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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

#301

Post by runarberg »

chermi wrote: post #257
runarberg wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don‘t follow how that is the conclusion, nor do I understand your analogy. Broadband internet via cables, fiber optics, and radio towers is state of the art in telecommunication infrastructure. Satellite is both slower, more limited, and more prone to various disruptions. The capabilities of the wires and the radio towers is also improving. 5 years ago we didn’t have 5G towers, and 20 years ago fiber optics seemed…

"The only thing freezing traditional telecommunication infrastructure in place are dreams of low earth orbit satellites which will never materialize." Do you truly believe this statement, literally?

I actually don‘t believe this. But some politicians do, and that does real damage when they take funding away from actual infrastructure projects which would have otherwise benefited under-served communities with high speed internet.

When I say LEO satellite internet won‘t materialize, I mean that it won‘t serve everybody. It will always be an expensive option which in best case will be subsidized for only a portion of the people that actually need it. LEO satellite is not the future of telecommunication infrastructure, it is lacking in almost every way next to traditional infrastructure. The only thing it is better at is a) marketing and b) providing internet to rich people in their yachts or in their mansions 10 miles out of the suburb.

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

#302

Post by runarberg »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #268
runarberg wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made the statement: > It's interesting how if it's anti-elon, it's ok to complain about how the poor are causing the privileged some difficulties. Now it is up to you to show that this has outsized influence on impoverished communities. According to ITU[1] the number one factor for lack of internet access is economical. The price of internet access can be reduced with traditional infrastructure, but governments a…

If the community can't afford Starlink, surely they can run Fiber and buy equipment from Ciena and Nokia (Huawei outside the US) to light it up themselves since it's more affordable than Starlink in your view.

That is not the point. These communities depend on their state for their infrastructure, the state was (hopefully) able to provide them with garbage disposal, sewage, electricity, running and clean drinking water. The state should also provide them with quality telecommunication infrastructure.

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

#303

Post by lithocarpus »

ecommerceguy wrote: post #231

"What’s not usual is the atmospheric fallout. The fiery re-entry of even one Gen1 Starlink satellite produces about 30 kilograms of aluminum oxide vapor, a compound that erodes the ozone layer. A new study finds these oxides have increased 8-fold between 2016 and 2022, and the Great Re-entry Event increases this pollution even more. To put this into perspective: Before the first Starlink launches began in 2019, only…

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...

Apparently earth soaks up ~400-800 kg of aluminum oxide in cosmic dust each day.

So with 1-2 starlink satellites producing 30kg each dissipate each day, that's adding about 10% to this figure.

I'm not sure if the cosmic dust aluminum finds itself in the same places up there as the dissipating starlink aluminum. Maybe that could be figured out from the above paper.

This could have a significant effect, I don't know.

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

#304

Post by runarberg »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #298
runarberg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wanted to see the computations, I provided you with them and instead of admitting that you were wrong, you responded by casting doubt on their models. This doesn’t strike me as arguing in good faith. But very well, 5th on my list of the same search term gave me this: Vera C. Rubin Observatory – Impact of Satellite Constellations https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increa... The Vera Rubin Observ…

> You wanted to see the computations, I provided you with them No, you didn’t. I asked for evidence this had happened. I read the ‘23 paper two years ago. It’s neat. But it’s a model. We don’t have great model parameters for high-atmosphere nanoparticles. We also have great surveillance of the ozone layer, and aren’t seeing damage. > other then some NSF science grants to study potential solution Yeah, I agree with th…

The scientists and engineers are raising the alarm that this will become an issue if nothing is done, we should not simply ignore them until they are proven right, like we are doing to climate scientists. So much damage can be prevented.

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

#305

Post by lithocarpus »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #246
mensetmanusman wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earth receives ~50,000 kg/day of cosmic dust (our mid-range assumption), 30 kg is 0.06% of that daily amount.

But how much of that is aluminum? Probably Nit: You're off by about a factor of 3 because it's 14.6 t/day. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarctic-study-s...

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...

Apparently around 1.4%.

