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Cow-culation: Reentry Impact Risk to Livestock in the Satellite Megaconstellation Era

Samantha M. Lawler, Michele T. Bannister, Laura E. Revell

Abstract

The commercial space industry is launching more satellites into Low Earth Orbit every year. Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) has a thriving dairy and cattle industry. Unfortunately, these industries could come into (high speed) cow-llision, as the rapid launch rate and short operational lifetimes of satellites in megaconstellations like Starlink result in a high reentry rate at NZ's latitudes. This could intersect with NZ's famously large population of livestock. We predict this will be an udder disaster for any cows that are hit, as they are squishy and moo-ve much more slowly than space debris. Using a global bovine density dataset, previously published satellite casualty probability code, and a complete lack of funding to do this calculation carefully enough for submission to a peer-reviewed journal, we calculate a $\simeq 0.3-1% chance of a cow-sualty in NZ from reentering Starlink Gen2 debris over the next 5 years.

Cow-culation: Reentry Impact Risk to Livestock in the Satellite Megaconstellation Era

Abstract

The commercial space industry is launching more satellites into Low Earth Orbit every year. Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) has a thriving dairy and cattle industry. Unfortunately, these industries could come into (high speed) cow-llision, as the rapid launch rate and short operational lifetimes of satellites in megaconstellations like Starlink result in a high reentry rate at NZ's latitudes. This could intersect with NZ's famously large population of livestock. We predict this will be an udder disaster for any cows that are hit, as they are squishy and moo-ve much more slowly than space debris. Using a global bovine density dataset, previously published satellite casualty probability code, and a complete lack of funding to do this calculation carefully enough for submission to a peer-reviewed journal, we calculate a $\simeq 0.3-1% chance of a cow-sualty in NZ from reentering Starlink Gen2 debris over the next 5 years.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 4 sections, 1 equation, 1 figure.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Assume a spherical cow
  3. No use crying over spilled milk
  4. Conclusion

Figures (1)

  • Figure 1: Left panel shows the NZ cow-sualty rate per latitude bin per Starlink Gen2 5-year cycle assuming 2m spherical cows. The centre and right panels show the 2022 livestock density per hectare of farmland, for NZ dairy cows and beef cattle respectively.