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this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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Technology
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The starlink satellites orbit far too low for that to happen. Without expelling limited propellants to periodically boost their orbits, every satellite in the constellation will fall to earth in less than 10 years, most in less than 1.
I’ve heard that before. But the main point of the paper is that drag is decreasing. So I’m curious to know how that impacts the stability of Starlink going forward. I doubt they have new figures after one day.
They aim to actively deorbit starlink sats.
(Edit: they keep a small amount of propellant in reserve for the initial deorbit burn, and then position the solar array to give maximum drag which hastens things considerably)
As far as I know, apart from the first few batches, the "production run" of sats has a pretty low failure rate and are proactively sent to their demise.