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this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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Technology
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Doesn't that just mean that lower orbits can be used? Less air resistance?
Not exactly. If it goes into full blown Kessler syndrome, it will become everyone's problem, including at the newly "freed up" lower orbits.
Except that isn't how it works. The lower your orbit, the quicker your orbit decays due to atmospheric drag. If the atmosphere was 10% less dense, this wouldn't significantly reduce that at those altitudes. In the current scenario, if every one of those satellites stopped working right now, the vast majority of them (and their parts) would deorbit within 10 years. This would be a bit of a problem for manned space flight, but wouldn't affect things too much otherwise.
If this was happening in geosynchronous orbit, with comparable amou to of mass, it would be a bigger deal.
That's the problem here though, that effect is lessening. So they're gonna stay up their longer, potentially past the limits of what they can do to avoid collisions. That's going to create problems for lower orbits.
I imagine it'd make the business more expensive low orbit satelites slowly fall into the atmosphere and are supposed to burn up after a couple of years. I imagine with lower orbits that they'd fall sooner and you'd have to launch more to sustain your system which then produces more pollution and perpetuates the problem.
Edit article says more space junk and slower burning up in the atmosphere as an effect so that's interesting. If it becomes a space junk graveyard I imagine satellites will more frequently get damaged by them and become junk themselves?
Things fall into the thicker parts of the atmosphere because drag from the tiny amounts of air up there. if that is shrinking, then you can get lower before you have the same amount of drag? Therefore lower orbits might be more feasible?
Lower orbit means faster though, so it may not be linear? Would be interesting to see (someone else do) the maths.
Eventually, mining the LEO cloud for energy and materials will become lucrative.
Of course, there are other issues with our atmosphere going away….
Like that we are speedrunning to making Earth into Mars?
Given the speed of climate change, probably more like a speed run to our sister planet, Venus.