Gregory's Server@firn Cubesats are really not the problem in orbit - they are tiny. The new Starlinks will be the size of Ford F150s - 1250 kg each.
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 @firn They definitely can, and if we have 100,000 cubesats that will be bad. But right now this is not the main thing I'm worrying about! And the 5 year lifetime thing is fine when you're talking about small masses - Reentry of Starlink satellites and Falcon rocket bodies is already exceeding natural influx of metals from meteorites. What will that do to the atmosphere? Only a few people are studying that now  @sundogplanets @firn …Not to mention the danger from 50 kg chunks of debris raining down on us… @sundogplanets @firn To me, it seems the environmental cost of launching the satellites into orbit and the waste associated with all the booster rockets and such far outweigh whatever environmental impact of the satellites themselves burning up. @mikemccaffrey @sundogplanets @firn depends what it's doing to the ozone layer. It could be very concerning indeed, theoretically much worse. @djuuss @mikemccaffrey @firn Just a quick reminder: I am studying this, I actually know what the numbers are. The pollution from planned reentries is indeed worse than the pollution from launches. And it's already being measured: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2313374120 @sundogplanets @mikemccaffrey @firn What's the 'oh my gosh' tl;dr? i'm not a scientist reader @sundogplanets @mikemccaffrey @firn so far i'm getting: there's a thin mist of metal in the upper atmosphere already that is precipitating slowly like a snowglobe. Lead wise, don't worry about it, because the US is still pumping out 700 tonnes of lead from chimneys a year (???!What?) And you're expecting the metal clouds to descend on the poles with.. unknown effects.   @sundogplanets @firn |
@sundogplanets Ok, I wasn't sure. ESA launch guidelines are pretty strict to. It has to have an orbit in which it will burn up at 5 years of deployment too.
I thought really tiny bits of space debris could achieve velocities where they too might become super dangerous.