GoKawiilAstronomer turns Starlink satellite drag data into atmospheric monitoring tool
Dr. Tony Phillips of spaceweather.com has built a method to track Earth's upper atmosphere by analyzing orbital decay data from SpaceX's Starlink satellites, along with constellations from Planet Labs, Amazon Kuiper, and Eutelsat OneWeb. He uses the 'B-star' drag term buried in Space Force tracking data to measure how much the atmosphere expands in response to solar activity, finding a roughly two-day lag between solar radio flux changes and atmospheric response.