IRAN plans to target Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Starlink facilities across the Middle East, including Israel, according to state media. Companies owned by the Tesla boss will be considered “…
I’m prefacing this by saying my background is playing KSP and inadvertantly making my own Kessler syndrome when running out of fuel braking during a station rendezvous 😅
Yeah you’re fundamentally trading energy. It depends on how the impact happens but orbital scientists think in terms of the average velocity of a collision event and their likely angle. 30⁰ head on at 7km/s is roughly normal I think?
A head on collision means that you have the full kinetic energy of both satellites to work with. Some parts get thrown up into massive orbits even up into medium earth orbit. Others deorbit due to hitting at the right angle to lose enough kinetic energy that their orbit drops.
Overall your debris ends up in a plume heading in the direction of both satellites, shaped like a flat cone. In the case of starlink they might have to deorbit the entire constellation while they still have control over them since that cone is invariably going to shotgun blast one or more satellites on the next orbital string
I’m prefacing this by saying my background is playing KSP and inadvertantly making my own Kessler syndrome when running out of fuel braking during a station rendezvous 😅
Yeah you’re fundamentally trading energy. It depends on how the impact happens but orbital scientists think in terms of the average velocity of a collision event and their likely angle. 30⁰ head on at 7km/s is roughly normal I think?
A head on collision means that you have the full kinetic energy of both satellites to work with. Some parts get thrown up into massive orbits even up into medium earth orbit. Others deorbit due to hitting at the right angle to lose enough kinetic energy that their orbit drops.
Overall your debris ends up in a plume heading in the direction of both satellites, shaped like a flat cone. In the case of starlink they might have to deorbit the entire constellation while they still have control over them since that cone is invariably going to shotgun blast one or more satellites on the next orbital string