They are all in LEO, so they would naturally de-orbit in a matter weeks uncontrolled so, who cares?
Kessler Syndrome is cool Sci-fi, but not really possible to stop us from leaving earth. There is a very narrow band where the debris could accumulate (LEO), and as you get further away, the amount of space increases by a cube of the altitude, not to mention that only the “cheapest” low earth orbits would be affected. Things like polar orbits or sun-synchronous orbits aren’t affected. The band of debris only hinders stable orbits at that level, i.e. LEO satellites such as starlink constellations would be affected but it doesn’t act as an impenetrable barrier. It also doesn’t affect useful satellites like GPS.
Basically the problem described only affects the profits of a company that would be the primary cause of the problem. So in a way it’s self-correcting.
The Kessler stndrom isn’t sci-fi anymore, it’s a chain reaction which is more and more probable with the amount of fragments in orbita and not only in a narrow band, but covering the whole planet. And no, not affect only companies, it affects the whole satelite system, GPS, climate observation, space stations, communication, etc… hundreds of thousand fragments and old sats out of order and control, with speeds of 20-30 km/s are not a joke, not only for Starlink, also for all other satelites and stations.
You understand that not all satellites are in Low Earth Orbit right? And even those that are in LEO, not all of them are in the same orbital path. So even if all of Starlink satellites exploded and polluted their orbit with a worse case scenario, GPS wouldn’t be affected (GPS orbit is 20,000km away from Starlinks with hugely different Delta V required to interact with them). LEO Polar Orbits wouldn’t be affected, and any space faring nation would still be able to launch missions that avoid the polluted orbital area.
Kessler syndrome is a concern for “economical” space exploitation, but not actually an issue for a Government that cared and wanted to prevent it.
Do you have any sources on the worst case scenario outcomes? I had a write up I put together but should probably do some more reading before posting a 5 paragraph essay on the matter
I’m aware that not all objects are on the same hight, there are several layers, but currently all layers are saturated with sats, working or not and thousends of tons of debris of every kind. This is getting worst with every launch of new sats. In the page i posted you can see the current objects and their data in real time. Every possible crash, like the some month ago, the small object perforanting the Chinese space station, luckily with not big consequences, and similar which even destroyed some sats, augmented the amount of trash. A lot of abandoned sats out of control, like the one from Rusia make the situation not better. Also not a huge amount of sats not able to changing course to avoid a crash.
You cannot fill the sky with all kinds of objects ad infinitum, hoping that this will not have serious consequences in the long run, and we are already about to reach this limit. I don’t care about spy or large corporate satellites, starlink etc. but if they are destroyed they produce thousands of tons of garbage that further endangers essential satellites (GPS, Communications, Climate…) even more, avoiding any new launch , when the expression “launch window” takes on a literal meaning, making it a Frogger game.
Here an report from the ESA, maybe more convincing as my post
https://www.sdo.esoc.esa.int/environment_report/Space_Environment_Report_latest.pdf
Tell us you know nothing about orbital dynamics without telling us you know nothing about orbital dynamics.
Go play some ksp at least and then come back here.
Kessler syndrome may very well be real, but even with todays pace, its insanely far away. Leo is crowded on a visualization sure, but thats because each satellite is at least a pixel in size, which is obviously necessary but sorta dumb. put that at a proper scale and it’s still much less crowded than even the air is with planes.
And no, not all “layers” are “filled.” Not even close. Space is fucking mind bogglingly huge. Put some filters on the visualizing tool. Less than 600km periapsis shows you everything that would decay within a few years. Focus on the red debris and you can see that in action. Not too much there, mostly active satellites.
Filter at 600-800 and we’re talking many years decay time, decades even. Debris there is much more serious and its exactly where we start to see a lot on visualizers because of old collisions and bad stewardship before we cared about these things. But also, focus on the “edge” (for lack of a better term), of the visualizer to see the depth. Notice how although it is looking dense, its really not, things are spread all over that height range, and remember the scale issue. Not to mention there is just less here overall than the lowest orbits.
Goto 800+ and we’re talking 100+ years of decay time where kessler actually matters, and the density is now dropping rapidly with distance.
currently all layers are saturated with sats
This is not true. Only LEO at best is saturated. And Kessler syndrome in LEO would have zero effect on GEO or other orbits.
dont look up
– look foward. lol
I mean, at this point I’m kinda’ hoping for Kessler syndrome… It’s so blatantly clear that the rich and powerful do not give two fucks about the consequences of their actions. While they’re raping and destroying the Earth, they speak of datacenters in space and colonizing Mars.
At this point, humanity needs to have the French Revolution 2.0 x10, or Kessler Syndrome better make sure we kill ourselves off before our ilk can infect the rest of the solar system.
“Datacenters in space” good luck powering AND cooling that
To showcase the immediacy of the problem these solar storms can cause, the authors came up with a new metric—the Collision Realization and Significant Harm (CRASH) Clock.
which came first, the abbreviation or the long form?
I have a few experiences working with acedemics, and it always seems to be abbreviation first, long form later. I kinda hated this practice. Not everything needs a catchy and marketable name. Often times it wasn’t even an abbreviation, but instead it was like:
STUBBLES: Study of Faulty Abbreviations and Failure to Understand Words
Wouldn’t an event like this potentially cause mass disruption of GPS/GLONASS satellites?
I’m surprised no one has considered this as a potential terrorist threat vector. How difficult would it be to send a balloon/large amateur rocket up to start the domino effect?
GPS Satellites are MUCH further away then LEO. GPS orbits around 20,000km, LEO is 400km. There is no way a non-nation state can get there, let alone the difficulty of actually intercepting those satellites. It’s physical possible, of course, but not easy.
It’s pretty hard without state-level resources. A balloon can go abou 60km up. LEO begins like 400km IIRC.
LEO begins at around 160km. The ISS is between 400 and 420km at any given moment
Thank you, I stand corrected.
Don’t know, but it’d be fun to try
Iirc, gps satellites are in geosynchronous orbit, so it’s impossible to reach with amateur rockets or balloons. But they could absolutely fuck up the leo satellites
Elonlink can crash and burn.
