On: A Millennial’s Tiny Satellites Are Helping China Advance in the Space Race

[pjc50]

"Short" in this case may mean a few years. Compare with SpaceX's test communications satellites, with a lifetime of six months: https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/microsat-2.htm

Lower orbits are cheaper to reach, and just like cellphones the high turnover of technology means that they will become obsolete quickly too. Today you might want a ""5G"" base station in space (+), in a few years time you'll want a ""6G"" one.

(+) this is an analogy

[momofarm → pjc50]

maybe someone should invest a company of cleaning space trash / iRobot in space or something like that to deal with these wreckage we shoot up in space.

Although space is quite big / endless, but the surface area of our earth in space isn't that big enough.