A Chinese rocket breaks apart dangerously close to the Starlink constellation
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Solar panels, wind turbines, EVs, and explody rockets. China truly is a world leader in all the latest technology!
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New space debris is never a good thing, but "dangerously close to the Starlink constellation" is actually a very good thing, because it means that the debris will deorbit quickly. It is very convenient that the ideal orbits for high speed communication (to reduce latency) are also the ideal orbits for passive space junk removal.
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The lack of respect by the Chinese gov't and its associated "state enterprises" for decent environmental practice is just such an ongoing disgusting situation: "lets just drop stages downrange and not worry whether they land on villages or not", "lets just leave the whole first stage in a quickly decaying orbit with ground tracks over major populated areas", "who cares if the second stage fails on orbit or not" , "lets pollute vast ranges of populated land and waterways" "lets over-produce in our factories and destroy jobs everywhere else"
Ugh.
Ugh.
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What’s worse than an upper stage that doesn’t de-orbit? An upper stage that explodes trying to de-orbit.
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I can foresee no downside to shooting down Chinese rockets. Let’s do it and see what happens!China launches are predominantly easterly such that an interceptor launched from the US's West coast could knock it down before it reaches orbit.. is it time to start knocking down any launches without a published de-orbiting plan?
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Oh, yes, that can't possibly go wrong in spectacular waysChina launches are predominantly easterly such that an interceptor launched from the US's West coast could knock it down before it reaches orbit.. is it time to start knocking down any launches without a published de-orbiting plan?
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US/Western companies ( broadening it to "western" companies just for the sake of argument...)
"don't leave a massive first stage on orbit in a quickly decaying orbit", "don't drop stages full of hypergol residues downrange on populated areas", "design 2nd stages for passivization/deorbit" ,
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That's what the original "Don't mess with Texas" was talking about!
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We used to do it but we don’t anymore so we are the good guys. You should do what we now do not what we used to do. FIFY
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Is it though? Won't small pieces deorbit much sooner than an intact upper stage?
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Yeah, the smaller constellations of OneWeb at 1,200km and Kuiper at 630km are actually more of a concern.
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Which also means that the communication satellites in that orbit need to boost themselves often and/or get replaced regularly
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Really? Have there been any first stages to reach orbit? Rapidly decaying or otherwise?
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I'm guessing you have a fully stocked for a hundred years or so fallout shelter handy to you, then eh? Because that's how you start a very quickly to excalate war that would affect every human being on the planet. There's a reason no one has done something that ridiculous in the history of spaceflight. A very good reason. There's no possible way to justify it to the nation that can easily place other rockets on trajectories toward your cities within minutes of you doing that. With no published de-orbiting plan. Kessler effects would be the least of your worries. Making it to next sunrise would be number one.China launches are predominantly easterly such that an interceptor launched from the US's West coast could knock it down before it reaches orbit.. is it time to start knocking down any launches without a published de-orbiting plan?
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Yeah, but the U.S. wasn't lobbing up 12 or more satellites per launch, nor launching three times or more a week at the time when they were leaving stages in orbit. They learned the mistake and shared the info so other's wouldn't repeat it. You know. Sharing scientific data in the interests of all humanity. China went, "Meh." That's what the difference is.
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No mostly they don’t but that wasn’t all that was said. Your argument was strong enough without adding things that western countries also are guilty of
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Surprisingly yes! The booster stage of the Long March 5B reaches orbit. Such rockets were used to build the Tiangong station. China just leaves the spent stages in orbit to passively decay.
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Easier to have a stage explode than relight an engine to de-orbit.
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I’d love to go through one space article without a mention of the Kessler syndrome. Please, o please, let this happen.
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I didn't know it was that reviled. My bad. Won't happen again.
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Not sure "dangerously" is the word I would have chosen. Maybe "annoyingly." Or "hopefully."
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Double dumb because they will just end up biting themselves in the ass.
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With the growth in the space industry, and thus number of articles about space, KSS was inevitable.
I predict we have, at most, 18 months left before the comment space becomes unusable.
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Like the old question about turning on the lights when you go around the house to check that the lights are off, do you have to fill the vacuum with trash so you can vacuum the vacuum ?
At least, in space nobody can hear you vacuum...
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They drive over their own people with tanks, so they sure as shit don't give a damn about anybody else.
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Yeah, "dangerously close" to the ISS and the souls aboard it, definitely. The danger to Starlink? Only relevant if you value Starlink or Elon Musk's fortune, otherwise it's academic.
/looks at the headline again, shakes head
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