This person has posted this multiple times. They keep getting banned then making a new account. They’re trying to drive traffic to their crappy website. So highly doubtful it’s true.
The eventual "end state" for Starlink is to be in an equilibrium state where new satellites are constantly being launched to replace the ones that age out and fail. I have no idea what OP is on about with "not being able to keep up", though, the constellation is nowhere near that state yet.
Yes, but that probably doesn’t help in the next few years. (Expecting a few more fireballs)
They may need to seriously up the Falcon9 launch cadence or switch back to gen 1 sats. (Unless the better capabilities of the gen 2 sats mean they need less up there - I thought that the number was more due to low coverage due to altitude though)
They've already got prototype Starship upper stages built that have the cargo door necessary for launching Starlink satellites from, I think "a few years" is likely a very pessimistic timeframe at this point. If they're not launching Starlink satellites with Starship at some point next year I will be very surprised.
The problem is that due to the scale of the rocket/explosions the regulators are being more picky - their test rate is much reduced. If their not allowed to launch again for months after the last failure then it could easily take that long.
Why? While it's an energy intensive process to launch all these satellites, it's probably a lot less than the environmental cost of running a fibre connection to every customer who uses this service. Sure Musk is a bit dodgy, but he's not the majority owner of Starlink.
The low orbital altitude of Starlink satellites prevents them from being a Kessler concern, when they don't do active station keeping they fall out of orbit in a matter of a few years.
If you really think Starlink is "absurd" then just ignore it, it needs to be economically viable for SpaceX to keep launching them so if it turns out not to be it'll be a self-correcting problem.
It’s only junk if they are useless, which the functional satellites are definitely not.
I think the dead ones come down pretty quick, can’t remember what the exact timing is from their full orbit though. (It’s weeks from their launch orbit)
Just to tack on a little more seriously fucking important point to the space junk thing… When a certain level is reached, we will be trapped on this planet, because the space junk flying around at 5000km/s will destroy anything trying to leave.
It still takes 5 years and with the amount of satellites Musk wants to put into LEO, there’s a lot of chances for dead satellites to get turned into thousands of tiny bullets which will take out even more satellites and it turns into a runaway catastrophe.
The more finely sub-divided a satellite becomes the more rapidly atmospheric drag causes its orbit to decay.
Also, there's basically only Starlink satellites at the altitude these are being placed in, and nothing in lower altitudes. So a brief burst of orbital debris would only inconvenience Starlink itself.
You misunderstand Kessler syndrome. It doesn't "trap us on this planet", all it does is make certain orbital regions no longer hospitable to satellites orbiting within those regions. Launching through those orbits would be fine, the payload passing through them wouldn't spend long enough in there to be at significant risk of impact. You only get an unacceptable risk of impact if you remain there for years.
Also, Starlink satellites are at a low enough altitude that if they were to be disrupted the bits would fall out of orbit in a matter of months. That region is basically Kessler-proof.
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