“As far as we know, no coordination or deconfliction with existing satellites operating in space was performed, resulting in a 200 meter close approach between one of the deployed satellites and STARLINK-6079 (56120) at 560 km altitude.”
personally, i think all satellites live positions should be public at all times, with launching them being more accessible, it becomes harder to coordinate everyone who may or may not have a satellite.
I think they are and that’s why it’s ridiculous. China for sure is aware of all satellite positions, regardless of public databases.
Seems more like an incompetence thing, but then again we see how they behave in Philippine waters and in general. They don’t give a fuck and think the world belongs to them.
First article title using slam correctly. I love it.
That’s not a good thing, they’ll just see this as a win and start using it even more.
Look at how great SLAM did on that article!
Kinda inevitable when you keep throwing all that crap up there.
Yeah the solutions that require thousands and thousands of satellites for one service… think of a better idea you morons.
Don’t forget how hundreds to thousands of them routinely fail and/or otherwise deorbit themselves, thus necessitating constant replenishment.
Its basically the least sustainable, most insane space paradigm currently actually possible with our tech and resources.
After all, I’m sure we can just undo a Kessler Syndrome cascade effect.
Right?
Fuck spaceX and fuck Musk, both of them should go to Mars and never come back.
Kessler syndrome seems increasingly inevitable as we potentially approach some of the great filters that explain why we’ve never met or detected any other civilizations in the universe. It’s been a fun ride, folks, but it seems like we might not have threaded this particular needle, finding it was ultimately narrower and our thread thicker and clumsier than we expected and we might instead be reaching the end of the road on our multiplanetary ambitions. Will we get to Mars? Maybe. Will we survive and thrive there? Doubtful.
Kessler syndrome is something the Internet loves to talk about without truly understanding.
These satellites fly at a very low orbit, and will deorbit themselves within a few years if they go dead. They would likely deorbit even faster if there was a debris cloud following a collision.
We’re not going to be locked out of space for generations, not by any means.
They would likely deorbit even faster if there was a debris cloud following a collision.
Maybe, but not always. Debris from a collision can be flung in all directions, including higher orbits.
Thankfully, those higher orbits probably won’t be long term stable since the perigee will pretty much always be at the point of impact. But it could very well be stable for years, since most of the orbit won’t be dragging through the atmosphere anymore.
But the real risk is a cascade effect. One hit can create thousands of pieces of debris, which may well cause another hit. Etc etc.
Jumping from Kessler syndrome to Great Filter is a drastic and unwarranted step. Kessler syndrome is temporary, the debris is in a low orbit where atmospheric drag gives it a lifespan of years to decades. And even if it wasn’t, it only makes orbits within those debris belts dangerous, it doesn’t prevent you from launching through them.
It might not prevent launching through it, but for the years LEO is fucked, you’d need extra armor to withstand potential hits which would eat into your payload capacity.
Right, that’s exactly what I said.
A “Great Filter” is something that stops every civilization from ever expanding off its home world. Kessler Syndrome does not in any way fit this. It’s a temporary inconvenience that isn’t even guaranteed to happen.
I often wonder if environmental degradation could be the end of the line for humans, and if it might even be Great Filter material. Have other civilizations discovered the usefulness of fossil fuels, only to be ignorant, then apathetic, about their major downsides?
Why would one assume that every civilization is going to have access to fossil fuels in the first place? Earth has coal and oil because of a specific sequence of events that don’t necessarily follow.
Also, the severity of climate change that we’re facing is in no plausible way “end of the line” for humans. It could be disruptive to our current civilization but it’s not going to end us. One could even easily hypothesize alien planets where induced global warming would be an enormous benefit to a civilization living on it. Just a few tens of thousands of years ago major regions of Earth were covered with ice caps, if our civilization had arisen back then a case could be made that accelerating their melting would be beneficial in the long run.
This isn’t really Great Filter material.
I wasn’t trying to refute what you said, I was trying to expand on your “it doesn’t prevent you from launching through them.” by explaining the downsides of going through it.
It’s not as simple as just going through it, there are real implications for those years.
It actually is that simple, though. The amount of time that a launcher spends in one of those Kessler Syndrome zones while it passes through to a higher orbit would be measured in minutes. You can likely just ignore it and write off the one-in-a-million times your launcher hits something as just the cost of doing business.
Kessler Syndrome is a problem for satellites that want to orbit within those zones long term, as in spending years in there.
I think the odds would depend on how big the debris field is, but for non human cargo that might be acceptable, but I have a feeling that might not be the case with people on board, in which case they would need armor.
Edit: for non human cargo it could even be an option. Armored + X payload weight for $100/kg. Unarmored $60/kg + Y payload weight. (Made up numbers)
Kessler syndrome isn’t possible with these LEO constellations.
They are so low the debris would just deorbit themselves in a couple years.
It’s the much much higher orbits where they stay forever that is the problem.
Even the higher orbits aren’t as big a problem as might be assumed. There are still mechanisms other than aerodynamic drag that clear debris from those orbits, they’re just slower. And the combination of fewer high-altitude satellites and much bigger orbital volume make it harder to get a dangerous density of debris going in the first place.
