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Comment by TrainedMonkey | Hacker News Reader

These satellites are in MEO (1150km) which is relatively sparsely trafficked. Here is a good visualization http://stuffin.space/ . If you zoom out MEO would be just above the dense sphere of space stuff in LEO.

And if you think 4.5k is a lot wait until you hear about phase 2. Thankfully that is in close LEO and without constant propulsion things would deorbit in a matter of weeks. See https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/17/spacex-testing-its-own-satel...

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yeah, from what I've read they will have enough fuel to stay aloft for ~5 years. They won't be a source of permanent space debris.

Isn't space debris more about collisions which spew out thousands of tiny bits which are hard to track and may have a ludicrous velocity relative to things they run into? AIUI, large objects a relatively easy to track and avoid if you have the gas and are on a collision course.

Every satellite floating around without maneuvering capabilities is one more chance for that existing tiny debris to hit something and cause a chain reaction.

The worst kind of space debris sits in orbits outside of the atmosphere where there is negligible drag. Since these satellites will be in very low orbits that require propulsion to stay aloft, any potential debris from collisions or inoperable satellites will fall back to Earth relatively quickly.

https://www.nasa.gov/news/debris_faq.html

The majority of currently tracked space debris is the result of a single anti-satellite missile test China conducted. So less collisions more weapon based destruction. And any future conflict (between nation's reliant upon gps guided weapons)will likely start with anti-satellite warfare. This worries me greatly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...

That stuffin.space link is very cool. I'm a little disappointed I couldn't find the moon though. ;)

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