Before we put half a million broadband satellites in orbit, anyone want to consider environmental effects?

The US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), a federation of public interest advocacy groups, has asked the FCC to halt low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite launches until the environmental consequences of space pollution can be better managed. Those concerns were underscored on Thursday when one of China's Long March 6A …

[Anonymous Coward]

My personal opinion, is that someone should start off the Kessler Effect essentially denying space to everyone, until they all grow up. Then in 10 years time, if they still can't all be adults, do it again.

Mankind does not deserve space as long as they act like childish twats here on earth.

[Doctor Syntax]

It doesn't clear in a 10 year period.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Depends on the orbit - Starlink are in a very low orbit and will deorbit quickly. Unless somebody deliberately blows one up and sends the debris higher.

By comparison there are around 65M shipping containers, with over half of them being in transit at any time. Somewhere >1000 are lost every year and these are a risk to sailors lives.

Surely we should ban international trade until the FTC does a study on them ?

[Flocke Kroes]

Blowing up a Starlink does not significantly increase the deorbit time

Starlinks are in circular orbits. If you blow one up the fragments will go to elliptical orbits that return to the altitude of the explosion. That means either apogee increases or perigee decreases but either way the other one remains at the altitude of the original circular orbit. The bulk of atmospheric forces occur at perigee and result in reduction of apogee until the orbit is circular again.

The film Gravity was created for entertainment and misses out a vital feature of Kessler syndrome. The elliptical orbits have a different period to the original circular orbit. The fragments that were slowed down lose more velocity at perigee and do not get back up high enough to be a threat to other satellites at the original circular orbit. The fragments that gained velocity have a longer path around the Earth. If they are on a near collision path on one pass then they will fall behind and miss on each of the next passes. During that time they will lose altitude while Starlinks will use their ion thrusters to maintain their altitude. Getting a cascade requires time - decades - which Starlink fragments do not have. A cascade also requires proximity which reduces with altitude. There is a sweet spot for Kessler syndrome: high enough that the fragments remain in orbit for centuries but low enough that there is still a significant probability of hitting another satellite. SpaceX renegotiated their license for an orbit well below the sweet spot. OneWeb and China's G60 are much better placed for a cascade of collisions. For Kuiper I will wait for evidence they can manufacture multiple satellites per year.

G60 gets a special bonus. Starlinks are delivered to a low orbit and if they are functional go up to their working orbit. After payload separation the Falcon 9 upper stage performs a de-orbit burn then dumps any remaining propellant and discharges its batteries so it cannot explode. G60 satellites are delivered directly to their working orbit where the Long March upper stage usually explodes. The fragments of that upper stage will remain a threat to G60 satellites for decades. The satellites should be able to dodge the bigger fragments during their working life - which will be reduced by all that dodging. Starlinks de-orbit themselves before they run out of propellant. We will find out what G60 satellites do in a few years. Probably break up into a cloud of fragments that work their way down over the next century or two.

[S4qFBxkFFg]

Re: Blowing up a Starlink does not significantly increase the deorbit time

"For Kuiper I will wait for evidence they can manufacture multiple satellites per year."

That burn could achieve a graveyard orbit.

[Snake]

RE: lost shipping containers

I would say that most lost shipping containers will not be a risk to sailor's lives, as they are hollow, steel and not waterproof and therefore sink like the proverbial stone to the bottom of the sea. Unless they are lost in a shallow shipping channel, I don't think the vast majority of them will ever been seen again by human eyes (unless Aquaman comes around and does the "Take your crap back!" scene like in the movie).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RE: lost shipping containers

That's correct, but a tiny fraction do float, in the vanishingly small number of cases where the cargo itself provides sufficient buoyancy. That'll be just at the surface, and there are multiple reports of collisions and small boat sinkings - but the risk is trivially small compared to the more common causes of small boat doom.

[Charlie Clark]

And who should that someone be?

[Annihilator]

I dunno, coast guard?

