alt Hacker NewsI think the next big war will involve a kessler syndrome, not because people start firing off anti-satellite weapons (since there's a strong component of MAD in doing that) but because the belligerents will have their own multi-thousand satellite constellations in orbit and they will quit coordinating with one another on collision avoidance.
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childintime • today at 6:56 PM
A smaller player like North Korea and Iran would not have as much to lose. Iran is doing something similar today, suicide bombing everything it can.
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tehjoker • today at 6:58 PM
These LEO satellites are low enough that I imagine a Kessler situation would self-resolve within a few years.
Starlink is redeploying to 300 miles. Many consider Kessler to be impossible at 300 miles. Any unpowered satellite at a 300 mile orbit will deorbit within a couple of months. But a collision means fragments which deorbit faster because they have a higher surface/weight ratio, and because orbit disturbances lower that time considerably. Any single disturbance that raises aphelion lowers perihelion.