Starlink is burning up one or two satellites a day in Earth's atmosphere

by damethos on 10/9/2025, 4:37:11 AM with 36 comments

  • by timschmidt on 10/9/2025, 5:11:23 AM

    > SpaceX is deorbiting about one or two satellites daily, and that number is only going to grow.

    > What that means for our planet isn't entirely clear

    100 tons of meteors hit Earth every day[1], so it seems fairly clear the 800kg Starlink v2 mini satellites[2] don't amount to much. Maybe once a dozen providers are deorbiting a similar amount of mass daily, we might notice. But even then I'm not sure there would be any negative effects. This seems like clickbait scare mongering at the moment.

    1: https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/astronomybc/chapter/14-1-m...

    2: https://dishycentral.com/how-big-are-starlink-satellites

  • by NaOH on 10/9/2025, 5:23:41 AM

    Three days ago:

    One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45493143 - 6 Oct 2025 (336 comments)

  • by treyd on 10/9/2025, 5:17:22 AM

    > The current strategy to de-orbit Starlink satellites, which operate in a low orbit below 600 kilometers, is to use the satellites' thrusters to move them to such a low orbit that they eventually catch drag in the atmosphere and burn up in what McDowell calls an "uncontrolled but assisted" reentry.

    This is misleading, they're already in a very low orbit and would deorbit on their own in a just few years. They can manoeuver to explicitly deorbit on command, but they need active stationkeeping to stay up there for extended periods.

  • by Gathering6678 on 10/9/2025, 7:14:34 AM

    I wonder if there's a comparison between level of (a) pollution from satellites burning, and (b) pollution from other sources. If (a) is only a tiny amount compared to (b), I think this is not a significant issue.

  • by stephc_int13 on 10/9/2025, 5:30:00 AM

    I think the question to ask would be about the cost of maintaining that fleet.

    Cost of building + launch, per satellite, any ideas?

    How much is Elon _actually_ burning here? Is Starlink going to have a positive ROI at some point?

  • by kaonwarb on 10/9/2025, 5:17:08 AM

    I was disappointed to learn approximately nothing from this article about why this matters.

  • by ChrisArchitect on 10/9/2025, 5:56:10 AM

    [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45493143