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/22ad24cd-ba9d-47af-99de-5a78a88973f9&

[cjcox]

Quark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOhOWuooYVY

[chivo243]

Re: Quark

Damn you! beat me to it! one of my favs! He collects space junk, and has two hot assistants!! That show would never get made these days...

Didn't have to watch the clip! I have the whole series!

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Quark

I haven't seen it since it was originally broadcast, but there are bits I still recall. ("The clone is the pretty one." Man, that episode sure nailed gen-AI.)

I should add that to my list of shows to look up, on the rare occasions where I feel like watching something.

[stiine]

Well, I'm part of the public, and unless PIRG is going to run fiber to every airplaine and ship crossing the Pacific or the Atlantic oceans, I think Starlink should continue launching.

[C.Carr]

Starlink sats are in a low enough orbit that they passively deorbit in a fairly short period of time -- like 5 years, IIRC, without station keeping.

Satellites above 600km are a much larger concern

I guess you can review the environmental impact of all those launches, but there is no environmental impact to review in, you know, space.

[MachDiamond]

Starlink is supposed to be built out to 42,000 operational satellites. The expected lifespan of each sat barring failures (of which most of the initial birds are dead) is 5 years. It doesn't take advanced math to estimate how many satellites have to be launched every couple of days just to maintain the constellation once it's in place. That's just for Starlink. China is adding their own birds, Amazon's Kuiper, OneWeb, etc all add even more satellites, deployment debris and launch debris. Even though that stuff is in "low Earth orbit", it's not coming back down quickly enough to not be considered a major concern and all of this is being done so gamers don't have panic attacks over ping times if they are playing from some rural location.

There are already satellite internet providers with birds in geostationary orbit that cover the vast majority of the Earth's land mass. A friend of mine just moved house from a place that had cable internet to a block away where there's F-all. That was until he discovered there is wireless internet with antennas in direct line of sight. The speeds are fine, just not blistering. Still better than 5G. In the bread belt of the US where land it flat, one feature that can't be missed is water towers. For city water it's easier to let gravity provide the pressure rather than pumps other than to put the water into the tank. The horizon gets pushed far off looking from the top of those water towers which is why they are festooned with antennae. There are also plenty of radio towers dotted around which isn't a cutting edge technology. I would expect they can put one up for under $1mn which is less than the cost of the Starlink sats that would be needed to cover the area.

[EricM]

Plus the effects of thousands of reentries burning up metal in the stratosphere and above

A re-entry so far was an occasional event for earth's atmosphere.

Every mega-constellation having about 5000 re-entries per year will increase the number of those events by 3 orders of magnitude.

Likewise the mass of burned up metals will increase, with as of yet unknown effects.

Not sure what the effect will be, but if there is one and we discover it only, when the constellations are all up, there will be nothing left we can do ...

[deive]

Re: Plus the effects of thousands of reentries burning up metal in the stratosphere and above

Heres one effect we know: https://phys.org/news/2024-06-satellite-megaconstellations-jeopardize-recovery-ozone.html

[RJW]

Re: Plus the effects of thousands of reentries burning up metal in the stratosphere and above

It feels like we have found yet another way to damage our planet.

[hoola]

Re: Plus the effects of thousands of reentries burning up metal in the stratosphere and above

And this is exactly the point.

Those lobbing all this junk up there simply don't care as it is not their problem. It will only be when it is too late that the navel gazing will start by which time the actual culprits are sitting on even more billions and still do not give a stuff.

[stiine]

Re: Plus the effects of thousands of reentries burning up metal in the stratosphere and above

You might want to ask some astrophysicists about the number of meteors that enter the earths atmosphere every year. This page says 25m.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid

[Alf Garnett]

Re: Plus the effects of thousands of reentries burning up metal in the stratosphere and above

Metal from the satellites burning up scares you? Meteors have been entering the atmosphere since forever. How do you propose to stop them?

[collinsl]

So the midwest of the US is fine, good for it. Now describe the situation of people living in the foothills of the Andes, or around the Himalayas or in a remote valley in South America or on a volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific not near any existing fibre links.

