An astronomer has been tracking where SpaceX’s Starlink satellites go to die, and the data reveals the satellites have been burning up in various locations across the atmosphere.
The data comes from Jonathan McDowell, who’s been monitoring the growing Starlink satellite constellation. On Sunday, he tweeted a map, plotting the re-entry locations of 102 satellites that had to de-orbit and plunge back into the Earth’s atmosphere.
“This plot illustrates that the locations are random, consistent with the fact that the final week of their orbital decay and reentry is uncontrolled,” McDowell said.
The map might cause you to be concerned about falling Starlink debris hitting people or buildings. But SpaceX has designed the satellites to quickly disintegrate upon re-entering the planet’s atmosphere. During this descent, the atmospheric drag and heat is so intense, smaller objects like a satellite can completely burn up.
McDowell’s point with posting Sunday’s map was to illustrate the “the randomness of the reentry locations,” although the public shouldn’t be worried.
“I'm not too concerned, the satellites should almost completely burn up on reentry so the random locations are not a problem,” he told PCMag in an email. To create the map, McDowell said he got the data from the US’s Space Force via Space-Track.org, which will issue a “TIP (Target Impact Prediction) Message” that’ll give the latitude and longitude of where some Starlink satellites have re-entered the atmosphere.
From last December to this past May, over 110 Starlink satellites have fallen back into the Earth’s atmosphere, according to a SpaceX filing made to the FCC. The company didn’t explain why they were retired, but SpaceX will deorbit a satellite “whenever doing so will improve service for consumers on the ground or enhance the sustainability of space.” This includes retiring the satellite “at the first sign of trouble.”
“SpaceX also takes an extremely conservative approach when it chooses to de-orbit satellites and ensures all satellites are fully demisable, exceeding industry standards and causing no calculable risk to life on the ground,” the company told the FCC.
SpaceX has already launched close to 3,000 satellites for Starlink. But eventually all of them will de-orbit within five years and burn up in the atmosphere as they’re replaced by next-generation satellites. In the long-term, the company has plans to eventually operate tens of thousands of Starlink satellites in an effort to provide high-speed internet for users across the globe.