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Is there any breakdown of what the total tonnage to space is used for? What % is exploration / research, telecommunications, surveillance/imaging, other?
by cdchn 2y ago
Is there any breakdown of what the total tonnage to space is used for? What % is exploration / research, telecommunications, surveillance/imaging, other?
- bagels 2y agoMuch of it is Starlink.
- cdchn 2y agoHow much? And what are other companies putting in space?
- bagels 2y agoI don't know. I'm sure someone has calculated it, but I don't have time to find updated numbers. Check this out though: https://www.n2yo.com/ https://www.n2yo.com/ The most massive things up there are spent rocket upper stages + ISS. The most numerous things are tiny debris. The most numerous intentional things are Starlink satellites, by a large margin.
- cdchn 2y agoYeah I was hoping the HN community could provide some insight there, because my searches came up fruitless.
- bagels 2y agoOne problem you'll find is that manifests are not completely public, and the mass of each item on the manifest isn't typically published either. We're left with estimates of individual satellites, and aggregate estimates based on rocket payload capacities.