Starlink quietly lost over $250,000,000 in burned satellites this summer.
Starlink quietly lost over $250,000,000 in burned satellites this summer.
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Not one major news outlet is covering the destruction of Starlink this summer. Though Lemmy might enjoy Elon losing more money.
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this is just a mathematical reality of LEO satellites like this. They are hitting the thermosphere which causes drag and they need to constantly adjust their altitude to keep in place and not fall to the earth. Currently 5 years is all the fuel they can carry. If they were higher they would last longer but the network latency would be very bad so it's a tradeoff.
whether or not we need this LEO constellation idk but this isn't some big gotcha. Elon (and everybody else) would love to have longer LEO orbits but until there is some new tech this is what we've got.
The article seems to indicate that the loss of 200 satellites is largely attributed to solar flares, not orbit degradation.
And the point of the article is that this is higher than expected.
It is also potentially interesting for people that weren't aware of how often these satellites will deorbit and so the potential costs associated. Even people aware that this happens may not have thought about it much with Starlink or be aware of the scope.
OP is being a little stupid with the editorializing, and the article could be better, but the article is generally good and useful.
The difference between an orbit that lasts 5 years and one that lasts a hundred is approximately 100-200km, the limit is quite sharp and actually quite tricky to get exactly right. That will cost you about a millisecond or two in latency tops. It is more likely that SpaceX is required to adhere to rules made by the FCC/FAA.
550km height is partly to ensure that they WILL deorbit in a reasonable time if failed or EOL. Which is important for such a huge number of (relatively cheap) satellites.