The innovation behind Starlink is the satellites are disposable so you can stick them in very low orbits and not be too hurt by them de-orbiting when they run out of fuel for stationkeeping. In addition they keep a reserver to intentionally de-orbit at the end of their lifetime. This eliminates the danger of Kessler syndrome because the thin atmosphere slowly drags everything down even if the satellites are rendered non-operable. In addition you have insanely low latency at 440 km (Only about 2.8 ms) which is faster than fiber lines because they don't have to worry about re-transmission every 2 km. Satellites at 440km can maintain communications using line of sight laser links up to a theoretical 5400 km. (Although usually it's only going to be under 1000km)
Re:Bezos and Musk’s satellite internet could save Americans ...
by foxyv on Monday August 26, 2019 @11:15AM
(#20800535)
Typically the place to worry about space junk is in Geostationary orbit. It's a tight band with a lot of satellites trying to use the same space. Also is it is about 0.120 light seconds away introducing 240ms of packet latency. This makes for slow internet communications. However a lot of broadcast satellites are found in GSO in addition to GPS satellites. These orbits are tightly regulated by government organizations.
Re:Bezos and Musk’s satellite internet could save Americans ...
by GaryNumanVevo on Sunday August 25, 2019 @05:39PM
(#20795768)
The first Starlink constellation tested this with a few sacrificial satellites deorbiting themselves
Are thousands of new orbiting objects enough to be a complication for new launches?