If you start shooting down stuff in orbit, it'll invite retaliation, but even without retaliation there's a huge risk of a Kessler syndrome (especially with all the stuff that SpaceX has put into orbit in recent years).
No, Kessler syndrome is pretty unlikely in this case. All of the guilty satellites are in Molniya orbits. Debris from destroying them would not greatly effect geosynchronous orbit or the low earth orbits used by Starlink.
> especially with all the stuff that SpaceX has put into orbit in recent years
I've heard this repeated a lot but I've never seen anyone do the maths. StarLink satellites are all in very low orbits, so intuitively it seems like most debris from a collision would just end up deorbiting.
LEO is crowded enough (mostly with Starlink) that satellites have to actively maneuver to avoid collisions [1]. There's research [2] arguing that we're probably already in runaway territory in some orbits — that is, debris from 1 collision likely produces more than one secondary collision — we're just way over on the left of the hockey stick curve. A bit of bad luck, or two megaconstellations that don't perfectly coordinate their operations with each other, could move us to the right pretty quickly.
90% of starlink satellites are >400km in altitude. They aren't in very low earth orbits where that intuition even might be correct. They're above the space station.
I've definitely seen math done - though I'd have to dig it up again. I think in FAA filings.
I've thought about this before - do you actually need to "shoot it down" (make it explode)? What if you just nudge it a little and either make it spin or change its orbit? If your missile can reach the satellite then these seem like things that should be possible, no?
A missile intercept for explosions or a kinetic destruction the relative velocity will be measured in kilometers per second.
A little nudge doesn't do much, it's still a satellite in a substantially similar orbit. Any sort of nudge requires intercept, go up there and match its velocity so you can grab it and push. And still you have to push on it a whole lot to make a meaningful difference. Spin it up? You'd have to do enough to exhaust it's fuel it uses to orient itself.
You're sort of saying if you can chuck an apple hitting a car on the highway, surely you can tow it away to get it off the road. They're significantly different problems.
An apple at highway speeds can break the windshield and make the car undriveable. People throwing things from highway overpasses is a serious (and deadly) problem.
>A missile intercept for explosions or a kinetic destruction the relative velocity will be measured in kilometers per second.
The satellite will also be going kilometers per second. You have to almost match the orbital velocity to have a chance of hitting it anyway.
To the contrary, for the 1 satellite missile strike we have public information on, not only did it not catch up to the orbital velocity for intercept, it hit it head on (going the other direction) adding to the relative velocity. A satellite with an ~8 km/s orbital velocity was struck head on by a missile adding to that by ~2 km/s for a total just under 10 km/s.
It is indeed not that hard to intercept something in orbit. Because the orbits don't change and can be predicted to high precision months in the future.
Depends, if you nudge it only a little, its own onboard stabilizers / thrusters should be able to correct it. It'd have to be more than its own systems can correct for.