I missed reading Starlink's latest conjunction report when it came out a bit over a month ago.
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@startswithabang Some of the foundational work for that is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.21328
@sundogplanets Bah, science in its infancy is one of the most promising, and frustrating (for its lack of definitive answers), types all at once!
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They also list 4 "disposal failures" which are satellites that died before SpaceX purposefully chucked them into the atmosphere. This includes Starlink 34343 which either exploded or got hit by debris a couple months ago. https://keeptrack.space/deep-dive/starlink-34343
4 out of thousands of launched satellites is pretty good. But when you have nearly 11,000 satellites, you have to operate COMPLETELY PERFECTLY every minute of every day, forever.
Please don't fuck up more than you already have, SpaceX.
@sundogplanets I dont see any reason to freak out about it. They are low orbit sats with natural fallback of 5 years, spacex could go bust and all the sats left and it'd all be gone in a few years.
They all are designed to full burn up before risk to ground and no evidence of them failing to fully burn after hundreds of burns.The real shit you should worry about is high orbit sats that are 20 years old and actually able to cause Kessler syndrome.
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@Amgine If they wanted Kessler Syndrome they could have very easily done it already.
But not with plausible deniability.
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Oh gosh I just did the math on the maneuver rate, which I couldn't bring myself to do earlier. More than 207,000 collision avoidance maneuvers in 6 months.
That means that somewhere in the Starlink megaconstellation, a satellite is performing a collision avoidance maneuver EVERY 1.25 MINUTES (EVERY 75 SECONDS)
AAAHHHH I'M SURE THAT'S FINE.
And now I find myself reading about asteroid collisional cascades. For no particular reason...
@sundogplanets
I'm actually looking forward to the Kessler Cascade thing. Yeah, it might make GPS a bit hard for a while, but it might shut some of the nonces up, -
@startswithabang Some of the foundational work for that is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.21328
@sundogplanets @startswithabang oh yes as if the one single thing the climate still needed in this era was a good trashing of the ozone layer by catalytic metals.
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I missed reading Starlink's latest conjunction report when it came out a bit over a month ago. I just skimmed through it and I think I need to go lay down for a while. It's terrifying how close we are to major collisions in orbit all the time... (I especially love the note about how space-track.org being offline briefly caused them to miss a potential collision... SO FRAGILE AAUGH)
Article summarizing the report here: https://ca.pcmag.com/networking/16653/260-starlink-satellites-burn-up-in-earths-atmosphere-as-more-head-for-fiery-ends
Full report here: https://www.scribd.com/document/1057502572/SpaceX-Gen1-Gen2-Semi-Annual-Report-7-1-26
@sundogplanets i have worked for ESA and heard multiple stories about them trying to get *someone" at Starlink on the phone because of imminent collisions and missing agreements on who takes evasive action (settled now). Pretty wild
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@sundogplanets Are you aware of any organizations working to reduce the chances of Kessler syndrome happening above us?
@LeDiva @sundogplanets lots of efforts at ESA
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I missed reading Starlink's latest conjunction report when it came out a bit over a month ago. I just skimmed through it and I think I need to go lay down for a while. It's terrifying how close we are to major collisions in orbit all the time... (I especially love the note about how space-track.org being offline briefly caused them to miss a potential collision... SO FRAGILE AAUGH)
Article summarizing the report here: https://ca.pcmag.com/networking/16653/260-starlink-satellites-burn-up-in-earths-atmosphere-as-more-head-for-fiery-ends
Full report here: https://www.scribd.com/document/1057502572/SpaceX-Gen1-Gen2-Semi-Annual-Report-7-1-26
@sundogplanets Collisions at all will be terrible, but at what point do we reach critical mass for a runaway chain reaction?
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@sundogplanets Collisions at all will be terrible, but at what point do we reach critical mass for a runaway chain reaction?
If active avoidance fails, collisions would start happening in low orbit within a few days.
@sundogplanets and company have done the math: https://outerspaceinstitute.ca/crashclock/
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@sundogplanets I dont see any reason to freak out about it. They are low orbit sats with natural fallback of 5 years, spacex could go bust and all the sats left and it'd all be gone in a few years.
