Germany blocks full Chinese takeover of satellite startup
techxplore.com
Germany has blocked a complete Chinese takeover of a satellite startup on national security grounds, sources close to the matter told AFP Thursday, as Berlin takes an increasingly hard line against Beijing.

The German tech company KLEO Connect aims to establish its own network of satellites in low Earth orbit that can provide internet to remote locations, hoping to rival Starlink.

    • fr0g@feddit.deEnglish
      32·
      10 months ago

      The universe is big enough to be able to handle that. Earth’s orbit less so.

      • federalreverse-old@feddit.deEnglish
        3·
        10 months ago

        Even so, it seems counterproductive to abandon tons of really expensive materials in space, presumably until supply of these materials on Earth is depleted.

    • tal@kbin.social
      9·
      10 months ago

      The universe is our trash can

      LEO satellites, like the ones being discussed, are pretty much guaranteed to deorbit within a limited timeframe, as atmospheric drag constantly causes their orbit to decay.

      That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t colossally mess up the existing LEO satellites, but that mess would clean itself up within a few years. And you have to put new LEO satellites up every few years anyway, so it’d translate to a relatively-short-term – if significant – disruption.

      The real problems are higher-altitude satellites.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test

      More than half of the tracked debris orbits the Earth with a mean altitude above 850 kilometres (530 mi), so they would likely remain in orbit for decades or centuries.