Small debris and unused nails will just burn in high atmosphere without any significant effect on surface. In the worst case you will just have slightly increased meteor activity within few years after wiping out starlink constellation.
Really it is overhyped concern in all. Not everything that goes up will fall down in any observable time. Navy satellite from 1964 (Transit 5B-5 if you are interested) that went rogue after a week of operation is still alive (but kind of crazy, singing senseless, but sometimes very nice songs when exposed to sun, listen them on 136.5MHz LSB modulation when it is over you at daytime), being unattended for nearly 60 years and will not fall down from his 1000km orbit in closest millenias, and will continue to amaze us singing his crazy songs in sunrays.
Only LEO satellites expirience some significant drag and lose speed noticeably.
Also, threat of space garbage to new satellites is miniscule, since it is not even 100 thousand cars on whole Earth, it is 100 thousand cars on whole earth on endless different layers. Probability of occasional unintended collision is very small, at least on current level of space expansion we have.
I feel you misunderstood my point. Each Starlink satellite is massive enough to be used as a weapon itself. A short retrograde burn could send the 250kg mass straight down onto (assumingly) any launchpad-sized area on Earth. We need the Space Nails.
I'm more interested now in the 136.5MHz sun song. What do you hear, an interpretation of solar winds?
A short retrograde burn could send the 250kg mass straight down onto (assumingly) any launchpad-sized area on Earth
That does not work like that. Burn will just slow down 250kg and it begin to lower its orbit. As it reach higher layers of atmosphere, it begin to burn, loosing speed. At the moment it will get to stratosphere it will be already boiling.
To gracefully enter atmosphere you need nearly same amount of fuel that is used to launch that mass to the orbit or heavy heat protection to resist temperatures as spaceships and ballistic missiles have. AFAIK, starlink staellites have none of that on board. They are just aluminium cans with solar panels outside. So, they will just burn high in atmosphere.
You could target anything as a target for starlink satellite, but it is not the right projectile to reach the target. Also, the precision will be not very exciting, since even if burning cloud of aluminium will be able to get close to surface, it will not have engines or flaps to correct trajectory disturbed by winds and starlink satellite aerodynamics.
Even deorbited few tons satellites barely reach surface as single piece, not talking about being precise.
To be able to do the task you talk about, spacecraft have to be designed for that. From what I know about starlink ones, they had not.
IDK, if only starlink staellite outfit is just an external cover, and all their volume inside is reentry module of some kind, but then it is not clear how they are able to do their current internet job.
Small debris and unused nails will just burn in high atmosphere without any significant effect on surface. In the worst case you will just have slightly increased meteor activity within few years after wiping out starlink constellation.
Really it is overhyped concern in all. Not everything that goes up will fall down in any observable time. Navy satellite from 1964 (Transit 5B-5 if you are interested) that went rogue after a week of operation is still alive (but kind of crazy, singing senseless, but sometimes very nice songs when exposed to sun, listen them on 136.5MHz LSB modulation when it is over you at daytime), being unattended for nearly 60 years and will not fall down from his 1000km orbit in closest millenias, and will continue to amaze us singing his crazy songs in sunrays.
Only LEO satellites expirience some significant drag and lose speed noticeably.
Also, threat of space garbage to new satellites is miniscule, since it is not even 100 thousand cars on whole Earth, it is 100 thousand cars on whole earth on endless different layers. Probability of occasional unintended collision is very small, at least on current level of space expansion we have.
I feel you misunderstood my point. Each Starlink satellite is massive enough to be used as a weapon itself. A short retrograde burn could send the 250kg mass straight down onto (assumingly) any launchpad-sized area on Earth. We need the Space Nails.
I'm more interested now in the 136.5MHz sun song. What do you hear, an interpretation of solar winds?
That does not work like that. Burn will just slow down 250kg and it begin to lower its orbit. As it reach higher layers of atmosphere, it begin to burn, loosing speed. At the moment it will get to stratosphere it will be already boiling.
To gracefully enter atmosphere you need nearly same amount of fuel that is used to launch that mass to the orbit or heavy heat protection to resist temperatures as spaceships and ballistic missiles have. AFAIK, starlink staellites have none of that on board. They are just aluminium cans with solar panels outside. So, they will just burn high in atmosphere.
You could target anything as a target for starlink satellite, but it is not the right projectile to reach the target. Also, the precision will be not very exciting, since even if burning cloud of aluminium will be able to get close to surface, it will not have engines or flaps to correct trajectory disturbed by winds and starlink satellite aerodynamics.
Even deorbited few tons satellites barely reach surface as single piece, not talking about being precise.
To be able to do the task you talk about, spacecraft have to be designed for that. From what I know about starlink ones, they had not.
IDK, if only starlink staellite outfit is just an external cover, and all their volume inside is reentry module of some kind, but then it is not clear how they are able to do their current internet job.
No these satellites are tiny. About 1 kg each.
I was under the impression they were much bigger. I'm not too worried about a 1kg weight.
https://swarm.space/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Swarm-Satellite.jpg