History Background Ĭonstellations of low Earth orbit satellites were first conceptualized in the mid-1980s as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative, culminating in Brilliant Pebbles, where weapons were to be staged in orbit to intercept ballistic missiles at short notice. Additionally, the satellites are designed to autonomously and smoothly avoid collisions based on uplinked tracking data. The satellites are equipped with krypton or argon-fueled Hall thrusters which allow them to de-orbit at the end of their life. SpaceX has attempted to mitigate astronomy concerns by implementing several upgrades to Starlink satellites aimed at reducing their brightness during operation. Īstronomers have raised concerns about the effect the constellation can have on ground-based astronomy and how the satellites will add to an already congested orbital environment. SpaceX expects more than $30 billion in revenue by 2025 from its satellite constellation, while revenues from its launch business were expected to reach $5 billion in the same year. The cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in May 2018 to be at least US$10 billion. The SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond, Washington, houses the Starlink research, development, manufacturing, and orbit control teams. SpaceX announced reaching more than 1 million subscribers in December 2022 and 1.5 million subscribers in May 2023. In total, nearly 12,000 satellites are planned to be deployed, with a possible later extension to 42,000. As of May 2023, Starlink consists of over 4,000 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), which communicate with designated ground transceivers. SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. It also aims for global mobile phone service after 2023. Traffic launch, especially in terms of satellite constellations, is alsoĪnalyzed and a strategy to accommodate for future traffic needs is proposed.Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by American aerospace company SpaceX, providing satellite Internet access coverage to over 53 countries. Is estimated to be about 12.6 million satellites. AsĪ result, considering 7% of failure rate, the maximum orbital capacity of LEO Hence, an estimate for the maximum number of satellites that it is possible toįit in LEO, considering the stability of the space environment, is obtained. Moreover, an optimization approach is used to compute the maximum orbitalĬapacity of the low region of LEO (200-900 km of altitude), considering theĮquilibrium solutions and the failure rate of satellites as a constraint. In particular, a new definition of orbitalĬapacity based on the stable equilibrium points of the system is provided. New multi-shell multi-species evolutionary source-sink model, called MOCAT-3, In LEO and the risk of collisions and debris generation. Hundreds or thousands of satellites in the near future, increasing congestion Multiple companies are planning to launch large constellations of Orbit (LEO) poses a threat to the safety and sustainability of the spaceĮnvironment. Download a PDF of the paper titled The Capacity of Low Earth Orbit Computed using Source-sink Modeling, by Andrea D'Ambrosio and 2 other authors Download PDF Abstract: The increasing number of Anthropogenic Space Objects (ASOs) in Low Earth
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