They all are designed to full burn up before risk to ground and no evidence of them failing to fully burn after hundreds of burns.The real shit you should worry about is high orbit sats that are 20 years old and actually able to cause Kessler syndrome.
@Rin3d @sundogplanets Do you understand that the person you answer is a specialist of the topic, and if I remember correctly has been investigating actual debris from Starlink satellites that fell on the ground (see https://thenarwhal.ca/space-junk-falling-50th-parallel/, even with a photo of her with space debris)?
I cannot be sure you are a man, but your message looks like a strong contender for the worst mansplaining of the year. -
@davidtheeviloverlord @sundogplanets They are in so low orbits they de-orbit themselves if they ran out of fuel, or for some other reason couldn't safe themselves
Starlinks keep falling on my head,
But that doesn't mean that I will soon be turning dead -
They also list 4 "disposal failures" which are satellites that died before SpaceX purposefully chucked them into the atmosphere. This includes Starlink 34343 which either exploded or got hit by debris a couple months ago. https://keeptrack.space/deep-dive/starlink-34343
4 out of thousands of launched satellites is pretty good. But when you have nearly 11,000 satellites, you have to operate COMPLETELY PERFECTLY every minute of every day, forever.
Please don't fuck up more than you already have, SpaceX.
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@sundogplanets Collisions at all will be terrible, but at what point do we reach critical mass for a runaway chain reaction?
@swordgeek Oh we're beyond the limit. Some parts of orbit are already in Kessler Syndrome, but the early stages are slow.
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@Rin3d @sundogplanets Do you understand that the person you answer is a specialist of the topic, and if I remember correctly has been investigating actual debris from Starlink satellites that fell on the ground (see https://thenarwhal.ca/space-junk-falling-50th-parallel/, even with a photo of her with space debris)?
I cannot be sure you are a man, but your message looks like a strong contender for the worst mansplaining of the year.@BrKloeckner Thank you.
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Oh gosh I just did the math on the maneuver rate, which I couldn't bring myself to do earlier. More than 207,000 collision avoidance maneuvers in 6 months.
That means that somewhere in the Starlink megaconstellation, a satellite is performing a collision avoidance maneuver EVERY 1.25 MINUTES (EVERY 75 SECONDS)
AAAHHHH I'M SURE THAT'S FINE.
And now I find myself reading about asteroid collisional cascades. For no particular reason...
Small meteors hit the earth all the time, iirc? Now imagine a not-so-tiny one sideswiping the atmosphere and taking out a whole swathe of satellites, sending them careening in every direction...
On the upside, gps tracking of people's cars and phones will no longer be possible.
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@BrKloeckner Thank you.
@sundogplanets You're welcome. Sorry you have to put up with that, I assumed you should not also have to carry the weight of letting such people know it is not ok.
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@sundogplanets You're welcome. Sorry you have to put up with that, I assumed you should not also have to carry the weight of letting such people know it is not ok.
@BrKloeckner I started to write a response and deleted it. Thanks for writing a good one for me!
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@swordgeek Oh we're beyond the limit. Some parts of orbit are already in Kessler Syndrome, but the early stages are slow.
@sundogplanets @swordgeek wait wait what?? That's a lede you have to tell us about!
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Oh gosh I just did the math on the maneuver rate, which I couldn't bring myself to do earlier. More than 207,000 collision avoidance maneuvers in 6 months.
That means that somewhere in the Starlink megaconstellation, a satellite is performing a collision avoidance maneuver EVERY 1.25 MINUTES (EVERY 75 SECONDS)
AAAHHHH I'M SURE THAT'S FINE.
And now I find myself reading about asteroid collisional cascades. For no particular reason...
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@sundogplanets @swordgeek wait wait what?? That's a lede you have to tell us about!
@fiigvam @swordgeek We're beyond the runaway limit. If there's a collision in altitudes beyond the runaway limit, that means that debris pieces will continue causing more collisions. But the timescale for those secondary collisions could be years. But the rate will continue to increase...
Here's a recent paper by Hugh Lewis and Donald Kessler (yes, that Kessler) that's super dense but talks about it. Figure 16. https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/305/SDC9-paper305.pdf
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