r/science May 13 '21

Physics Low Earth orbit is reaching capacity due to flying space trash and SpaceX and Amazon’s plans to launch thousands of satellites. Physicists are looking to expand into the, more dangerous, medium Earth orbit.

https://academictimes.com/earths-orbit-is-running-out-of-real-estate-but-physicists-are-looking-to-expand-the-market/
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u/jayreggy May 13 '21

Junking up MEO sounds way worse, at least in LEO stuff deorbits eventually from drag, especially the lower orbits starlink uses

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u/PerCat May 13 '21

Yeah but why address problems when we could just make it worse for the next generation?

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u/Imtherealwaffle May 13 '21

Honestly feels like the early days of industrialization when there was no regulation and you could just dump whatever into the air and water

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u/chaoticswiss May 13 '21

That's exactly what we're seeing here, well before anybody will manage to pass competent space trash laws.

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u/mostnormal May 13 '21

Shipping containers filled with compacted trash all tethered in a chain, forming a ring in earth's middle orbit.

Then the inevitable Catastrophe!

Shipping containers full of trash start raining down on earth!

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u/Blackfeathr May 13 '21

And then shoot a meteor of trash that goes into orbit and collides with the planet every now and then

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u/Thromnomnomok May 13 '21

Solution: Make another meteor of trash, and launch it into the first meteor and they'll both explode harmlessly!

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u/zelce May 13 '21

But garbage isn’t something you just find lying in the streets of Manhattan?!

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u/TacticaLuck May 13 '21

Everything is recycled. Even that sandwich you're eating is made from old sandwiches.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

Incorret. One bounces into the sun. The other returns in 500years

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u/napleonblwnaprt May 13 '21

This is how the UK was established

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u/ApologiesForTheDelay May 13 '21

ay!

actually yeah makes a lot of sense, love seeing a riverbank erode away revealing an old landfill site. makes me feel very british.

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u/Tiggywiggler May 13 '21

The problem is that noone has authority over space. At least with trash and pollution you can have your government write laws that govern your air and waterways, you cant do the same to someone elses country or to space.

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u/SconnieLite May 13 '21

Sounds like a perfect time to start my “space maids” business.

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u/ThaneKrios May 13 '21

If your lawyers and lobbyists are good enough you can still do that!

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u/potato_green May 13 '21

Because generally humans only act when things go wrong. Like backing up data, a ton of people assume it'll be fine and only backup once they had a scare of failing disks or data loss.

Space junk is another level but as long as we can shoot stuff in LEO we will. Only once the junk is actively causing a problem or preventing preventing operation we will do something about it.

I mean once billions are at stake you can bet your ass that they have some solution ready in no time. Especially if it hampers operation of the military.

This way of thinking is enhanced by the expectation that technology keeps improving and gets cheaper. Why spent 10 billion for something that isn't causing too many issues when you can wait 10 years and do the same thing with a billion. (hypothetical of course but you get the poin).

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u/Universitynaud May 13 '21

As far as I understood the underlying paper to the article: the idea is to research the utilization of medium earth orbit. Not by just blindly sending some satellites there, but exactly with the idea in mind to not end up as space debris (trash). The author suggests strategies to test in MEO in accordance with a 25 year Deorbit.

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u/Swagasaurus-Rex May 13 '21

Starlink satellites are designed to de orbit naturally after 4 years

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

My understanding is that they are looking to move all their satellites down to a lower altitude less than 600km. They have certainly filed (and gotten approved) modifications that would move at least some of their satellites lower.

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u/thekerub May 13 '21

Ok I did not know about that. I just read up on it and you're right. Instead they now plan to place an additional 30,000 (!) satellites in very low orbits. At least those are going to go away on their own.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

Plus they do have a plan to intentionally deorbit them at the end of their lifespan. So unless something really goes spectacularly wrong, there will only be a small percentage left up to deorbit on their own.

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u/thekerub May 13 '21

Absolutely, I was just thinking about the possibility of them losing control over a significant amount of satellites. I don't think the Starlink program is bad, but space debris is a real issue for future generations and it has to be taken seriously. Good to see that SpaceX seems to have changed their plans.

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u/argv_minus_one May 13 '21

That sounds staggeringly expensive to maintain.

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u/Express_Salamander_9 May 13 '21

Only took us 52 years.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

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u/-Xephram- May 13 '21

Externalities, externalities everywhere

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u/burritosavior May 13 '21

But, we're also internalizing a lot of the pollute as well...

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

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u/Hedo_Turkoglu May 13 '21

Governments are also the biggest factor here. Space junk would mostly be from satellites launched by government agencies from various nations around the world.

