With news of latest push of another 1800 satellite going into space to create another global internet network.
How does so many satellites together with many other satellites stay in orbit without being a gigantic pileup in space?
In: Technology
Think about how much sky planes occupy. At any given time, there are up to 20,000 planes in the sky, compared to about 6000 satellites currently orbiting Earth (most of which are no longer operational).
Satellites orbit at different heights, ranging from 160km-2000km above the Earth’s surface (“Low Earth Orbit”) up to about 36,000km above the surface (“High Earth Orbit”). That is a tremendous amount of space. In fact, even though there are 3-4 times *fewer* satellites than there are airplanes, satellites have **38,000 times more space** to orbit than airplanes have to fly in.
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