Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

Re:Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites by Robotbeat on Friday July 05, 2019 @08:30PM (#20366943)

I thought so too, but apparently this is not universally true. Some of the debris can be put in an orbit with a longer lifetime than the original satellite. I got into a long twitter argument with experts in this field, and I was proven false: some of the debris can have longer orbital lifetime and go to higher orbit.

EDIT: Here: https://twitter.com/SpaceJosh/status/1119721780254371840

Always embarrassing to make a fool of myself on the Internet, but losing an argument IS a very effective way of learning.

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Re:Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites by avar on Saturday July 06, 2019 @02:09AM (#20368231)

You said:

> That seems unlikely, as that requires like 11km/s which is more than the sum of the two velocities[...]

Isn't the first problem here that you're assuming a spherical cow in a vacuum physics problem? Two satellites colliding aren't two indivisible pebbles colliding.

They're going to pulverize on impact, and some of the now-expanding debris cloud might even contain combustibles the satellites were carrying.

The debris also won't only collide once, there'll be a series of rapidly occurring re-collisions. Some of those might impart extra velocity on some of the expanding debris.

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Re:Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites by choonway on Saturday July 06, 2019 @03:22AM (#20368448)

Galilean cannon?

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