SpaceX go kaboom
2025-03-07 18:12:47.581346+01 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
It's not so much the "they blew it up again" thing, it's the external costs of dealing with the debris: SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft explodes midflight for a second time, disrupting Florida air traffic
However, residents of the archipelago of Turks and Caicos told CNN they are still finding debris from the spacecraft littering beaches and roadways. The local government worked with SpaceX to craft a debris recovery plan. However, the contents of the plan have not been made public and it’s not clear who is paying for the cleanup effort.
This is, of course, ignoring the environmental costs of deorbiting Starlink satellites... Geophysical Research Letters: Potential Ozone Depletion From Satellite Demise During Atmospheric Reentry in the Era of Mega-Constellations
We find that the demise of a typical 250-kg satellite can generate around 30 kg of aluminum oxide nanoparticles, which may endure for decades in the atmosphere. Aluminum oxide compounds generated by the entire population of satellites reentering the atmosphere in 2022 are estimated at around 17 metric tons. Reentry scenarios involving mega-constellations point to over 360 metric tons of aluminum oxide compounds per year, which can lead to significant ozone depletion.