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The current generation has a 5-7 year lifespan and after that they are to either naturally decay or manually deorbit. The next gen that is supposed to be deploy
by CuriousCosmic 5y ago
The current generation has a 5-7 year lifespan and after that they are to either naturally decay or manually deorbit. The next gen that is supposed to be deployed with starship provided things get off the ground is intended to stay in orbit for a decent bit longer since they are larger, more expensive satellites.
In the grand scheme of things, this initial set is more a prototype than anything else so I doubt the loss will have any serious permanence. Now getting starship to production on the other hand will really be what makes or breaks the starlink program (as it won't even be possible to deploy v2 if they were to dedicate every possible falcon 9 launch towards just deploying sats).
- dkbrk 5y agoI think this loss it a bit more painful than you imply. Sure, they're prototypes, but these are the latest prototypes. They were probably equipped with laser links, and while 40 satellites is only a small fraction of the entire constellation, it would be a much more substantial fraction of the laser-equipped ones.