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Yeah, the traffic is more predictable, but when something goes wrong, traffic in airspace can easily maneuver to avoid problems. And moreover, in airspace a dis
by gspr 5y ago
Yeah, the traffic is more predictable, but when something goes wrong, traffic in airspace can easily maneuver to avoid problems. And moreover, in airspace a disaster is local – the debris from a satellite collision is unpredictable and can stay around for years and years!
- rtkwe 5y agoYeah this could go bad though there are some mitigations in place. These are relatively low, iirc the full satellites are supposed to burn up in a few years once they go offline without any intervention.
- zamadatix 5y agoFor Starlink, other constellations are being launched in orbits twice as high. Once one collision occurs at those altitudes it takes many lifetimes for the uncontrolled debris to leave ortbit.
- gspr 5y agoI'd still want some international agency actually enforcing this. Musk's word is worth absolutely nothing.
- mlindner 5y agoThere's a national agency actually enforcing this... Further his point was that if SpaceX disappeared tomorrow, the satellites would all deorbit in under a decade given their low altitude, which is quite fast compared to disposal rules currently mandated by the US government. Physics determines this, not governments or billionaires.
- gspr 5y agoUnless they happen to collide with something due to their deteriorating, less predictable orbits, of course.
- rtkwe 5y agoEven when their orbit starts decaying they're not generally a direct threat to other satellites as long as they can maneuver. The US maintains a pretty good tracking network that will pick up any whole satellite at least once every few orbits. On that timescale there's not a significant change to the orbit of an object so they remain pretty predictable out far enough for a maneuverable satellite to make a small change to avoid a collision.
- mlindner 5y agoEven if they hit something, those debris would also decay in roughly the same time frame.
- londons_explore 5y agoSatellites are very maneuverable too when you consider they normally only need to shift a few yards to avoid a collision, as long as their orbits can be measured precisely enough.