US warns Starlink satellites will start killing people and reveals chance of hitting a human will soon be 61% each year

 

THE Federal Aviation Administration has spoken out on the dangers of Starlink satellites potentially injuring humans on Earth.

By 2035, debris from low-earth orbit (LEO) objects, like Starlink satellites, could fall and injure or kill someone, the FAA said in report to Congress.

The FAA has spoken out on the dangers of Starlink satellites potentially injuring humans on Earth

“The dramatic rise of non-geostationary satellites, particularly those in LEO, poses an increased risk to people on Earth and aviation due to reentering debris,” the report reads.

In the paper, the FAA claims around 28,000 fragments from Starlink satellites could survive Earth’s atmosphere and reach land.

What’s more, the casualty expectation, which is defined as “the number of individuals on the ground predicted to be injured or killed by debris surviving the reentries of satellites” would be 0.6 per year.

This means that one person on the planet would be expected to be injured or killed every two years.

The report concludes that the chances of a satellite fragment hitting and killing someone will rise to 61 percent each year.

In response, SpaceX called the agency’s analysis “nothing more than the culmination of several egregious errors, omissions, and incorrect assumptions,” per Ars Technica.

As of right now, the FAA is “reviewing the letter,” SpaceX told Ars Technica.

Still, the entire situation is frightening experts as Starlink only has plans to send more satellites to space.

STARLINK

Musk’s SpaceX began developing Starlink in 2015 before launching its prototype satellites in 2018.

The goal of Starlink is to provide remote areas around the world with internet service.

Musk has long stated that one of SpaceX’s biggest goals is to reshape the way people get internet service.

“We’re really talking about something which is, in the long term, like rebuilding the internet in space,” Musk said during a speech in Seattle when revealing the Starlink project in 2015.

Since then, Starlink has come a long way with more than 5,000 satellites currently in orbit at altitudes of about 550km.

And the company has plans to launch another 42,000 in the coming years.

Experts have already noticed the dangers of overpopulation space with LEOs.

One 2022 study claimed that Musk’s swarm of satellites is obstructing astronomers’ telescope views.

In fact, the satellites have appeared as streaks in scientific telescope images quite frequently.

“There is a growing concern about an impact of low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellations on ground-based astronomical observations, in particular, on wide-field surveys in the optical and infrared,” the study stated.

“In 2019, 0.5 percent of twilight images were affected, and now almost 20 percent are affected,” Dr. Przemek Mróz said in a statement at the time.

“We don’t expect Starlink satellites to affect non-twilight images, but if the satellite constellation of other companies goes into higher orbits, this could cause problems for non-twilight observations,” he added.