Satellite internet: Already one or two Starlink satellite crashes per day
Almost 10,000 Starlink satellites are in Earth orbit, one or two of them crash every day and more are expected. This could affect the ozone layer, for example.
(Image: IM_photo/Shutterstock.com)
One or two Starlink satellites are already crashing every day. If other mega-constellations are set up as planned, the number of satellites that burn up is likely to rise to a total of five—every day. This is based on figures and forecasts by astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, as the satellite expert explained to the online portal EarthSky. This also increases the risk of a collision in Earth orbit with uncontrollable consequences if the debris triggers new collisions and can ultimately destroy countless satellites (“Kessler syndrome”). In addition, the consequences of the increasing number of crashes for the Earth's atmosphere and the risk to the Earth's surface can only be estimated at best.
Danger of an uncontrollable chain reaction
The Starlink satellite internet of Elon Musk's US space company SpaceX has been under construction since 2019. There are now more than 8,500 active Starlink satellites providing fast internet connections on all continents. However, the plan is for Starlink alone to grow to 30,000 satellites, with additional constellations from Amazon and China, for example. Because the — for low latencies—but are placed in low earth orbit, they do not have a particularly long lifespan and have to be replaced every five years on average, explains McDowell. This would slow the satellites down until they eventually crash uncontrollably and burn up. McDowell has already counted more than 1,300 Starlink satellites that have been disposed of in this way.
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McDowell told the British Register that the danger of an uncontrollable chain reaction after a collision is not increased by the semi-controlled crashes of the Starlink satellites but primarily by the sheer number of satellites in the various internet projects. Should a large number of satellites be damaged by an unfortunate coincidence, for example, during a solar storm, hundreds of them could directly become dangerous projectiles. If the Starlink network actually consists of 30,000 satellites, a failure of just one percent would send 300 satellites hurtling uncontrollably around the earth. A single collision could then trigger a chain reaction that would empty an entire orbital plane.
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Meanwhile, the crashing satellites could soon have concrete consequences for the Earth. Just this spring, a research group from the USA calculated that the planned mega-constellations of tens of thousands of satellites could ensure that up to 10,000 tons of aluminum oxide are left in the atmosphere every year by 2040 if only the expected proportion of them burn up. According to the team, this could warm the highest layer of the atmosphere by 1.5 degrees Celsius and affect the ozone layer. McDowell's figures on the number of crashes that have already occurred make it clear that this development has long since begun. So far, there has been no coordinated action against it.
(mho)
