For the millionth time, if every satellite in the starlink constellation were to fail today, they would be gone in about five years at the high end. They are low enough in the atmosphere that they have to fire station-keeping rockets to maintain orbit. If they collide, the small pieces deorbit even faster due to drag.
At around 400 kilometers and into the 500-km realm — home to ISS and the SpaceX Starlink satellites among others — atmospheric drag plays a major role. Dead satellites and debris usually slow and burn up in the atmosphere in just a few years. This natural cleansing process accelerates when the sun becomes more active and solar coronal mass ejections strike Earth and cause the atmosphere to swell.
“In those altitudes, we can probably do a lot and we will be forgiven,” Linares says.
For the millionth time, if every satellite in the starlink constellation were to fail today, they would be gone in about five years at the high end. They are low enough in the atmosphere that they have to fire station-keeping rockets to maintain orbit. If they collide, the small pieces deorbit even faster due to drag.
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