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Chinese megaconstellation launch creates field of space debris (spacenews.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/spaceflight

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The satellites are the first of a planned megaconstellation of more than 14,000 low Earth orbit (LEO) communications satellites ... The Long March 6A ... deployed 18 ... satellites

And they're planning to do that with expendable launch vehicles? 14,000 / 18 = ~777 launches

Expendable launch vehicles that have a known orbital debris problem and can partially survive rentry and cause damage on the ground? Those expendable launch vehicles?

[–] Jumuta 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

i mean falcon 9 is also expendable if you're looking at the orbital insertion stage

the problem here isn't the expendability it's how little they care about debris (both in orbit and on the ground)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Right, F9 can operate as reusable or expendable depending on mission profile. But for the Starlink constellation, they're landing the rockets and re-using them.

Long March 6 are fully expendable, though, and would require a dedicated launch vehicle for every 18 satellites that go up (maybe more than 18 if they reduce the payload mass on later satellite models, etc).

Not to say they'll launch the whole constellation on LM6; they could have a reusable booster in the works and switch over to that in later phases.

[–] MartianSands 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think you misunderstood. They're pointing out that the Falcon 9's upper stage is always expended

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

But the Falcon 9 second stage is sent on a controlled re-entry after satellite deployment, usually aiming for point Nemo.

There's only been one second stage failure in 270+ launches and that re-entered in a unguided manner (I'm actually not sure where it re-entered), but it still didn't leave any major debris in orbit.

And they changed their deployment hardware - those long rods that the sats are contained by - to keep it attached to the second stage, so it all deorbits together.

[–] Jumuta 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I thought you were referring to the orbital insertion stage? what else do you mean by this?

Expendable launch vehicles that have a known orbital debris problem and can partially survive rentry and cause damage on the ground? Those expendable launch vehicles?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

That was referring to the space debris point of the post. I just merged my two points (orbital debris and launching a megaconstellation on an expendable launch platform) poorly, lol.

The first link was for the orbital debris issue, and the second was for the launch vehicle. But upon closer reading, the second is about the LM 2C and not the 6(A). That's my bad.