Hi Roger, > On 10 Feb 2022, at 8:11 am, Roger Clarke <[email protected]> wrote: > > Solar winds take out Starlink satellites > Geomagnetic storm hits broadband from the skies provider. > Juha Saarinen > itNews > Feb 9 2022 > https://www.itnews.com.au/news/solar-winds-take-out-starlink-satellites-575813
> SpaceX said the re-entering satellites pose no collision risk with other > satellites ... > > [ Presumably that's because no-one else is silly enough to put lumps of > matter into temporary, very-high-speed orbit that close to Earth. ] It’s a temporary parking orbit until the satellites separate enough that they can fire their ion thrusters and go to a higher orbit. > [ 550km isn't all that far to fall, and 260kg is a fair bit of material > to be vaporised. Maybe they've accumulated a bit of experience of > de-orbital burn-up rates, particuylarly when falling from 1100m. Do > they have empirical evidence yet from the 550km level? ] It was from ~250-300km and yes, they are lightweight enough to fully burn up. > [ Have there been previous launches into the 550km level, which went as > planned? Was the prompt loss of 40 of a batch of 49 really a once-off > bit of bad luck, or an indicator that the environment at that level is > simply too hostile for spacecraft to hang around? ] 550km is not that low. It’s higher than the ISS and many other LEO satellites. BTW the Falcon 9 can carry up to about 60 starlink satellites in one go. This one was less as it was launched into a southerly orbit so needed extra fuel for a dogleg manoeuvre around the Caribbean. Scott Manly has an excellent video on what happened and why at https://youtu.be/9kIcEFyEPgA <https://youtu.be/9kIcEFyEPgA> Carl. _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
