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deddyyesterday at 4:03 PM2 repliesview on HN

Need to do a full read in more depth but it looks like they used a collision cross section of A=300 m^2, which is a little conservative but not insane given that the current Starlink v2 mini has about 90-120 m^2 of total surface area on its solar arrays. [1] The solar arrays are the largest part of these spacecraft by far and what defines the “collideable” area. A combined hard-body radius of 2 x 120 = 240 is in the ballpark for starlink-on-starlink collisions.

However most of collisions of concern are going to be starlink-on-debris, which is back down at the 120 m^2 level. Starlink already self screens for collisions and uplinks the conjunction data messages over the optical intersatellite link backbone or over their global ground station network.

If they aren’t able to talk to their satellites regularly from somewhere, you’re right we have MUCH bigger things to worry about on the ground.

[1] https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/02/26/spacex-unveils-first-b...


Replies

brookstyesterday at 4:13 PM

And wouldn’t the solar panels have less cross section than the satellite bodies, so even an apparent collision might just be a very near miss? (Honest question, not rhetorical, could be I’m wrong)

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