers falling satellites and I'm certainly not going to try and sue a company on the other side of the world when they probably didn't do anything against the law anyway. Bruised knee would be the least of my problems.
the probability that the satellite debris will not be completely burned during the fall and cause injury or death to people on the ground is 0.6 per year. This means it would happen once every two years
That doesn’t mean it will fucking hit someone. The surface area of the planet is 510e12 m2. There are about 8B people on the planet. Even if we conservatively assume that everyone is lying flat on their back in the middle of an open field, that’s only about 8B m2 of vulnerable surface area. At that rate, you’d expect an injury interval of 510e12 / 8e9 / 0.6 = 1 injury every 106 thousand years. Yes there is some correlation of common orbits and human population, so we can be conservative and put it at 50,000 years.
Do we know who this 'someone' is? Sucks to be them.
This completely ignores the fact that the 2034 Full Self Driving beta release roadmap includes falling satellite avoidance capabilities.
This article was either written by AI, or a human with an IQ of 50
So far, no one has ever been killed by a meteorite. There's been a scary injury, some unconfirmed rumors and at least one engine block was cracked in half.
That said, death by thing falling from space is totally how I want to die. Bonus points if I'm totally disintegrated and just MIA. ( Circuitboard. It was man made. Has anyone seen Uriel? ) A falling satellite will be fine.
Perhaps fetching all of that junk might be a good idea? Perhaps a satellite trash collector satellite.
Has a satellite ever fallen down in a populated area with people around? I have never heard about that.