this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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[–] Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 110 points 2 months ago (5 children)

The main problem is that starlink is not a viable ISP like Comcast. Relying on low earth orbit is extremely wasteful as you need to constantly launch more and more satellites. Starlink gives their satellites a 5 year lifespan where fiber can go on for 40 years or more. There are 7,500 starlink satellites, so we're talking a constant replacement of satellites all falling into earth's atmosphere, not being recycled.

Starlink is literal space trash waiting to happen.

[–] bulwark@lemmy.world 65 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I didn't realize how temporary and disposable Starlink's satellites were. They incinerate 4 or 5 a day by de-orbiting them into the ozone. Here's a pretty good CNET article that talks about how they “dispose” of them. IDK, doesn't seem sustainable. They also mention the bandwidth gains are being diminished with the influx of new users, so their solution is more temporary satellites.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, if they want to make satellites last longer, they could go a bit higher in their orbits. The option is there.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

But they specifically don't want to do that because ensuring a 5 year service life means you are required to continue buying more satellites from them every 5 years. Literally burning resources into nothingness just to pursue a predatory subscription model.

It also helps their case that LEO has much lower latency than mid or high orbit but I refuse to believe that that is their primary driving concern behind this and not the former.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Who's buying satellites?

SpaceX is putting up satellites for SpaceX, they're the manufacturer and operator...

It's definitely in their best interest to keep them working as long as possible.

That said, they're high end communications devices, very fancy routers essentially. And like all computer technology, these things become obsolete quickly. So even if they could last 20 years, you wouldn't want them even 10 years from now. 100 GB/s speeds might be great now, but 10 years down the road 10 TB/s could be the norm, so at that point why are you still trying to provide service with ancient hardware 100x slower than it should be.

[–] gaael@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that part of the grift?

At the time it looked like one of the main reasons to launch Starlink was to provide SpaceX with a new market, much larger than the usual space launching stuff. Also this meant Felon could get subsidies through 2 different companies.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Isn't that part of the grift?

Isn't what?

I mean the reason for starlink was that they could, and they could do it for cheaper than anyone else because they would be launching at cost.

Also, falcon doesn't really get subsidies for launching. SpaceX got a grant for the rural broadband infrastructure thing, but that's like a one time thing, it doesn't really pay for ongoing launches.

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

LEO does offer legitimate advantages not just to latency but also for minimizing the abandoned space junk left in orbit. The satellites will deorbit fairly quickly after running out of fuel.

Though I'm sure you're correct about the main reason for the choice.

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

That would also make latency worse and the signal weaker.

Would the small ground starlink dish be able to reach higher orbits? I guess if the satellite is going to stay up longer you could afford to make it's antennas a bit bigger to mitigate that.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Well you wouldn't want to put them much higher, but if you raised their orbit by say 40%, they'd be getting significantly less atmospheric drag. It could probably extend their life by 15 years. And yeah, they'll be 40% further away, so slightly more latency. Perhaps going from 70 ms ping to 100 ms ping. Not awesome, but definitely not a huge problem.

[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You are right in how wasteful it is, especially since it turned out a lot of those satellites don't even make it to 4 years.

However there is zero risk of space trash with Starlink. They orbit so low, it's basically within the atmosphere still. They need to constantly boost themselves, otherwise they fall down and burn up. So these satellites are coming down within years all on their own, even without any controlled disposal.

It's insanely wasteful, but it keeps SpaceX in business launching every week, which is kind of the point. But at least there isn't a Kessler syndrome waiting to happen.

[–] trailee@sh.itjust.works 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Even though it’s not a space trash problem, it is a regular upper atmosphere polluter of aluminum oxide ash. We don’t yet know the long term consequences.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s not enough, but I would bet it might have a cooling effect as it reflects more light in the upper atmosphere.

But we should really still make sure, and more importantly not trust Elon with any data flowing over those satellites.

[–] trailee@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

It might! But the article I linked also suggests it might destroy ozone and have a net warming effect. We just don’t know. The upper atmosphere has never before had this level of direct pollution injection.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Starlink provides service to areas where fiber is impossible. Like the middle of the ocean and actual rural areas where fiber runs could be tens of miles or more between homes. Those are area where no one will build out fiber unless the homeowner is paying for it themselves, the various government programs would never cover those actual rural areas despite what they claim. At best they might cover city outskirts for new infrastructure, where fiber nodes are already relatively close by. They're never adding fiber to existing rural farms and ranches.

They are not a 1:1 service comparison. You would need to compare It to other satellite providers, and there isn't a comparison because all of those are dogshit in comparison to Starlink.

There's a reason it's as popular as it is so quickly despite satellite internet in general not being new. The low earth satellite constellation means a massive difference in capability compared to conventional geostationary satellites. Multiple second latency, slow downloads nowhere near advertised double digit Mbps speeds, single digit Mbps upload speeds and often monthly data limits as low as 50GB per month are what the conventional satellite providers offer.

[–] Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 months ago

Those places can get internet from satellites outside of low earth orbit that is simply slower with higher latency.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If only we could adjust the plot of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes to where it's mostly just cleaning up dead starlink satellites.

In any case, highly recommended as a fantastic anime. And for those that haven't seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZESIHA0qK3U

That's a dubbed trailer, but those of you looking for a Japanese language trailer know where to find it or probably have already watched it lol

[–] IanTwenty@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I'm checking this out!

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I'm not sure what isn't viable about it, I mean it's demonstrably viable, it's working now.