[doublelayer]

Most of those areas are less populated, which means two things:

1. Geosynchronous satellite's capacity in their area isn't divided very much, so it provides perfectly fine service unlike some more densely populated areas.

2. Starlink is unlikely to serve those areas because they don't have the regulatory approval. For mountainous areas around the Andes, they have obtained some of the licenses they need, but for your "volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific not near any existing fibre links", they're not likely to get that.

For instance, Tonga's internet was taken out a while ago, so maybe people there might like Starlink. Take a guess whether Starlink has bothered to get approval to sell to that small market. They haven't. In addition to probably being beneath their consideration, the other reason for that is that being far from links also means Starlink doesn't work very well. If Tonga's link goes down, the satellites have to send a lot of data over a mesh network until they find the next ground station, which means a lot of transfers because Tonga isn't very close to other things. This is a problem that geosynchronous can solve more easily. You're overstating Starlink's functionality with your own examples.

[From the North]

Tonga finally gave SpaceX permission to run Starlink there in Jul 22, 2024.

Geosync's biggest usability issue is latency, which is inherently 240ms per round trip (generally two for a request and response).

This comment is coming to you from Alaska via Starlink, which is 10x higher bandwidth than the long copper line alternative here, while bouncing off those same inter-sat mesh links down to Seattle.

[very angry man]

Or just in major Australian cities, no fiber, no phone lines, 5g sucks, 4g better but patchy, oz sat slow and congested, Oz wifi so over subscribed there are periods where it just dosnt work, stop winging it could be soooo much worse

[Michael Wojcik]

Comment not as advertised, only moderately angry. I'd like my money back.

[Dr Dan Holdsworth]

The human population in Australia is very, very strongly concentrated in the coastal cities with very few inland cities of any size. If the internet in these cities is crap, then this is just down to the suppliers also being crap, along with the city regulators similarly being twerps.

This does not surprise me in the least, unfortunately.

[harrys]

Since satellites are now a vital part of everyday life a mishap is an existential risk. similar to a miriad of others

Existential risks usually result in loss of profit so capitalism usually finds a way of profiting from it, and as a corollary reduce the risk of it happening

I expect the Kessler Effect will be a big marketing buzz word for companies to get a shed load of capital thrown at them, i think its already begun :)

People who are motivated by money (lotta them about) will keep us safe ... whilst making a shed load of cash in the process

its a win win situation !

[graeme leggett]

Satire?

[Caver_Dave]

Environmental effects

I got completely "the wrong end of the stick" when I read the byline.

I thought this was going to be about the diminishment of the suns effect on the earth due to the number of satellites. Might help on global warming by a miniscule amount.

[big_D]

Re: Environmental effects

It messes up navigation though. I was out the other night and looking at the stars, trying to get my bearings and there were strings of "new" stars that were so bright, they blocked out the real stars...

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Environmental effects

Of course if you knew the orbits of those new satellites you could potentially use sightings of them to determine your position - globally

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Environmental effects

I think the number of people helped by satellite based navigation probably outweighs those hindered by satellite-obscured star based navigation, by several orders of magnitude.

[graeme leggett]

Re: Environmental effects

Starlink is not navigation.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Environmental effects

It is if you can see them and know their orbits

Admittedly getting out a sextant and doing sightings is a little inconvenient if you're driving but it's fine in an airliner

[hoola]

Re: Environmental effects

Starlink is to enable people to stream porn, post on Social Media and a very tiny percentage of something useful.

The energy and resources that go into creating and maintaining the swarm is ridiculous. Navigation is a small number of satellites that actually have a benefit.

[EricB123]

A Rare Rant from Me

I always had this strange thought that if enough LEO satellites encircle the earth, the amount of sunlight that makes it through will be reduced. I know the math says that is the least of our worries. I don't think this will ever be enough to do much about climate change, as the pollution from all the rockets to put the satellites there in the first place would vastly outdo any cooling effect. Any thoughts if you actually read this post to here?

