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One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

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Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#141

Post by Tuna-Fish »

tehjoker wrote: post #133
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Satellite reentries in 2022 (mostly pre-megaconstellation) were already raising stratospheric AlO levels by 29.5% above normal levels Those findings are simulated, not observed. Hence "potential." > it's a non-trivial change in chemical composition over the entire globe, and effecting a complex and poorly-understood part of the climate system. What could go wrong? Perhaps a lot. Perhaps not much. It's a good questi…

i still don’t understand why we need huge constellations of satellites at all

Because it's a way to provide communications from space with acceptable total throughput and latency.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#142

Post by tejtm »

dgs_sgd wrote: post #34
nicce wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a limit how much satellites LEO/GEO can hold unless every satellite has perfect dodging system. Called as Kessler syndrome [1], and one estimate is around 70k satellites. So it is a race who can get the most satellites orbiting, because after a certain point, there is no "space" anymore, and anyone who tries to launch after that point, will be blamed for destroying the satellites of the others. Winner takes…

I’m just a layman, but why can’t they increase the orbital radius to solve this problem? Like, if the current “layer” is too full, have the new satellites orbit further out?

Automatic EOL (end of life) deorbiting is a feature not a bug.

I will again note that if Saber Tooth tigers had put things in the orbits we have, it would still be our problem.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#143

Post by fred_is_fred »

> NOAA said the stratosphere contains an unexpected quantity of particles with a variety of exotic metals. The scientists believe the particles come from satellites and spent rocket boosters as they are vaporized by the intense heat of reentry.

My start-up is called Strato Mines - collecting rare earths from 120km above earth. Willing to give 1% at a 100B valuation to any qualified investor.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#144

Post by GuB-42 »

josefritzishere wrote: post #29

I am not convinced that Starlink will continue to exist long term. They reported break even in 2023 but I don't think that included the ongoing cost of replacing satillites.

Starlink has to continue existing.

That's how SpaceX justifies its launch capabilities. Their strategy of using assembly line techniques to build reusable rockets make no sense unless there is a lot of stuff to launch. Satellites are crazy expensive, and the launch represents only a smaller part of the total budget, so even if the launch was free, there is only so much demand.

Starlink is more than half of SpaceX launches, building their own demand.

And replacing satellites regularly was the plan. I don't know how they did their report, but they certainly budgeted it internally. SpaceX is a private company, they tell you what they want to tell you.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#145

Post by rurp »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #95
advisedwang wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The launches are probably significantly worse!

> launches are probably significantly worse Kerosene rockets produce soot. Methalox rockets (like Starship) produce plain CO2 and water.

Hold on, are you saying that burning rocket fuel produces little to no pollution? As in, we could launch a million rockets per day with a negligible effect on the air and other environments? That's pretty surprising to me assuming I'm understanding correctly.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#146

Post by SiempreViernes »

ricardobeat wrote: post #44
nicce wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a limit how much satellites LEO/GEO can hold unless every satellite has perfect dodging system. Called as Kessler syndrome [1], and one estimate is around 70k satellites. So it is a race who can get the most satellites orbiting, because after a certain point, there is no "space" anymore, and anyone who tries to launch after that point, will be blamed for destroying the satellites of the others. Winner takes…

That’s one single estimate, and the problem is much more nuanced. For example, Starlink satellites orbit so low, that even if every single one of them collides and becomes dust, it will all decay and burn up in a matter of months, a couple years at most. The debris cannot physically move to higher orbits to affect other “normal” satellites, though it might impair launches. Conversely, collisions at much higher geosyn…

The debris that ends up with equal or lower orbital energy than one of the satellites started with doesn't move up, that is true.

But all the bits the bits that end up with more energy than the orbit the satellites were on obviously do move up, and some bits will move up very substantially as we know from Mission Shakti debris: debris from that event at 300 km got apoapsis of up to ~2200 km.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#147

Post by Fischgericht »

hughes wrote: post #137
Fischgericht wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Well, I believe that YOU are a bot, not me. Are you Grok? Anyway, yes, I am a human. And it is not that hard to find the sources for this point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_and_Starshiel... v1 constellation was completed in 2021, and decommissioned from 2024. v2 deployed from 2023, but the sat-to-sat communication is not working, so all of them, will need to be replaced by v3, too.

Why do you believe the inter-satellite links are not working?

[Due to the part of the spectrum I am on, I do not have believes or opinions.]

The laser based inter-links still not working has been subject on various conferences like AngaCOM etc.

But in my case: I have simply tried it *). And every Starlink user can do it, too: Use traceroute. And if you think "they might be hiding the hop-to-hops between Sats!", you can dig deeper using MTR behind the modem or simply rooting the modem itself.

Last time I have connected to a v3 Sat however was ~6 months ago. Maybe an active user reading this can try today?

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#148

Post by benjiro »

varenc wrote: post #130

This article has a somewhat alarmist tone, but isn't this just Starlink working as intended? It seems much better for an old non-functional Starlink satellite to burn up in the atmosphere instead of continuing in an uncontrolled orbit. I believe most burn-ups are controlled intentional deorbits.

Yep, those are the original / older gen sats, that have way less capacity then the newer models. They are moving away from tons of small sats and more to larger (with longer life time) sats that have multiple times the capacity, of the combined smaller sats.

Quoting a older post i made on the subject:

-------

Take in account, that a lot of those are replacement sats for the first generations that they are deorbiting already. Do not quote me on this, but its a insane amount (i though it was around 2k) of the first generation that they are deorbiting. If there is a issue, its not the amount of sats in space, but more the insane amount of deorbiting StarLink is doing.

Starlink wanted to put up insane numbers, but a lot of their fights contain a large percentage of replacement sats.

And they are getting bigger ... v1.5 is like 300kg, the v2.0 mini (ironic as its far from mini compared to its predecessors) are 800kg.

So before StarLink launched 60x v1.5's but now they are doing 21x v2.0 Mini's per launch.

The technology has been improving a lot, allowing for a lot more capacity per satellite. Not sure when they start launching v3's but those have like 3x the capacity for inner connects/ground stations and can go up to 1Gbit speeds (compared to the v2's who are again much more capable then multiple v1.5s).

So what we are seeing is less satellites per launch but more capacity per sat. This year is the last year that they are doing mass 1.5 launches, its all now going to the v2.0 "mini" (so 3x less sats).

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#149

Post by ignoramous »

darknavi wrote: post #128
dostick wrote: post #117

That means there must be launching to orbit equivalent replacement, not daily of course.

Indeed, SpaceX often has multiple launches of Starlink sats a week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He...

A launch every 3 days all throughout 2025. Simply incredible.

Re: One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

#150

Post by benjiro »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

> Soon, McDowell told us, there will be up to 5 satellite reentries per day Starlink’s next-generation V3s, which will require Starship to launch, weigh in around 2 metric tonnes [1]. (They’re currently “around 260 and 310 kilograms” [2].) “Every day, Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons [91 metric tons] of dust and sand-sized particles” [3]. So we’re talking about a 2 to 10% increase in burn-up by mass. (Not a…

> (They’re currently “around 260 and 310 kilograms” [2].)

v1.5 is like 300kg, the v2.0 mini (ironic as its far from mini compared to its predecessors) are 800kg.

The V3's are the one's that need StarShip to deploy. But the current launch platform can take 21x v2.0 Mini's per launch vs the 60x v1.5's they did before.

Taking in account that the v2.0 Mini's are way more capably on a kg/capacity. And the tech keeps getting better. SpaceX does not really need Starship, that is more or less a bonus at this point.

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