Wandering Adventure Party

Updating talk slides so you all get to be horrified along with me at the current Starlink numbers.

There are now 7,652 Starlink satellites in orbit (>500 more than there were in February, when I last updated these particular slides).

2-3 Starlinks per day are burning up in the atmosphere. That's a lot of weird metal in the atmosphere (and undoubtedly lots of random bits getting to the ground too).

Starlink is a stupidly wasteful and dangerous way to use orbit.

Welp, in case we needed even more things to worry about, apparently in 3 days we're going to stress-test Starlink's current orbital configuration with a severe geomagnetic storm. After working on simulations of Starlink's orbital configuration, I am honestly quite worried about how this is going to go for them (and by extension, for everything else in Low Earth Orbit).

G4 (Severe) Geomagnetic Storm Watch in Effect for 2 June UTC-Day | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center

(www.swpc.noaa.gov)