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What would be the number of reentries in the near future? 5-20 satellites daily? At first glance, it seems negligible. On the hand, given the intentional nat
by piskov 2mo ago
What would be the number of reentries in the near future?
5-20 satellites daily?
At first glance, it seems negligible.
On the hand, given the intentional nature if disposable low-orbit, 20 more than ideal.
- EA-3167 2mo agoSpaceX wants their Starlink constellation to crack 100,000, and there are plenty of competitors lining up who will surely want to have "the biggest and the best" at some point. None of those sats stay up terribly long, so you'll have a constant cadence of launches and reentries, both of which are a risk for their impact on the climate system, atmosphere, etc. A largely unstudied risk, and once which will almost certainly be strenuously ignored for as long as possible.
- tekla 2mo ago100 tons of whatever enter the Earth every single day. Are you freaking out about that?
- konmok 2mo agoThose are rocks, which are not made from the same stuff as satellites. (Also, the article says it's 44 tons, and other sources suggest around 50 at most.) In any case, I don't think anyone here is "freaking out", I just think this issue merits investigation.
- DiggyJohnson 2mo agoI’m not GP but your original comment did not come across as neutral
- kortilla 2mo ago[flagged]
- EA-3167 2mo agoIn the same sense that you do.
- kortilla 2mo agoNo, in a much more direct sense. By the time a Starlink sat re-enters its fuel is gone so it’s mostly a pile of silicon, solar panels, lithium batteries, aluminum, etc. The circuit boards are probably the goofiest chemical compositions but they represent a drop in the bucket mass-wise for the sats and pale in comparison to how many circuit boards get blown up every day in Iran/Ukraine/Russia.
- EA-3167 2mo agoConsidering that aluminum ash is the primary concern of tfa…
- DiggyJohnson 2mo agoWhy do you consider the ideal point for this question absolute 0 zero reentries rather than the minimal number of reentries that don’t cause damage to the atmosphere?
- kortilla 2mo ago[flagged]
- DiggyJohnson 2mo agoWhat do you mean? Especially by “ignorance of meteors”? Are you opposed to all launches if your preference is zero? Please consider that I’m very familiar with natural and artificial meteor falls if you choose to respond
- foxglacier 2mo agoYou might have overlooked that the person who replied isn't the person you asked the question to.
- colechristensen 2mo agoI presume dead orbiting satellites will become a source of valuable refined materials in orbit in not a particularly long time.