So the starlink satellites dissipating could increase the aluminum oxide arriving up there by ~10% - depending which numbers are correct I suppose it could be anywhere from like 3-30%.

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

#306

Post by BenjiWiebe »

Fischgericht wrote: post #189
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>are funded with tax-payer money This has nothing to do with profitability. DoD/War Dept contracts are "tax payer money" and shareholders are happy to have those. >it is actually cheaper to run 10 KILOMETERS / 6 Miles of Fiber cable through the jungle Cheaper, sure. But try getting this approved in the US through a County Planning Commission. And you did get NEPA/CEQA done too right? >No, not rural USA. Fiber will be…

All of this is regulatory stuff. Your state has the option of making it expensive and a PITA or not. In my ex home town in Germany we had the exact same thing as you are describing - Fiber available everywhere up to 20 meters away from our house, and no chance to get it connected. For purely regulatory reasons.

True. And starlink is a way to bypass all your/my local regulatory hurdles. They had to deal with several very large regulatory hurdles, and then they're golden. No dealing with every little town separately.

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

#307

Post by runarberg »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #272
chermi wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only thing freezing traditional telecommunication infrastructure in place are dreams of low earth orbit satellites which will never materialize." Do you truly believe this statement, literally?

Their problem isn't LEO. If SpaceX sells Starlink to Amazon and buys Corning, Ciena and Nokia, they'll be extolling the virtues of LEO Megaconstellations

I am advocating for state funded infrastructure. So no, never will I be extolling this technology, especially not if it changes hands from the worst billionaire on the planet to the second worst billionaire on the planet.

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

#308

Post by xenadu02 »

rjbwork wrote: post #184
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.

Are there not concerns with burning up multiple agglomerations of metal, plastics, and ceramics the size of a small car in the upper atmosphere every day?

Modern end-of-life satellite designs are made to cause "rapid disassembly" very high up in the atmosphere to trigger high friction on as many individual components as possible - down to fasteners. This promotes completely re-entry burn up of everything so what reaches the surface is dust that settles back down to the surface (or ocean floor) and eventually gets compressed into rock (over millions of years). Basically back to where it came from.

Remember orbit is not like a flying airplane. Those things are going so fast friction forms a plasma that eats away at the object as it decelerates. If you can expose more surface area that effect will eat away at much more of the object. So you design it to have through-bolts or other fastener designs where the outermost portion of the fastener burns off quickly, allowing the whole assembly to rapidly disassemble and vastly increase surface area.

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

#309

Post by varenc »

ecommerceguy wrote: post #231

"What’s not usual is the atmospheric fallout. The fiery re-entry of even one Gen1 Starlink satellite produces about 30 kilograms of aluminum oxide vapor, a compound that erodes the ozone layer. A new study finds these oxides have increased 8-fold between 2016 and 2022, and the Great Re-entry Event increases this pollution even more. To put this into perspective: Before the first Starlink launches began in 2019, only…

How much ozone is being destroyed by 15000kg of aluminum oxide vapor? Is it a meaningful amount?

On the scale of the Earth, my completely uninformed intuition is that 15k kg of alumina doesn't feel that significant. I'd guess that rocket production and launch emissions are way more harmful. But don't know.

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

#310

Post by Fischgericht »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #306
Fischgericht wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is regulatory stuff. Your state has the option of making it expensive and a PITA or not. In my ex home town in Germany we had the exact same thing as you are describing - Fiber available everywhere up to 20 meters away from our house, and no chance to get it connected. For purely regulatory reasons.

True. And starlink is a way to bypass all your/my local regulatory hurdles. They had to deal with several very large regulatory hurdles, and then they're golden. No dealing with every little town separately.

Not true really. You will hit regulatory hurdles if your rockets explode in other countries too often :)

And: RF spectrum is HIGHLY regulated.

Also, 4 weeks ago they spent 17 BILLION USD on buying ~30 MHz of spectrum in the 2 Ghz range. 30 MHz translated to a total bandwidth capacity of about 300 MBit/s.

Yes, you have read that correctly: 17 Billion for 300 MBit/s.

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