this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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Scientists, looking deep into space, have long voiced their concerns that satellites are encroaching on their ability to study the cosmos.

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[–] dragontamer 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, I don’t really see the issue with some satellites blowing up at first.

You don't understand then. The Starlink satellites are designed to fall out of the sky, explicitly. They're at an extremely low orbit. The entire constellation will fall out of the sky on a regular basis.

That's the explicit design of Starlink. Its collossally stupid. The lower your orbit, the sooner you crash into Earth. Starlink has chosen one of the lowest orbits.

But sure, Hughesnet works fine. If you need service outside of a developed area, it should be capable enough.

Hughesnet's satellite is in contrast, in a 500+ year orbit. So they don't have to replace their satellite all the time. Also, there's only a few of them, its not like Starlink that has thousands of them.

By being lower in the sky, Starlink satellites have a limited range and only cover a small area. They need many, many,many satellites to even have hope, extending the costs and destroying the feasibility of the entire design.