News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are getting ‘out of control’. Parent comment

Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g... by LeoPanthera on Friday August 20, 2021 @03:21PM (#28250265)
100% of the Starlink satellites burn up during re-entry. End-of-life satellites are intentionally deorbited. Failed satellites are in such a low orbit that they will self-deorbit after 5 years due to atmospheric drag without their orbit being boosted.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g... by jvzr on Friday August 20, 2021 @06:08PM (#28251957)
There was concern at one point that the laser component of Starlink woulldn't burn up during atmospheric reentry. I don't think many (if any) satellites currently in orbit have that laser module (which will be used for satellite-to-satellite communication, and IIRC better latency by removing a necessary ground round-trip when the satellite leaves radio "line of sight" with your antenna; I don't have the correct terminology). I don't know either if that's been fixed
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:SpaceX’s Starlink near-misses with other spacecraft are g... by LeoPanthera on Saturday August 21, 2021 @01:24AM (#28254457)
At the moment, only satellites in a polar orbit have the laser module installed, which I believe is a grand total of 13 right now.
[ Parent | on HN ]