this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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yes, this by design will fall down. the problem is the they don't care what damage it causes to the environment.
No company can control how their satellite falls, except make sure it lands in the general area of the Pacific Ocean. China has the same problem with deorbiting rocket stages.
There are plenty of other things to nail SpaceX on, such as blowing up Starship prototypes near populated areas without safety assessments, but this is not one of them. These Starlink satellites are being deorbited on purpose for retirement using the booster engine, but pointed to push them into the atmosphere. By doing so, SpaceX can make sure leftover debris lands in the Pacific, away from people.
Once the satellites are in low earth orbit, their future deorbiting is inevitable. Any concerns about vaporized satellite metals harming the atmosphere should have been assessed before putting them up there, though I don't think anyone made noise about that issue until now.