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Kyle@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

I got a great new story once these clicks dry up: “Expensive disposable fork thrown out a little earlier than forecasted”

I’m not a fan of Elon but low Earth orbit satellites by nature are meant to de-orbit. Yes they cause astronomy light pollution but cannot cause Kessler syndrome since their orbit is temporary from the start. Being so low there is atmospheric drag, which sometimes slows objects more than predicted.

Making news of this is like being shocked that infrastructure undersea cables and communication lines are falling apart and being replaced. It’s a fact of life.

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saveanon12@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Incorrect this is major news. These satellites are dying at a much faster rate than their expected life cycle. His company if this pace continues will be dead in under a year. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC7rlQmAgro

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- feecoomeeq@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Woah, that vid has 2 minutes of initial intro/sponsor crap.
  
  Ltdw Besides he just reads two articles saying that the failure rate is alarming, cause unknown but also the userbase is over 2 milion people, and doubled since January 2023 where it was around 1 milion. A life expectancy of the satellites are 5 years, so the early editions launched in 2019 should still be operational.
  
  He also said that June magnetic storm they hit the satellites caused 100 milion loss with 40 satellites burned. As there are 5000 starlinks in orbit already, their cost estimates for 11,12 billion USD.
  
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- Magrath@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  That information wasn’t in the video. The guy was basically deepthroating Starlink the whole video.
  
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- marsokod@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It’s not really major news because the report is inaccurate and they are not dying at any abnormal rate at the moment. The only news is that one website is having issues updating their data and can temporarily display misleading information.
  
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- PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks [bot] ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
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CodeInvasion@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I am a satellite software engineer turned program manager. This is not unexpected in this current environment, however the conditions that created the environment are abnormal.

This solar cycle is much stronger than past cycles. I’m on mobile, so I can’t get a good screenshot, but you can go here to see this cycle and the last cycle, as well as an overlay of a normal cycle www.swpc.noaa.gov/…/solar-cycle-progression

As solar flux increases, the atmosphere expands considerably, causing more drag than predicted. During periods of solar minimum, satellites can remain in a very low orbit with minimal station keeping. However, at normal levels of solar maximum, 5 year orbits can easily degrade to 1 year orbits. Forecasters says we are still a year away from solar maximum, and flux is already higher than last cycle’s all time high (which was also an anomalously strong cycle). So it will get worse before it gets better.

TLDR: Satellites are falling out of the sky because the sun is angy

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sagrotan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
“I’m not a fan of Elon” understatement of the year. It’s like saying “Bill Gates Looks like a sympathetic uncle, I’d leave him alone with my family anytime” or “Vladimir Putin seems to an open and tolerant man, let’s do that LGBTQ+ event right in front of his palace” or “This Zuckerberg guy is really fair IMO, I’ve for this new business idea, let’s start it with him” . Who’s got another?

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