Target of European Space Debris Removal Mission Is Itself Hit by Space Debris
A piece of space debris being monitored by the European Space Agency as part of a mission to remove trash from space was hit by another piece of debris, splintering the object into more pieces.
Literally every corner of the world has some kind of environmental issue due to the recklessness of governments and corporations.
Flat, round earth theory to the rescue? No corners, no problems. Lulz.
NGL, the number of satellites already in orbit is worrying. Even just since prepandemic, I can spot a lot more satellites than I ever could before, because of how rapidly we are adding them to orbit for things like starlink. I really really hope everyone has automatic methods for deorbiting dead satellites within a decade of expiration.
Starlink satellites will eventually de-orbit by themselves. The low-orbit altitude they fly in is not a completely vacuum. If they aren’t reboosted drag will slow them down enough that in about 5 years they come down and burn up in the atmosphere. We should worry more about those satellite in higher altitudes, like those TV broadcasting satellites that are in a geo synchronous orbit. Those will never come down without human intervention, but they are so far away that it’s difficult and expensive to reach them.
starlink alone has more than doubled the number of satellites in space. like, they alone have launched more than everyone else combined until that point. it's ridiculous.
The lowest of Starlink supposedly won't last 5 years in orbit without operating ion thrusters.
Planetes intensifies
Non-paywall link via Canadian Bloomberg:
Space debris hurt itself in its confusion!
Humanity is fucking disgusting.
And not in the fun, sexy way.
I'm sure the galactic community can't wait for the sapient species equivalent of Pigpen to make the stage, with our pollution clouds in tow.
This irony is delicious
It's not irony. This is what the program is trying to prevent: collisions from junk.