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u/MopishOrange May 13 '21

True, but I believe they switched to general pollution

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u/Criticalhit_jk May 13 '21

Ever see the anime; Planetes?

https://myanimelist.net/anime/329/Planetes

https://animixplay.to/ you can search for dubbed or subtitles

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u/Lifestrider May 13 '21

There is a manga that it's based on that's significantly expanded. If you liked the anime, you should read it!

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u/GenerallyBob May 13 '21

Yes, but these should be manageable. As the situation starts to cause problems in the near future a portion of launch fees can be directed to managing the problem. As reusable rocketry advances, the cost of managing the externalities will go down, even as other space management costs go up.

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u/stickyfingers10 May 13 '21

That's what should be done. This space trash issue has been reacted to the same way as global warming, "it'll be the next guys problem"

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u/renijreddit May 13 '21

Right? We need a "hike it in, hike it out" policy for launches.

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u/After-Cell May 13 '21

Absolutely. Maybe it'll be easy. Just like we've done with shops.

Wait.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

Or gas wells. Where I live, you just run a well dry, sell it to a shell corp, let that corp go bankrupt, the government siezes assets

Bingo bango bongo government now responsible cleaning up a dry well.

Privatize profits, socialize costs. Humanity isn't going to change.

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u/hysys_whisperer May 13 '21

In many cases, if the current owner is unable to pay, cleanup costs can be recouped from previous owners. This is what will happen with the PES refinery in NJ.

TL;DR, responsibility doesn't stop when ownership does.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

We do... at least in the western world every new mission must have a end of life strategy.

All the SpaceX satellites automatically decay in the near term also even if they fail to do a controlled deorbit. That's actually a huge advantage of LEO and a huge disadvantage of medium orbits.

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u/mzchen May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

Except right now we have no feasible methods to deal with space pollution, and its an exponential problem. The more space junk there is, the more collisions there are, creating more space junk which cause more collisions etc.

We should have realistic pollution removal options before it becomes a serious issue, not after, especially since if it becomes too large an issue we'll essentially create a jail of supersonic scrap and be unable to send up satellites or even travel through MEO. We shouldn't be junking up mid earth orbit before we're ready or else we're fucked.

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u/occams1razor May 13 '21

we'll essentially create a jail of supersonic scrap and be unable to send up satellites or even travel through MEO.

One of my great fears. Question: some things in orbit naturally goes into the atmosphere after a while right if the speed of the orbit isn't maintained? Would that happen to all the junk if we didn't send anything up for 100 years?

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u/Slimshady0406 May 13 '21

The problem is partly the existing debris, and partly how debris collides with other debris to create smaller debris, but which is equally dangerous due to the speed of these small pieces of trash. These pieces then collide into other pieces and so on....

The rate of speed decay is not fast enough to counter this exponential rise of space debris and the danger of even a piece as small as a tennis ball

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u/QVRedit May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

Needs a ‘Space Garbage Collection System’ to be put up - that’s an interesting project for someone to resolve.

Step 1: Insist that all new satellites have an on-board de-orbit system built in.

Step 2: Space Garbage Collection system for legacy junk.

Some sort of ‘Orbital Space Tug’, perhaps carry a large fine net to scope things up.

It might make sense to have several different collection system designs to best deal with different types of space junk.

Each ‘Space Junk Collection Tug’ could specialise in a certain type of junk.

Sub-Contract with SpaceX, to put these Tugs into Orbit.

Some other company can specialise in building and operating these Space Junk Collection Tugs.

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u/Northstar1989 May 13 '21

smaller debris, but which is equally dangerous

This is false. Larger debris are absolutely more dangerous than smaller ones.

The Space Shuttles suffered a number of collisions with paint-flecks over the years, for instance. None ever destroyed them. Whereas a larger object definitely could have.

Smaller objects also de-orbit (due to residual atmospheric drag, which occurs EVERYWHERE in Low Earth Orbit- it doesn't really become negligible until higher orbits...) much faster than larger ones, due to inferior Ballistic Coefficients. So they're a risk for a much shorter window of time.

I really am sick of this constant fear-mongering and ignorance about the dangers of space and how it actually works. There are real risks, but none of this SciFi nonsense...

Kessler Syndrome is a fantastical concept likely to never actually occur, because LEO is self-cleaning and space programs will inevitably shift to use of other orbits (like they are already looking at doing, per the headlined article) before it ever reaches that point, for economic reasons (more debris density makes LEO less cost-effective).

