• ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    All low earth orbits are decaying without periodic adjustments. If you disable a satellite, it will eventually burn up in the atmosphere.

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      9 months ago

      Some orbits are quicker than others. Cloudsat was recently retired, and was lowered to a graveyard orbit which decays a lot more quickly. As I understand it, our collective space programs have made a bit of a mess of operational orbits and we need to think about cleaning up debris while also mitigating any future additions to the debris field.