Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by patagurbon on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:23PM
(#28250280)
I used to like Johnny Harris quite a bit, but when your research is Wikipedia deep, and your method of convincing people is to make incredulous faces I start to lose interest.
All of SpaceX's satellites are in low Earth orbit, and will deorbit themselves over time even if they die. Kessler syndrome is bad but overblown, and far more likely to occur due to antisat missiles from nation states.
There is an increased risk of collision, but the increase is marginal at best.
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by edoceo on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:09PM
(#28250127)
Is this grey cause it's un-possible or cause it's snark-junk?
The probability of cascade-crash space-junk barrier is crazy small? Right?
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by kitsunesoba on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:12PM
(#28250155)
Generally speaking, the higher the orbit the higher the chances of unrecoverable Kessler syndrome. For example if something went wrong way out in geosynchronous orbit and caused a chain of collisions, there's basically nothing we could do except clean it up manually — on its own it'd remain a mess for thousands of years.
For the lowest orbits, worst case scenario is just waiting 2-5 years for it to clear itself up.
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by m4rtink on Friday August 20, 2021 @04:14PM
(#28250878)
Would it be a big problem elsewhere than in Geo ? All the Geo birds are basically in one plane and don't really move in repect to each other.
So I'm not sure you could really even trigger Kessler syndrome there & it would likely be quite easy to avoid that debris belt if you did.
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by peeters on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:37PM
(#28250465)
Thankfully GSO is also 4300x as spatious, and we don't need as many satellites up there in comparison.
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by mlindner on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:45PM
(#28250561)
Not only is it crazy small, it's impossible. Kessler syndrome doesn't result in "space junk barrier" nonsense. That's from media and movies, not a possible reality.
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by tick_tock_tick on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:12PM
(#28250156)
> The probability of cascade-crash space-junk barrier is crazy small? Right?
Yes
In short not only is a collision bad but it could create a chain reaction leading to billions of small objects flying around in the orbit forming a impenetrable barrier that bars further space travel and more importantly putting other (actually useful) satellites at risk