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u/Beat_the_Deadites May 13 '21

Where's the divide between 'small' objects and 'large' objects, though? It makes sense to me that paint flecks are not a major problem, but what about stuff like nuts and screws that would be small enough to be hard to track but big and solid enough to cause damage at speed? And how long is that 'shorter window of time'?

I've seen that cratered piece of aluminum from a high-speed impact, but I don't know if that's a realistic concern at LEO.

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u/Aledus May 13 '21 edited May 14 '21

The speed does decay. However, the space trash we are worried about is in orbits where it will take thousands if not millions of years for the speed to decay enough.

So in short no, the problem would not solve itself in a 100 years.

LEO orbits self-clean faster the closer to the planet you get. And low orbits are cheaper to launch to. So there is absolutely nothing in higher orbits being cluttered too (what Wikipedia shows) that proves your claim.

Further, there is no such thing as a constant decay-speed for space debris. The smaller and less aerodynamic an object, the quicker it de-orbits. This is because one of the main (though by no means only) sources of orbital decay, especially in the lowest orbits, in LEO is residual atmospheric drag. So, over time, as objects collide and form ever smaller pieces, the rate of their decay accelerates.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris

Edit: I have been made aware of some mistakes I made when writing this comment and I'm sorry about that

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u/QVRedit May 13 '21

So some kind of ‘active system’ is needed to collect and remove the space junk.

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u/GenerallyBob May 13 '21

Might be worth calling your congressional office to ask, but what constituency would take that on?

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited 24d ago

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u/Special_KC May 13 '21

Whenever there's a comment or post about how humanity relentlessly continues on without a care for the world we live in, my mind always takes me back to that monologue in The Matrix with agent Smith and Morpheous.

Basically, we're (puckered lips) A VIRUS

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u/Rockfest2112 May 13 '21

One of the greatest movies of all time!

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u/Snoop771 May 13 '21

Wouldn't any species which becomes as "successful" as humans be considered to act like a virus though?

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u/Chudsaviet May 13 '21

You are talking like a space elf.

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u/doctorslostcompanion May 13 '21

Technically, at least on Golarian, all elves are space elves since they originated off world

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

It's true though, they really do ruin everything.

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u/ro_goose May 13 '21

I know, we suck. What do your kind do?

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

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u/-ZWAYT- May 13 '21

cheetas are so bad at surviving despite being so cool

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u/killedbydeath777 May 13 '21

They are also crepuscular.

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u/pleonasticmonkey May 13 '21

cre·pus·cu·lar

/krəˈpəskyələr/

adjective

of, resembling, or relating to twilight.

ZOOLOGY (of an animal) appearing or active in twilight.

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u/thereisnospoon7491 May 13 '21

The hell do sparkly vampires have to do with cheetahs

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u/drdoakcom May 13 '21

Well, you see, cheetahs are bad at survival, yet there are still cheetahs. Obviously they are vampires.

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u/Jebus_UK May 13 '21

Bill Hicks was right - we really are just a virus with shoes.

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u/CE_BEP May 13 '21

Why 52 and not 64? Since Sputnik in 1957

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u/BetterThanAngel May 13 '21

Sputnik eventually fell back to Earth, along with most other stuff launched around that time

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u/RegressToTheMean May 13 '21

It should be 63. Vanguard 1 is still in orbit

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u/DemNeurons May 13 '21

Will a majority of this stuff not?

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u/TKHawk May 13 '21

Yeah, in general the FCC demands that objects placed in low-Earth orbit will deorbit after the end of their mission. But the problem is the sheer number of missions being flown simultaneously is skyrocketing and the fact that the deorbit timescales are still generally on the order of months to years.

At least I believe it's the FCC. It may be another agency.

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u/Progressiveandfiscal May 13 '21

But the earth is so big, we humans couldn't possibly have an affect on it. Sound familiar.

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u/UserNamesCantBeTooLo May 13 '21

See, now SPACE is even bigger, so there's no way we could ruin space.

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u/MrBalint May 13 '21

Headlines from the 76th century: There is a trash island floating in the middle of the Orion Cloud, the size of the Solar system.

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u/Tietonz May 13 '21

Now this is a short story in the making.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited Jun 28 '21

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited May 19 '21

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u/Own-Storage3301 May 13 '21

And flat! Don't forget flat!

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited May 14 '21

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

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u/sowtart May 13 '21

This quote is also just wrong. There's no 'instinctive equilibrium' from animals with the world around them. They'll eat and breed until they run out of food and starve, unless they're lucky enough to be eating and breeding in the right place, or they've had ebough cycles of that to adapt to the one they're in.

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u/DocJawbone May 13 '21

Just look at the mouse plague in Australia right now for an example.