I do feel confident that space junk is a much more pressing problem at this point.

[mtp]

Re: A Rare Rant from Me

Lets add some maths

Radius of Earth 6380 km

Altitude of satellite 1000 km (random guess)

Diameter of satellite 10cm=0.0001 km (thickness of shell)

Area = 4*pi*(6300+1000)^2= 7e8 km^2

Volume = 7e8 * 0.0001 = 68000 km^3

At a density of 1000 kg/m^3 = 1e12 kg/km^3 (water) this has a mass of

Mass = 68000 * 1e12 = 7e16 kg

A falcon heavy can launch about 10000 kg so to make a 10cm thick shell around Earth at a height of 1000 km would take about 7e12 launches. I think we are safe for now.

(Please check my maths)

[ecarlseen]

Re: A Rare Rant from Me

Thanks for this. The altitude is 550 km, but the change to the math is immaterial.

Oblig Hitchhiker's quote: “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: A Rare Rant from Me

This also doesn't make any difference in practice, but aren't the Starlink satellites low-reflectance anyway, to reduce the impact on astronomy? (Or did Starlink just promise to do that at some point in the future?) So they're correspondingly high in emissivity, and thus wouldn't be "blocking" any significant amount of solar heating.

There have been various pie-in-the-sky — well, parasol-in-the-sky — proposals to reflect a portion of incoming solar radiation in order to cool the Earth, like this one. They're all pretty silly, as far as I can tell. And it's hard to see how they make more sense than increasing use of thermal and PV energy capture to replace the burning of hydrocarbon fuels. If you're going to go for a giant orbiting engineering project, make it space-based solar (also very non-trivial, of course).

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: A Rare Rant from Me

They aren't a huge problem for optical astronomy, they are only visible when they are in sunlight - so only close to dawn and dusk

They are terrible for radio astronomy

Another concern is perhaps the ozone layer. We hand wavingly say 'space is big' and a couple of rockets can do anything. But these atmospheric layers are very sparse in terms of total mass of a chemical, with 1000s of launches dumping exhaust gas or manoeuvring fuel into a thin layer might be a concern

[hoola]

Re: A Rare Rant from Me

They promised to make them astronomy friendly but it is ineffective (or they just waffled about it).

[hoola]

Re: A Rare Rant from Me

I am not sure this is correct.

A CubeSat is 10cm and must way less than 2.6Kg per unit

This indicates something rather different and makes more sense with the trails they are leaving:

https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html

"The current version of each Starlink satellite weighs 573 lbs. (260 kilograms) and is, according to Sky & Telescope magazine, roughly the size of a table. "

[BasicReality]

The question was "anyone want to consider environmental effects?"

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of years ago I could stargaze in a remote area in Spain with no ground sources of light and it was like a natural planetarium.

Now I look up and I'm met with the sight of Musk's giant ring (of satellites) crossing the sky every few minutes instead of the Perseids. No area of life is left untouched by the Tech Bros.

[BasicReality]

I live in the middle of nowhere. Those satellites provide my internet, I've tried to see them but never have. I have watched the space station go by multiple times, there's a site that shows when it'll be overhead. I've also seen some other random satellite, but still no luck catching Starlink satellites.

[Anonymous Coward]

In my case it is a train of satellites which go from horizon directly overhead to horizon and the colour is a slightly greenish tinge. There are videos on YouTube.

Rural Spain and Africa are already served by 4G and WiMax, isn't this the case in the rural US?

[SundogUK]

Rural Africa isn't served by anything other than satellite. I suspect you don't really have any conception of just how vast Africa actually is.

[Anonymous Coward]

20+% of rural Africans got 4G in 2020, around 20% of Africans got no mobile broadband signal at all.

