It's really cool that SpaceX has the ability to put stuff in orbit without it being a billion-dollar event. But I don't see any advantage to having unmaintainable tech in orbit, where all you can do is throw away an entire satellite.
What's the advantage? You can get solar power here on earth. We're not running out of land; we could put them in the middle of nowhere if we wanted, for way less than orbit.
I just can't think of any reason why we'd do this, other than "it's cool". Which, fair, but it seems like a waste.
It's the same boat as nuclear power plants. There's no economical reason to build small modular independent nuclear reactors. It makes much more financial sense to combine as much infrastructure as possible, even when the reaction chambers themselves are small and modular, like a CANDU reactor. Yet, getting approval for a few small things is much easier than one big thing, and getting approval is what's preventing nuclear power from being cost effective, so the most cost effective option is to spend more on infrastructure, so you can much, much less getting approval.
Combine that with the 5-10x higher production from being in constant unfiltered sunlight, and lack of need for storage, and it could well be much cheaper to make the power in space.
And they won't all be in constant unfiltered sunlight some will be in the earth's shadow
And that's before you consider the issues of operating a DC in space
It's just a a load of nonsense
In 2020, Space X had 25 launches, then 31 in 2021, then 61, then 96, then 136, and last year launched 167. That's an average of around 50% more per year. At that rate, to get to the 24x increase needed to launch faster than the constellation can support, they'll only need to keep on that trajectory for eight more years.
Even if a heat radiator as large as a solar panel is needed, it'd be only a small portion of the overall cost.
Radiating waste heat on earth is a much more substantial portion of the total cost, especially so considering the social backlash it creates.
I can exhaustively list the reasons why Musk is an abhorrent leader and human being, but I'm pretty sure you know them all already. Whatever intelligence the man may have once had has long been flushed down the Twitter toilet, as evident from even a cursory look at his social media feed.
It's just like the arguments used by anti-renewable energy forces here on Earth. "Large number (of PV modules and wind turbines and batteries)! Unpossible!"
And no, that launch rate does not "wreck the planet".
What's the impact of the atmospheric pollution from both launches and the burn of space craft and satellite's burning up on re-rentry?
They will not be, or need not be, in orbits with substantial amounts of shadowed time.
These satellite will need larger radiators. It's an issue satellite designers have long dealt with, so the presumption that SpaceX has somehow missed the issue in their new design is not credible.