cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58949709
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- harmbugler@piefed.socialEnglish3 hours
Where I live, we have pickup trucks half the size of pickup trucks.
- j_elgato@leminal.spaceEnglish14 hours
Oh thank God… We almost had to use the metric system there didn’t we?
- pHr34kY@lemmy.worldEnglish5 hours
We almost had to mention standard cars, which are also half the size.
- 12 hours
Complaining about Kressler Syndrome
Complaining about Starlink
Pick one, asshole. As shitty as Musk is, Starlink is in too low of an orbit to cause Kressler Syndrome
- 3 hours
The only worry about low earth orbit is something survives reentry enough to become a bomb. these are enough to destroy a house if that happens - my undertanding is this can’t happen but if they did
- Ludicrous0251@piefed.zipEnglish15 hours
More like 1/3 the size of a zambonie. Or 11/3 the size of two penguins on a foosball table.
- Warl0k3@lemmy.worldEnglish15 hours
Whats that in Rhode Islands? And how about mass, can I get that measured in bigmacs?
- mushroommunk@lemmy.todayEnglish15 hours
129 / 4.307213e+10 = 2.9949761 x 10^-9
That’s in sq ft. Rounded. Length x width of a pickup truck divided by surface area of Rhode Island as reported on Wikipedia
- RamRabbit@lemmy.worldEnglish16 hours
Yep, they are in Low Earth Orbit. A place that has a very, very small amount of air, so the satellites experience drag, lose speed, eventually the propellant tanks run dry, and they burn up in the atmosphere. The ISS experiences the same thing, which is why its altitude slowly falls, then you see a sharp increase as they push to a slightly higher orbit.
At the altitude the SpaceX satellites are at, they only passively stay up for a few years. With the onboard propulsion giving them each another few years.
13 hoursDonnie Darko but it’s Musk’s space junk instead of a jet engine.
- green_goglin@thelemmy.clubEnglish7 hours
Welp, it’s been fun. Time to IPO and unload all the liabilities onto the public.
- tidderuuf@lemmy.worldEnglish16 hours
Please let one land on my house so I can sue SpaceX and retire early.
- SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.worksEnglish14 hours
One fell in a farmer’s field in Saskatchewan. Dude got a hassle, some publicity, and a nominal fee of a grand or something.
- BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.todayEnglish2 hours
A grand? Then I’m keeping it. I can make more as a roadside tourist attraction. Or maybe I sell it to the Chinese or Bezos or something. You want your toy back, Musk? Pay up, you cheap bastard!
- Iconoclast@feddit.ukEnglish9 hours
It wasn’t from a starlink satellite though.
which the U.S. aerospace company SpaceX later admitted was part of a cargo trunk for its Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Half the size of a pickup truck… a Mazda compact, or a jacked up GMC Hemi half ton?
Even just saying Ford F150 gives a lot of leeway.
- halcyoncmdr@piefed.socialEnglish12 hours
Yeah that’s what happens to absolutely everything in Low Earth Orbit in just a few years. Well, unless you keep pushing them back up like we do to the International Space Station.
These satellites are doing exactly what they’re intended to do. These are actually pretty small satellites overall, there are a lot up there quite a bit larger that deorbit and burn up on re-entry just fine as well.
That’s part of the reason things are sent to LEO specifically, because their orbits naturally degrade and they naturally deorbit themselves without needing any assistance or fuel. It also means if a satellite in LEO fails quicker than planned, is put in an incorrect orbit due to a launch issue, or just failed prematurely, it will fail-safe and deorbit without any assistance.
- 16 hours
Is this not part of the plan. I seem to recall they are designed to entirely burn up on reentry.
Yeah this is by design. Beats the alternative of having every starlink satellite ever launched hanging around low Earth orbit long after it stops working.
- 10 hours
That would be so hilarious. People would be drinking beer and laughing at the story 100 years later.
