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reanimated | 5 years ago

It's not correct. They orbit low enough that unresponsive Starlink satellite will fall out within a coupe of years.

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Rebelgecko|5 years ago

No way. Orbital decay times increase more or less exponentially, and once you get above the thermopause (which moves around from 500-1000km based upon terrestrial and space weather conditions), atmospheric drag becomes practically 0.

SpaceX is upfront about this in their FCC filings:

"The natural orbital decay of a satellite at 1,150 km requires hundreds of years to enter the Earth’s atmosphere"

kanox|5 years ago

All current satellites are in 550 km orbits. They had plans to also launch in 1150 km orbits but they made some FCC filings requesting to reduce the altitude.

reanimated|5 years ago

On April SpaceX modified the architecture and submitted application to FCC proposing to operate more satellites in lower orbits. Previously they had approval to operate almost 3000 satellites in orbits between 1110-1300 km. Now the modified plan foresees 1500 satellites at altitudes between 540-570 km and another 7500 satellites in orbits around 345 km at later stages.