The #Amazon#Kuiper project prototype #satellites have been actively deorbited after what the company describes as "a 100% success rate across our key mission objectives".
🛰️ On ne connaît toujours à quoi ressemblent les satellites de la constellation #Kuiper d’Amazon. HEO Space a divulgué un aperçu grâce à ce cliché pris depuis un satellite du japonais Axelspace
I recently got quite some flak for discussing what #Starlink satellites burning up in the atmosphere after their planned lifetime of 6 years could do to the stratosphere. Adding tons of aluminium and other elements as fine aerosol particles. Well. New research has just been published:
Illness: Kessler Syndrome
Cause: Billionaires
Consequence: Epic space pollution for a thousand years.
Based on the near miss stats from #Starlink that emerged recently, someone needs to be the grown-up in the room and prevent the satellite catastrophe that's coming from this billionaire ego clash.
Also, at least spaceX have experience in sat-ops. Amazon? not so much.
Amazon's Project #Kuiper prototype #satellites rolling out to the launch pad earlier today. Their launch window opens at 2pm EDT. One object has brightness mitigations for astronomy and the other doesn't, allowing us to characterize both in the optical/IR.
Amazon has been in steady contact with astronomers during the development of Kuiper, and their staff have participated in discussions that have helped shape their mitigation plans. This is a good model for future satellite operators.
The authors find that over 5 years, the #StarLink project would emit between ~0.5 and 1 tonne CO2eq per subscriber, and up to ~3 t CO2eq / subscriber for #Amazon's #Kuiper project. Those values are 31-91 times HIGHER than eq. terrestrial #mobile#broadband.
A gyroscopically stabilized 91-centimeter telescope is mounted in this converted C-141A Starlifter transport aircraft, in the cavity just forward of the left wing.
#SpaceX argued that #Kuiper should be subject to a #Starlink rule. The rule states that if the cumulative remaining operational lifetime for all #failed#satellites is 100+ years, the company has to put the brakes on deployment pending an FCC review