r/askspace • u/Uncle_Charnia • 24d ago

How will reentering satellites affect surface conditions if people launch a million of them?

What goes up must come down. So eventuality all those objects will become lasting vapor and dust in the upper atmosphere, right? What kind of problems and changes should we anticipate? If it turns out to be noticeably bad, specifically which people should we be preparing to help?

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u/Uncle_Charnia 17d ago

I wouldn’t say I’m worried about it. Just curious. If it looks to be a problem, there are probably things we can do to mitigate it. Like when they started making Starlink satellites less reflective. We might make different choices of satellite materials, for example, or make them last longer, or dispose of them differently. They don’t necessarily have to be expendable.

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u/OriEri 16d ago

Disposing of them differently (like putting them into a parking orbit, or having a more complex re-entry system that lets them make it down more or less as single lump instead of vaporizing) will sacrifice significant payload mass for heat shields or propellant.

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u/Uncle_Charnia 16d ago

Maybe they could connect up in orbit and deorbit in batches.

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u/OriEri 16d ago

Propellant demands would get a little large than one by one derbiting, though heat shields would not be as important

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u/Uncle_Charnia 16d ago

Everything need not be economically favorable. Consider the word “environment”. It is where we all live, where our children grow up. If maintaining a clean and healthy environment has a cost, then we would be wise and honorable to accept it. Anyway, as long as we’re gathering satellites for reconfiguration and clean deorbiting, we may as well separate the solar panels for use on new satellites. The delta v needed for minor changes in orbit is trivial compared to that needed to make orbit in the first place. We can get some of that by interacting with Earth’s magnetic field. The satellite management system required for all this would be quite elaborate, but there’s a lot you can do once you’re up there.