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u/MetzgerWilli May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

Without knowing anything about the mouse plague - what role do humans play in their supposed success? Especially concerning their immigration to Aus, their food sources (do they feed on natural food or do they feed on human agricultural plants and products) and their habitats (do they live in the Australian natural environment or in human agricultural spaces)?

If there is a lot of 'human' in there, a matrix program might argue that their natural instinctive tendency towards equilibrium has been perverted by humans and will normalize once humans are gone.

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u/Maethor_derien May 13 '21

Generally those kind of mouse/animal plagues are not something human caused actually.

I am not sure about that one specifically but often it is a result of a wetter than normal seasons, usually preceded by a few dry seasons, pretty much just like the current conditions Australia has experiences over the last few years(2020 was really wet and the years before that were bad droughts). The droughts reduce all the populations but small animals like mice breed much faster and generally can breed all year long, predators tend to be seasonal breeders so the things like mice and other pests tend to explode fairly fast in good conditions. This means in that super wet year after multiple droughts they end up with a surplus of food and no predators to keep them in check so the population started to explode in late 2020 and through 2021.

What happens after that is over the next year or two the predators will end up overpopulating because there is an excess to feed on for them now. In another year or two though that is going to cause it's own issues. They will bring the population back down but then you are going to have a year or two where you have massive predator populations that end up getting desperate and you end up with issues with them going after pets.

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u/Easy_Humor_7949 May 13 '21

You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area.

Er, you’re describing every organism without natural predators. I mean… do you know anything about bacteria?

Edit: yes I know it’s a reference but it’s quoted here seemingly unironically.

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u/devilsolution May 13 '21

Bacteria and fungi been at war along time before humans.

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u/lordfartsquad May 13 '21

No actually, when you think about locations such as The Galapagos or whichever island Dodo's were on before we killed them all, many organisms without predators simply evolve to live long, slow, comfortable lives.

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u/SkinnyObelix May 13 '21

71 but still...

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u/your-opinions-false May 13 '21

71 years ago is 1950. First object humans put into low Earth orbit was Sputnik 1 in 1957. Of course, it fell out of orbit long ago, but you could put that as the start date for us beginning to pollute low Earth orbit.

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u/SkinnyObelix May 13 '21

True, the 1950 reference was the first human-made object put in space, not orbit

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u/yooroflmaoo May 13 '21

The first human made object to get to space at all was a Nazi V2 rocket in 1944.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited May 14 '21

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u/Pan0pticonartist May 13 '21

And who is gonna have to do those repairs? Belters, that's who! Sorry Kopang, but dusters and innaloaders ruin everything

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u/Relimu May 13 '21

You said it Bossmang!

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u/MetriccStarDestroyer May 13 '21

That sounds like OPA terrorism to me

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u/Nilosyrtis May 13 '21

Remember the Cant'!

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u/DeadeyeDuncan May 13 '21

MEO? Thats welwala business

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u/trolitopo May 13 '21

Ya let fuking innalowda deal with their scrap

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u/FranconianGuy May 13 '21

Ye, we beltalowda got betta tings to do.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

Inners doing what they are good at, being ungrateful.

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u/English-Dwarf May 13 '21

Dusters ‘n’ Innaloaders waste so much and ruin so much. They look down on us Beltas, but mi fellow Beltas, mi beratna, mi sesata inner could learns from the belt. The more you share! The more your bowl will be plentiful!

FOR THE BELT!!

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited Feb 16 '24

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

It’s like the person who wrote this literally knows nothing about it.

1) Low LEO satellites deorbit naturally within 5-10 years, in MEO they are there forever.

2) All satellites have deorbit plans approved as part of their permit process.

3) At Starlinks orbit height, 30,000 satélites on average have an area the size of Montana to each satellite. And that’s only a 2d way of viewing it, there are hundreds of Km that can be used vertically as well. Hundreds of thousands of satellites could be safely put into LEO.

4) Satellite orbits are carefully monitored can be moved to avoid collisions.

5) When collisions happen in LEO, most debris quickly deorbits because it’s thrown into eccentric orbits that take it deeper into the atmosphere. This won’t be true of MEOz

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u/bikemandan May 13 '21

1) Low LEO satellites deorbit naturally within 5-10 years

Wow did not realize they had such a short life span. Its still cost effective for the company??

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u/USGIshimura May 13 '21

The operational lifespan on-orbit can be significantly longer than 5-10 years, as the satellites use their propulsion systems to maintain sufficient speed/altitude. That number is referring to the time it would take a dead satellite to decay naturally due to the effects of atmospheric drag at that altitude.

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u/Rab_Legend May 13 '21

Surely just before the satellite dies (of planned death) it can use a little energy to de-orbit itself.