In 2023 ITU reported 60%.of African population (urban and rural) got 4G

[BasicReality]

We have extremely minimal cell coverage here. Tried DSL from the local phone company, but the lines are so bad it wouldn't keep a connection, later after they were acquired by some other company I tried again, they said they couldn't service us. Winter time when the trees are bare cell phone coverage is weak, summer is non-existent unless we're outside. Had HughesNet, that was terrible. After a year and a half on the waitlist, Starlink came through, it's been great. Better than cable connections I've had in the past at other locations.

[MachDiamond]

"but still no luck catching Starlink satellites."

If I could post photos, I could easily show you lots of Starlink tracks. Since they are so low, the times to get images is just before sunrise and just after sunset when they're lit up quite well. That's also the best time for asteroid hunting and getting photos of Venus when it's visible in the sky.

[Joe 59]

You can't catch them because they are only clearly visible for a few days after insertion, fading orbit after orbit as they spread out and assume their assigned positions. They have to be at exactly the right place to reflect the set sun behind them, far over the horizon, after a few minutes overhead, they fade out as they approach fully-dark. Or in reverse for early morning, pre-dawn reflection of sunlight before the sun rises on the other side of the arc getting brighter until they're obscured by dawn's early light.

timing is everything, then a clear sky

[hoola]

The Space Station is absolutely huge so is easily seen.

In darker skies satellites are frequently visible.

[Zuagroasta]

Complete and utter bullshit. These idiots are the same who said Concorde wpuld eat up the ozone layer like ice cream in this summer. It's the same stupid narative that has hamstrung the West since the hippies began fearmongering for money in the 1970s.

[Dan 55]

Contemporary:

New Scientist: Aircraft wreak havoc on ozone layer

Now:

Space.com: Supersonic planes, rockets and megaconstellations could thwart ozone layer's recovery

You may look at the video of the August ozone layer over 43 years to see for yourself that the hole in the ozone layer is still very much a thing.

[RJW]

Do we really need all these satellites?

[stiine]

Yes.

Next question.

[Heggisist]

They're going up one way or another

No matter what they're going to launch. If it's in the US or China or Russia, these satellites are going to launch. If the US puts the brakes on, the only result will be companies leaving the US for other countries that will let them keep launching. At least letting them launch here would mean better economic development here and at least some controls.

[mtp]

Re: They're going up one way or another

True. If the US bans mass satellite launches then in a few years the world will switch to using Chinese satnav and satphone services.

[drankinatty]

Re: They're going up one way or another

Humanity's shortsightedness never ceases to astound me. Much like the timber-barons who viewed all the old-growth forests as theirs alone to clear-cut for profit without any thought to the long-term damage they cause, we now have a race to blanket low-earth orbit with throw-away satellites with an equal amount of concern for the consequences. While the timber-barons of 150 years ago may be excused for their shortsightedness based on then existing science, there is no such defense available to those launching today.

[MachDiamond]

Re: They're going up one way or another

"If the US puts the brakes on, the only result will be companies leaving the US for other countries that will let them keep launching. "

There's a little thing called ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) that comes into play and rockets are classed as arms. This isn't a case where Elon could take his ball and go play elsewhere. Actually, Elon could if he changed citizenship and never came back, but SpaceX can't.

There are plenty of other countries that aren't pleased that the US and China are green-lighting these projects.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: They're going up one way or another

Less so than before - what exactly can the USA do to SpaceX?

Once upon a time it could stop US suppliers of advanced rocket parts to your little rocket company.

Now SpaceX can build it's own rockets in Mordor with European engineers, German machine tools, Taiwanese chips and Japanese chemicals and launch from Narnia There aren't many vital parts the USA can ITAR.

It could ban US customers from using SpaceX and force them into the monopoly priced arms of Boeing - but that would be effectively enforcing sanctions on itself (see Brexit) and leave US space customers in the wake of those foreigners with ever cheapening access to space

[MachDiamond]

Re: They're going up one way or another

"Less so than before - what exactly can the USA do to SpaceX?"

SpaceX gets a large portion of its revenue from government contracts.

