FCC Denies Starlink Low-Orbit Bid for Lower Latency

ylai@lemmy.ml to Technology@lemmy.world – 338 points –
FCC Denies Starlink Low-Orbit Bid for Lower Latency
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It's already a bit of a mess to manage, especially if you include the debris. Back in 2007 China blew up a satellite, and as of a few years ago that represented almost a third of all tracked space debris.. (it has its own wikipedia page) If these jokers ever start deliberately blowing up each others' satellites, we could end up in a situation where space becomes inaccessible.

There's wildly different orbits. Starlink flies low and has a decaying orbit due to atmospheric drag meaning nothing is going to stay up there for very long. They designed them to just burn up on reentry after ~5 years. Stuff in much higher orbits are more of an issue because they don't experience the same amount of drag.

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