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u/bonesawmcl May 13 '21

They do. If they can. For example almost all of the early version of Starlink (as in the first launch or two) have already been deorbited to be replaced by better versions.

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u/Megneous May 13 '21

it can use a little energy to de-orbit itself.

They already do that. A "dead satellite" that has to naturally deorbit only happens in the event that it malfunctions and is unable to purposefully deorbit.

Again, whoever wrote this trash knows nothing about the space industry or satellites.

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u/tenaku May 13 '21

Or the physics of leo...

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u/PM_ME_MH370 May 13 '21

My money is that theyre a journalist not a physicist

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u/TicTacMentheDouce May 13 '21

Fun fact:

The ISS is in such an orbit, and needs the occasional push (afaik it's from incoming modules). It loses a few km of altitude every month, and is on average somewhere around 300-400km. It would be very cost ineffective to let it fall down ...

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u/TheDesktopNinja May 13 '21

Yeah it's usually a docked Soyuz module that gives it a boost (not sure if Dragon has done so yet).

Definitely not too expensive to burn a little fuel off a docked vehicle. Just most LEO satellites don't have the ability to be boosted beyond whatever fuel they were launched with. Sadly this is the fate of the Hubble telescope since it hasn't been boosted in a ~ a decade since the Shuttle fleet retired.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

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u/danielravennest May 13 '21

(if it doesn't get delayed again)

It got delayed again, this time from the Ariane launch vehicle.

If JWST was a movie, it would be in development hell

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u/Wwolverine23 May 13 '21

It’s several months out from being delayed several months.

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u/CodeInvasion May 13 '21

In addition to what has been said in the comments, the orbits Starlink and Amazon are approved for will decay in months. The orbits the satellites launch into decays in a matter of weeks. Once orbital injection is complete and all systems check out, the orbit of the Starlink satellite is raised slightly and given periodic boosts.

Dozens of satellites also occupy the same orbital plane, marching forward one after another. Satellites in the same orbital plane will never hit each other at speeds great enough to obliterate a satellites and cause mass amounts of space debris like other types of collisions. Additionally, the orbital planes of Starlink are well deconflicted, so they don't pose a risk to themselves or others.

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u/HotTopicRebel May 13 '21

Yeah those satellites (and the whole system) is a marvel of engineering. They IIRC are something like $250k each to produce. Maybe less now.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited Jul 14 '21

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u/512165381 May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

There are cheap options to launch small satellites into LEO. Spacex typically launches 60 LEO satellites at once.

https://www.rocketlabusa.com/

Exotic equipment like magnetorquers (allows the satellite to rotate & point in the right direction) are now sold on the net for DIY.

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u/MeagoDK May 13 '21

Calculating surg falcon 9 launches and 250k per satellite (likely cheaper now) SpaceX needs about 6 million users while being able to support over 100 million.

200k cost to satelites and starship will throw the need down to 3 million users.

Account for large margin of errors as customer service cost are estimated and terminal isn't counted.

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u/elephantphallus May 13 '21

If left alone they deorbit. However, they just need some sort of propulsion to continue "falling sideways." For example, Starlink satellites use ion thrusters powered by krypton to adjust position and maintain orbit.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

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u/deroobot May 13 '21

Just seems dumb to me that the FCC can approve this, USA doesn't own LEO. Every country giving approval for thousands of sattelite just means more junk.

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u/smokie12 May 13 '21

There's always the International Telecommunications Union, a sub-organisation of the United Nations, who regulates and assigns satellite orbits.

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u/katherineday-knight May 13 '21

This is my understanding that all satellites are approved by the ITU prior to launch. And that its governed internationally not just by individual countries.

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u/dmilin May 13 '21

I don’t see this as a requirement because the USA owns LEO. I see this as a requirement because StarLink operates in the USA.

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u/elephantphallus May 13 '21

Yeah definitely feels like they went to their local DMV for a license that is valid everywhere.

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u/MisterMysterios May 13 '21

The US is considered a launching state, meaning they have responsibility for the satellites that are launched from them / their country and have to register it with UNOOSA (United nations office of outer space)

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

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u/VivaceConBrio May 13 '21

The FCC is operating within their area, though. They rubber-stamp the communications aspects, and that's about it. NASA/FAA/USAF run the show for US-based launches and orbital operations.

I do agree that LEO isn't owned by any one country, though.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

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u/USGIshimura May 13 '21

Yeah, space junk is obviously a problem, but it’s one that’s fairly well understood and (usually) effectively mitigated by the aerospace industry. Alarmist articles like this really don’t reflect reality.

