139
Russia warns United States: use of SpaceX for spying makes its satellites a target
(www.reuters.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
139 points (95.4% liked)
World News
32375 readers
879 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
On one hand, I really, really want those idiots in the Kremel to cause a Kessler Syndrome...(In theory it could also prevent ballistic missiles)
On the other hand, that would be quite bad for the rest of us.
Starlink birds fly too low for that, they will deorbit in 4-8 years if they go dead.
I'd be worried about debris flung into steeply elliptical orbits, though. It wouldn't take much to do some real damage to sats in higher orbits and once the cascade starts there's not much we can do but wait decades for the worst of it to fall into the atmosphere.
Those steeply elliptical orbits would probably deorbit even quicker since a random impulse that boosts the apogee is likely to lower the perigee even more.
Kessler syndrome is only a threat to satellites that are orbiting within the debris, it's not really a danger if you're only passing through (as a ballistic missile would).