this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
82 points (98.8% liked)
Space
1829 readers
25 users here now
A community to discuss space & astronomy through a STEM lens
Rules
- Be respectful and inclusive. This means no harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
- Engage in constructive discussions by discussing in good faith.
- Foster a continuous learning environment.
Also keep in mind, mander.xyz's rules on politics
Please keep politics to a minimum. When science is the focus, intersection with politics may be tolerated as long as the discussion is constructive and science remains the focus. As a general rule, political content posted directly to the instanceβs local communities is discouraged and may be removed. You can of course engage in political discussions in non-local communities.
Related Communities
π Science
- !curiosityrover@lemmy.world
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !esa@feddit.nl
- !nasa@lemmy.world
- !perseverancerover@lemmy.world
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !space@beehaw.org
π Engineering
π Art and Photography
Other Cool Links
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Starlink is all in LEO. It doesn't become space junk as there is sufficient drag in LEO that they readily deorbit purely due to air resistance (yes, there is enough air in LEO to make air resistance the factor in why Starlink does not become space junk).
Let's put actual numbers on it:
Starlink: 500-570km
Kuiper: 630km
Guowang: 900-1145 km
And as far as passive deorbit times, this chart is for a 1u cubesat, and bigger satellites would come down faster, but it illustrates some of the point that Starlink isn't actually the problem here:
The ballistic coefficient, mass divided by cross section area, still determines how drag effects trajectory in the LEO environment.
It should be pretty straightforward to extrapolate if you know the relevant parameters on both spacecraft.
The outer shell of the Guowang constellation on the other hand...