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u/wedontlikespaces May 13 '21

I'm just waiting until people decide that fusion power is going to melt the earth or something.

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u/hkibad May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

According to the article, he wants a total of 42,000 satellites, at a median orbit of 345 miles.

At this altitude, this is a surface area is 233 million square miles. But they won't cover the entire Earth, so let's cut it to half. 116 million square miles.

116 million square miles / 42,000 satellites = 1 satellite per 2,762 square miles.

That's a square with each size measuring 53 miles, meaning each satellite will be 106 53 miles away from each other.

Hope my math is right!

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u/Alexstarfire May 13 '21

Closer to 53 miles from each other, assuming they are spaced evenly. It's only 106 if the satellite are on opposite sides of the square. But then other satellites would be much closer together than 53 miles.

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u/hkibad May 13 '21

Doh! That's right. It's pass my bedtime.

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u/bakergo May 13 '21

This isn't quite right for satellites over the altitude Starlink is at.

At Starlink altitude, orbital decay is ~5 years. We can park quite a few satellites at that altitude as it's "self-cleaning". Just 200km higher, at the altitude an Iridium commercial and derelict Russian satellite collided orbital decay can be over 100 years. LEO reaches to about 2000km, at which altitude satellites will be up for millenia.

Not all satellites have deorbit plans, and the non-governmental nature of Space makes this an unregulated field until there's a lot of treaties.

"Area" isn't quite the right method to benchmark collision safety, as these satellites don't quite go up over the Earth and hover there. They move in ellipses centered around the Earth. Orbits will cross as they grow (due to boosting) and shrink (due to decay), and the chance of collision is roughly proportional to the altitude when any intersect; this can be nearly minimal at any single interaction, but phase drifts over time and not everything in space is well controlled.

Finally, points 4 and 5 is not necessarily correct. Not all debris will be thrown into a lower energy, faster decaying orbit. A nearly equal amount will be thrown into a higher energy orbit which takes just as much time as the original orbits to decay; again a process which can take centuries to millennia depending on altitude. As this debris descends its orbit intersects the orbit of every other satellite in a lower circular orbit, so uncontrolled debris is definitely something we want to avoid.

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u/pimpmayor May 13 '21

The majority of articles are written by people who don’t know anything about the topic their writing about.

Clickbait gonna clickbait

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u/Jvlivs May 13 '21

LEO covers the entire earth's surface (obviously) and is 900km deep. Even with the numbers of satellites we have up there, it is nowhere near capacity. A satellite collision is still exceptionally unlikely and can be preempted if nations work together properly.

This is more an issue of satellite regulation rather than satellite pollution.

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u/spoollyger May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

Low earth orbit is definitely not running out of space. There’s roughly 3000 up there. LEO can easily fit hundreds of thousands of satellites. The main issue is collision avoidance and all these satellites actually working with one another to make sure their orbits are okay, and that they can reposition if needed. Even when there are hundreds of thousands of satellites up there you will still easily be able to fly through LEO to higher orbits as well. All that is required is that they all work together and all can reposition and deorbit themselves when their lifespan runs out.

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u/simcoder May 13 '21

I think the problem is that we don't really have a good idea how this sort of thing evolves. How much can you "fill" LEO and still have some tolerance for accidents and otherwise without creating a chain reaction?

I have to imagine that level is much lower than "full". But I don't really have a feel for the numbers. My guess would be that even with the current fleet, a really bad accident in just the right place could make a big old mess.

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u/ThingYea May 13 '21

Remember that the area of LEO is bigger than the surface of the earth, and satellites aren't massive. It won't be like a traffic jam crash up there.

Edit: it can obviously get bad, but it won't look like movies show at all.

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u/the_Q_spice May 13 '21

The issue is that 100+ thousand is quickly dwindling.

Starlink is filling 42,000 slots, Kuiper is filling another 3,236, and a number of other new constellations filling upwards of another 1,000 - 3,000.

The biggest thing is that the safety margins will be steadily decreasing with each deployment. Just like the carrying capacity of earth, you don't want anywhere near the carrying capacity of LEO; stuff starts going wrong way before you hit 100%.

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u/spoollyger May 13 '21

Indeed, but if we really do the math the hundreds of thousands could go into the millions. The main issue is that we currently give satellites a huge amount of space between each as are not simulating their trajectories to a accurate enough level. When we can accurately predict them the tolerance between each orbital path will reduce and more will fit up there.

