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I thought sats in LEO have fundamental issue that they can’t stay up too long. In rather short time, their fuel would run out and they will burn off in atmosphe
by sytelus 7y ago
I thought sats in LEO have fundamental issue that they can’t stay up too long. In rather short time, their fuel would run out and they will burn off in atmosphere.
Does this mean you have to keep replishining them at regular intervals like less than a year or two?
- eljimmy 7y agoPretty much - I think Starlink satellites will have an estimated lifespan of 5 years, not bad.
- martythemaniak 7y agoThis used to be a huge issue when satellites had to be very big and expensive to launch. But today satellites can be much smaller (several hundred kg) and are much cheaper to launch, making this approach viable.
- savrajsingh 7y agoIt’s a “feature” — things self dispose and you don’t end up with lots of junk in orbit
- BurningFrog 7y agoYou can see how this is very attractive if you have a lot of launch capacity to sell :)