“Space Junk”

By Scott Hamilton

I have written in the past about SpaceX and their Starlink Satellite constellation. Starlink has caused a severe impact on terrestrial astronomy. The massive constellation of over 6000 satellites has caused several issues with earth-based telescopes. The satellites create streaks and blurs in the images, making it difficult to observe the universe above. It is not just the visual impact that causes issues for astronomers, but the satellites also have an impact on radio-telescopes as they create radio interference.

Starlink is probably one of the most popular and easiest to utilize rural internet service providers, but is it worth it? The satellites create light, sound, heat and magnetic pollution, resulting in major impacts to space research, not to mention the extreme amount of junk left behind when these satellites fail. Recently SpaceX made an announcement that 100 of their first-generation satellites are scheduled for demolition.

You see there is an important aspect to the Starlink constellation, and that is the ability to accurately control their location in orbit. It seems that over the past years, seventeen of these first-generation satellites have become non-maneuverable; this means that they will eventually fall from orbit, which may take hundreds of years. In the meantime, these non-maneuverable satellites create a risk to the remaining objects in low earth orbit. Eventually the satellites become unusable because of the unstable orbit but remain in space and become unwanted debris.

SpaceX announced that they have identified a common flaw in 100 first generation satellites but was not clear that this issue was related to non-maneuverability. However, it is strongly believed by the general community that this is the case. Over the next year, SpaceX will maneuver these flawed satellites into a controlled descent, causing them to burn up in the upper atmosphere.

One of the largest criticisms Starlink faces is their potential to contribute to the space junk problem. The decision to deorbit these fully functional satellites is SpaceX’s attempt at preventing them from remaining in orbit. The last thing SpaceX wants is the blame for littering in space. They feel their best plan of action is to control the failure by bringing the satellites down in a controlled fashion before they fail completely.

I am not convinced that SpaceX is doing this for the environment in space, but rather to protect their remaining fleet from damage due to crashes between their functional satellites and failed ones remaining in orbit. Either way it seems SpaceX is at least attempting to manage the debris they place in space.

So what does this mean for Starlink customers and will we get a light show from their destruction? In answer to the first question, there is no expected impact on Starlink customers or their internet service as these older satellites were lower capacity units and have a lot of neighbors to take on their work. As for the light show, I hate to disappoint, but SpaceX will bring them down one at a time over the course of the next several months. This is in part due to the de-orbiting process having to avoid the functional units during their descent. The retiring satellites will use what is referred to as “maneuver responsibility for any high-risk conjunctions,” which in layman’s terms means they will maneuver out of the path of any other satellites if there is the risk of a collision. This made me wonder what other satellites might be impacted by Starlink and learned that of the approximately 10,000 active satellites, over 6,000 are owned by SpaceX and are a part of Starlink, so likely the other satellites they are working to avoid are in fact their own.

Until next week, stay safe and learn something new.

Scott Hamilton is an Expert in Emerging Technologies at ATOS and can be reached with questions and comments via email to sh*******@te**********.org or through his website at https://www.techshepherd.org.