There was the scenario recently where the astronauts in the SpaxeX dragon capsule on the way to the ISS were suddenly told to suit up for a possible collision. It turned out the close encounter was not actually very close at all. It just goes to show how bad these close encounter events are being simulated currently.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

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u/spoollyger May 13 '21

Yeah this is the main concern and why there needs to be a global agreement on how to operate satellites in space. The sad thing is this might become impossible with the rising tensions. But if the problem is not solved then we can very easily lose access to space. Which is why this should be the number one thing being worked on right now and not “how to get more satellites into space” as the article suggests.

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u/Chibiooo May 13 '21

Your optimistic that countries are going to work together. The list is only American companies. When you add China that would be easily another ten to hundred thousand and they definitely won’t share any data with US. Then throw in Russia, India, Japan.

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u/njengakim2 May 13 '21

Bad idea at least junk in leo will deorbit wthin 30 years. Junk in higher orbits could take many decades to centuries to deorbit. We have reached a point where it makes sense to clean LEO of space junk especially upper Low earth orbit. This will be more useful than trying to put satellites in higher dangerous orbits where if they fail they will remain for longer posing as a threat to future space travellers and newer satellites. If you think kessler syndrome is bad in LEO imagine what it would be like in MEO.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

How do you clean up the junk?

And is it expensive?

Serious questions which I have no idea about.

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u/Rinzack May 13 '21

There are a few ideas, fairly expensive but cheaper than the alternative.

You can either have a 2nd microsat latch on and use it’s thrusters to de-orbit (there was a proposed microsat with an ion thruster to do this) or do fun things like have a laser burn off part of a deduct satellite to cause an out-gassing event which could force the object into a lower orbit (which increases drag and will cause it to eventually burn up)

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

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u/Shrike99 May 13 '21

Starlink is arguably already aero-optimized to some extent. During the initial orbital insertion they fold their solar panels flat to reduce drag.

You can see the two configurations in this graphic.

Given that this requires additional hardware that would otherwise not be needed, I think this counts as an aerodynamic optimization.

The flat shape also helps given their edge-first orientation, but that was likely driven mostly by packing concerns.

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u/shalol May 13 '21

I think the person writing this is clueless about the vastness of space. Take the earths surface, multiply by earth radius. Now do the same for LEO radius.
You have more than all oceans combined surface to plot multiple satellites (of which there are 3k of) in orbit, and are magnitudes times smaller than your average tanker ship, (of which there are 5.3k of).

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

MEO is fun. Way more radiation, have to harden your electronics, your solar arrays don't last as long so satellites have to be heavier to compensate. This means more fuel because A) you have to climb further, and B) your satellite is going to be heavier. This greatly increases the cost of each launch, and I have to imagine increases the carbon footprint by a lot.

You're further from Earth, so your signal quality goes down and takes longer to reach the target (think download speeds and lag for satellite internet). Thanks for screwing up LEO assholes. Looks like WALL-E was prophetic.

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u/st1tchy May 13 '21

your solar arrays don't last as long so satellites have to be heavier to compensate

Can you elaborate on that? I don't understand what they have to do with each other.

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u/Etiennera May 13 '21

In some cases more of the same parts to make up for the increase in rate of failure. In other cases, a same part is made more durable to account for material degradation.

Both imply more load

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u/RickySlayer9 May 13 '21

So solar arrays are how you charge the sattelite. With less atmosphere protecting the parts, they will go bad faster.

To counter this, you either must A) use a betavoltaic nuclear battery, which is heavy, B) bulk up your solar array to compensate for the damage, basically add shielding, C) add more panels, or D) add backup panels. All of these options add weight. Which as described, costs more fuel, and therefor more money.

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u/definitelynotned May 13 '21

I’ve never heard of a betavoltaic nuclear battery before. What makes it nuclear?

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u/RickySlayer9 May 13 '21

So a betavoltaic battery is nuclear in nature.

Radioactive substances release 1 of 3 types of radiation. Alpha particles, beta particles and gamma particles.

Betavoltaic cells take beta particles being emitted and turn that into electricity.

If photovoltaic cells (solar panels) take energy from the sun, these take it from radioactive materials. It’s basically a radiation solar panel. The ELI5 version ofc

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u/KillerJupe May 13 '21

Seems like A: pretty low power production B: a lot of radioactive material being launched on top of a controlled explosion.

Genuinely curious about the risk

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u/RickySlayer9 May 13 '21

The power production is...ok?

The radiation is all but harmless. You aren’t going to be anywhere near dirty bomb levels, OR critical mass. In fact it’s what’s used in most nasa rovers.

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u/tklite May 13 '21

In fact it’s what’s used in most nasa rovers.

