Experts claim that thousands of Starlink satellites could become space junk ships in the future. Space Agency Elon Musk has just launched the 14th Starlink mission.
(Image: SpaceX Photography via Getty Images)
In this SpaceX bulletin photo, the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft on the Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley is launched aboard the launch vehicle 39A May 30, 2020, at Kennedy Space Center, Florida . The Demo-2 mission is the first launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon manned spacecraft. This was the first launch of an American crew from the United States’ territory since the space shuttle program ended in 2011.
One of the sites that provided a live broadcast of the launch was South Africa, which took place on October 18, at 8:25 ET or 14:24 South African Standard Time (SAST). The latest satellite, launched at the summit of Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, is dedicated to SpaceX’s broadband network.
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It has been reported that more than 700 Starlink satellites are currently in space in low Earth orbit.
The Fourteenth Starlink Mission
Last Saturday, October 17, SpaceX made sure that if anything went wrong, the company was ready for it. The space agency said it has a backup opportunity that will be available on Monday, October 19.
(Image: SpaceX Photography via Getty Images)
In this SpaceX bulletin photo, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft on the Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley is launched aboard the launch vehicle 39A May 30, 2020, at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Demo-2 mission is the first launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon manned spacecraft. This was the first launch of an American crew from the United States’ territory since the space shuttle program ended in 2011.
The Falcon 9, which launched the 14th Starlink, was previously used to send a RADARAT Constellation Mission to outer space and support the first experimental Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
1,200 SpaceX Starlink could become space junk in the future
According to the Observer’s previous report, SpaceX’s plan for the future of Starlinks has a major flaw. Experts explained that Musk’s space agency is currently launching satellites at a very fast pace.
Previously, the company launched 60 Starlink satellites on October 6. It also plans to launch more missions in the same month. SpaceX’s activities clearly show that it wants to launch tens of thousands of spacecraft into low Earth orbit, which is already crowded with spacecraft from other companies.
For this reason, Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, concluded that if SpaceX succeeded in launching 42,000 satellites, there was a 3% chance that 1,200 of them would become dead satellites, which would make low Earth orbit even more. Crowded.
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Written by Giuliano De Leon.
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