They seem to be losing a lot. Could become a real issue once they get up to serious amounts of satellites.
That's what like 2% in just this incident. Not catastrophic but not insignificant either if that rate holds
That's what like 2% in just this incident. Not catastrophic but not insignificant either if that rate holds
They are in low orbits to be safely disposable without risking orbital debris.
Many satellites at that altitude use specialized antennas to limit their coverage to specific areas of the earth. There is no sense in wasting the little available energy on a satellite in sending RF to places where you don't intend to provide coverage.
They need so many satellites that using higher orbits would quickly guarantee Kessler syndrome. Instead they orbit low enough to require significant fuel simply to maintain orbit. These low orbits also allow individual Starlink satellites to be less than 1/10th the mass of normal communication satellites at ~260kg.
I know there are good reasons to be in LEO, but wouldn’t higher orbits mean a lower likelihood of collision simply due to the increased distances?
Satellite visualizations always make space appear more crowded than it really is.
Worse a sofa hit with another sofa at 5,000+ mph creates a cloud of debris that then endangers stuff across quite a lot of space.