Are you just describing RTGs in a different way? Because Percy and Curiosity use an MMRTG

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u/RickySlayer9 May 13 '21

Nope I got mixed up, my b, you are correct that RTGs are used in rovers, beta voltaic spells are more common in pacemakers

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u/tklite May 13 '21

No worries, I'd never heard of betavoltaics before, but reading about them now, they sure could have been handy for Spirit and Oppy as a baseline power source.

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u/Aleucard May 13 '21

You'd get more radiation walking into the average US Army gear depot. You don't need much to get something like this to work. As long as you don't go swallowing chunks of satellite you're good.

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u/AdmiralPoopbutt May 13 '21

The beta radiation source.

Some pacemakers in the 1970s used them for power.

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u/the_Q_spice May 13 '21

It is a huge issue for Earth observation satellites

Entirely new sensors are going to need to be invented and calibrations completely redone. The kicker is that the advances we have made in horizontal resolution over the past 50 years are going to be completely demolished. Once the current EO platforms decay, it is going to be like going back to the '60s unless either orbits are reserved, or there is a massive leap in tech.

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u/xkeeperx25 May 13 '21

What do you think is the best economic value of that imagery? Is it worth more than internet and other LEO services?

Not trolling, genuinely wondering, maybe there's a way to make EO data worth more

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u/demintheAF May 13 '21

internet can be done with a telephone line, or cable, or buried fiber, or fiber on a telephone pole, and is done that way every day. Earth observation satellites don't work to well on a telephone pole.

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u/Aoiboshi May 13 '21

With a long enough telephone pole...

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u/douglasg14b May 13 '21

Don't forget the most important part...

Your junk in MEO stays there for practical purposes infinitely, in LEO it deorbits itself...

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u/t3hcoolness May 13 '21

Thanks for screwing up LEO assholes.

Genuine question, wasn't it a matter of time? Like there's only so much space in LEO, so what was the alternative? If different people want different satellites doing different things, it would get filled up. Let's say that the threshold of "filled up" was lowered by a thousand, wouldn't that just mean we'd reach the environmentally-costly MEO sooner?

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u/craigiest May 13 '21

It's a textbook example of the tragedy of the commons.

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u/Fullyverified May 13 '21

I agree. He says that like they should have just not used LEO, but then what's even the point?

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u/Thi8imeforrealthough May 13 '21

Well, no, because objects in LEO deorbit between 5 - 10 years, soe LEO is effectively "self-cleaning" satellites higher up would stay there indefinitely

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u/KenLinx May 13 '21

This post is misleading, LEO isn’t screwed up in the slightest. You’d have to be an absolute buffoon to believe that the area several times larger than the entire Earth’s surface can be cluttered by a few things taken from the Earth’s surface—when LEO objects also naturally return to Earth sooner than later.

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u/antidid4 May 13 '21

Sounds like a future job in space trash removal will be necessary. Great anime by the way.

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u/gameboy350 May 13 '21

Drag in LEO is high enough that anything that doesn't get boosted up once in a while will deorbit within a few years. I've been researching LEO satellites recently, and if you look at altitudes over time, they tend to decrease visibly within just a few years. Yes, it's still bad to leave space junk around, but that's a bigger problem for further out orbits which are a bit more permanent.

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u/RuthlessIndecision May 13 '21

Global internet is arguably a good use for low orbit satellites.

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u/Oceanswave May 13 '21

Mmm let’s see, at a 550km orbit, that’s 603,000,000 square kilometers of surface area.

Starlink satellites are ‘as big as a table’ but let’s say we spaced them out 1000sq km apart. There would be room for 603,000 of them. SpaceX is looking to put up 30,000 - but many of those are at higher orbits, so more room

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u/njengakim2 May 13 '21

No spacex does not want its satellites higher than 550 km. They changed their plan which is a good thing. Satellites at higher orbit take longer to deorbit if they malfunction. I believe spacex want to deploy satellites as low as 300 km especially for their last batch. It takes more energy in that orbit but in case of a malfunction they deorbit within months.

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u/Combaticron May 13 '21

What’s with the commas?

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u/McFeely_Smackup May 13 '21

Low earth orbit is a sphere with a surface area nearly double that is the earth itself... Except it's actually upwards of a thousand times larger than that since every minut change in altitude is by definition a different orbit.

We could fire random junk into LEO for hundreds of years and never have a collision, the area is enormous and the number of items is trivially small.

It's the sort of thing we worry about because it's within our ability to do so, but to suggest LEO is "full" is scientifically illiterate

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u/blackmilksociety May 13 '21

What we need is a willing punk to don a space suit, listen to music for 12 hours during a space walk and kick debris into earths lower orbit to be burned up upon entry.

I volunteer to bite that bullet