Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by rocqua on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:29PM
(#28250351)
It could be a discrepancy is orbit. Most space debris is not on circular low earth orbit. In fact, that is not a stable orbit because of atmospheric drag.
And circular LEO is where most satelites are. So satelites in that same class of orbits would indeed be 'hyper achievers'.
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by bell-cot on Friday August 20, 2021 @04:05PM
(#28250778)
From NASA graphics (1 Jan. 2019 data) - https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/photo-gallery/# - it looks like a great deal of the debris is in low or low-perigee orbits. (The latter still have plenty of opportunity to hit low-circular-orbit objects.)
I might accept Starlink satellites being 10X or even 100X performers, based on arguments about orbits, cross-sectional area, etc. But ~100,000X? No.
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g...
by refulgentis on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:27PM
(#28250330)
The whole thrust of the article is the satellites are hyperachievers at this, and there's tons more variables than that, path, velocity, acceleration, relative height ... – I don't have the energy to make a tortured analogy slamming you for lazy thinking, so I'll leave you with a lame one: you're hyperachieving at insulting after hyperachieving at false dichotomies.
- and yet -
> ...there are approximately 228 million pieces of space debris...
So - either the mere ~1,700 Starlink satellites are ~100,000X hyper-achievers when it comes to near-collisions...or else the The Independent is yearning to win a "Lies...Damn Lies...Statistics" hype-achiever award.