[Starlink] 69,000 Users

[David Lang]

On Wed, 30 Jun 2021, Daniel AJ Sokolov wrote:

> If that is the case, it doesn't help much that the average life span is a bit 
> more than 5 years. When a train of satellite starts to degrade, they may just 
> deorbit the entire train, even if some of the satellites in the train could 
> still operate for a while.
>
> Or am I getting that wrong?

My point is that a train is already a variable number, so it's not line 1 train 
== 1 orbit of satellites

They have had a number of failures and a few deliberate deorbits for testing.

the sateelites they have already launched are sufficient to provide global 
coverage (except at the poles), but they plan to launch a LOT more, including 
more into the current shell.

So I think it's going to be more a matter of graceful degredation and then 
launching a new set to fill gaps than killing an entire train at a time.

If they are going to launch 400 or so on a single starship launch, there has to 
be enough delta-v for them to not only space themselves out along one orbit, but 
to shift the orbit east/west as well, which gives them a lot more flexibility 
than you are assuming.

David Lang