All of the senior executives would be up on charges for violations of ITAR regulations

Elon would be in a world of hurt since all of his assets could be frozen, his Gulfstream jet (Falcon Landing LLC) would be grounded, his passport revoked.

You have to remember that what stranded Ed Snowden in Russia was the revocation of his passport. He didn't want to stay there but had no way to board a plane leaving the country and probably wouldn't have been allowed to travel within Russia either.

There's a tremendous number of rectangular building things that could fall on the heads of Elon et al.

[Alex King]

Re: They're going up one way or another

Ah, the tedious old “if we don’t do it, someone else will, so we might as well” argument that has been used to argue against everything from stopping tax evasion, to reducing CO2, to paying a truly living wage everywhere, and everything else that requires global co-operation.

Play a new tune. This one’s really tired.

[ecofeco]

Image search - space junk

LOL! The human race is building its own prison.

And here's another thing: these objects are NOT leaves floating gently in your backyard pool. They are moving at an average speed of 28,000 kph (roughly 17,000 MPH). This makes an encounter with even the tinniest object, a very serious danger.

But hey, let's put MORE in orbit. That'll end well!

[Anonymous Coward]

We have already f***d up Earth. Now it is time to f***k up space.

[JBanister]

Comparison to cars

It might be worth doing an environmental impact comparison between an 800 kilogram Starlink V2 Satellite and a 1570 kilogram Prius XW60. Starlink is talking about 42 thousand satellites. USA has 278 million cars.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Comparison to cars

But so far has launched only one into orbit - and that wasn't Earth orbit

[Spherical Cow]

Re: Comparison to cars

Four by my count (all of them EVs). Three were even driven!

[MachDiamond]

Re: Comparison to cars

"Four by my count (all of them EVs). Three were even driven!"

I had a fun night knocking a few back with one of the drivers!

Oh the stories I can't tell.

[hoola]

Re: Comparison to cars

The cars are easy to deal with and modern vehicles can be recycled quite effectively. In terms of the Prius the lithium batteries are a challenge and the bits like the foam in the seats. At least is is not hurtling around with no possibility of being stopped.

[thexfile]

We need a way to break up the network.

[claimed]

Solution

Artificial frog. Whip a sticky tongue out from one of the pacific islands and snare a 20k kph snack of debris. Bring it in for recycling, yum.

All we need is highly accurate tracking, a powerful propulsion device and a really long unroll-able tongue that’s got some flex.

I volunteer to help research this approach, all I need is a few million quid and encouraging words.

[Joe 59]

luddites

Progress is going to happen, those standing in the way are just standing in the way, you're not offering viable alternatives, or you're offering alternatives that are worse. I can't imagine the number of cell towers and infrastructure required to provide the same coverage. Suggesting the coverage isn't required is a non-starter. Would you rather the Chinese in charge of extraterrestrial internet access? That's a recipe for disaster.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: luddites

I believe you have successfully deployed the Nirvana fallacy

[Jadith]

My environmental concern is more along the lines of atmospheric pollution. How much of what exactly gets introduced to our air everytime one of these things burns up on re-entry? How long does it stay in the atmosphere? What does the spread look like and what would it take to make the air toxic? Not necessarily London smog toxic, but rather lead in the drinking water type toxic. Yanno, the type of toxic that introduces problems during childhood development that continues to cause problems over a person's lifespan.

[aelfheld]

The amount of potentially toxic material in the satellites isn't going to be much & what there is will likely disperse during re-entry to the point of being immeasurable. Exposure to anything seems unlikely unless you're hit by one de-orbiting.

[hoola]

There are an awful lot of them........

Just look at the issue with plastics globally.

[aelfheld]

Correction

"The US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), a federation of self-absorbed wankers on the make [...]"

[DJ]

It would be shame if

the ISS accidentally took a bunch of (insert evil person/empire here, plural if you please)'s satellites with it.

"Gee, we didn't expect THAT to happen. Please accept our apologies."

(Mine's the one that used to have an unobstructed view of the nighttime sky in the pocket.)