A satellite of that magnitude can have many failure modes, onboard computer will do their best to de-orbit if it encounters unrecoverable failure: it can use thrusters, it can change attitude to increase surface area towards the sun or the atmosphere, rearrange solar panels etc etc. Assisted de-orbit it can be done very quickly. Unassisted de-orbit will take some time. This is a known and solved problem, we have been relying on this for many years. This is what you’re referring to with your links.
What I’m trying to communicate is that if s/c fails in a non-recoverable way, thruster stuck on, pierced propellant tank, adcs failing in a specific way (e.g. you can get unlucky and get particular bit-flipped that pass checksum etc etc), it is theoretically possible to end up in a non-recoverable state. For example: accelerate into an elliptical orbit or due to orbit perturbation catch-up with your neighbors (all of which will need to do orbital maneuvers and waste propellants). This stuff happens. I’m no longer in this field, but my team lost university satellite because of this. Everyone hopes for a nice decay orbit but it can get funky, and very very hard to model.
Lastly, there’re cases where satellites have been destroyed on purpose. Look up Chinese and Russian tests. The debris field produces for this is hard to model, it will propagate and react to solar winds, upper atmosphere disturbances, neighboring objects,.. Small particles pierce through everything. You will not see them, you will not be able to track them.
Imagine a threat actor blowing up one or two of them. Or malfunction leading to collision with a launcher. Or any satellite malfunction and failure to de-orbit in time.
Remember MAD, mutual assured distraction? Well we created another one for access to space
What I found so fascinating about starling is how easy it was for a single country, even a single company in this case, to pollute near-earth space.
I understand the mechanics of LEO, and the de-orbit mechanics put in place.
But the world-wide impact, unknown side-effects on the upper layers of atmosphere on the re-entry of literally thousands of satellites within fairly short period of time?
Not American here. Reading your guys replies it almost feels like you are rejecting the existence of Trump supporters or invalidating their stance. Doesn’t this enforce their argument and created this situation in th first place?
Yes, but also the (1) push of PNR to keep a complete record of your travel and movements within the EU. Dutch train operator NS is operating in spirit of the future “PNR” already and makes it harder and harder to buy “anonymous” train ticket (even for local 15min journeys). The so called anonymous card, is linked to your bank account used to top it up.
What if you prefer to use cash in your daily life (2), for envelope-style budgeting? Well, your bank will let inform the authorities of your anomaly. You will start receiving monthly questionnaires asking to backup your behavior and why you might want 2-3-4K eur in cash every month.