The world must cooperate to avoid colliding satellites and space debris

Re:The world must cooperate to avoid colliding satellites an... by mLuby on Thursday August 19, 2021 @12:48PM (#28236156)

To some degree that's true, though collisions will likely create cones of debris that extend significantly above and below the initial orbits, and those shards could smash satellites in those higher or lower orbits, thus continuing the chain reaction.

For example: two satellites collide head-on at an altitude of 300km, creating two debris clouds that extend from 250km to 350km. Each of those catches another satellite, one at 260km and another at 320km, which fragment into debris clouds reaching from 200km to 370km (all numbers made up).

Higher orbits, like geosynchronous, have a lot more space to work with and much slower relative velocities than low Earth orbits.

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Re:The world must cooperate to avoid colliding satellites an... by Retric on Thursday August 19, 2021 @01:35PM (#28236800)

That debris cloud is an abstraction, actual post collision orbits of individual objects are what matters.

At 300km satellites experience significant drag and need regular boosts to maintain orbit. After collision individual objects orbit will almost always include it’s altitude at the point of impact and generally expends above and below that point. So while yes the cloud extends to higher orbit, everything would deorbit from your example extremely quickly.

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