zlacker

You can't increase the size of the radiator and reduce the mass of the satellite. How is that supposed to work?

You're also forgetting that Starlink satellites aren't in a sun synchronous orbit which means they have to overbuild the energy generation capacity (low capacity factor) and can simultaneously take advantage of earth's shadow to cool down.

>>imtrin+(OP)
Droplet radiators can theoretically do this. The radiator is made up of extremely fine liquid droplets expelled from what is basically a big space shower head. The droplet cloud has a big surface area so more heat can radiate. The droplets are collected in a sort of drain the other side. The idea has been around for decades but there are lots of practical problems to work out, like minimizing losses due to splashes or droplets heading in the wrong direction (e.g. using ferrofluids and magnetic containment). It's never been worked on seriously because conventional radiators were always enough.

With droplet radiators increasing the effective size means using a bigger head/drain and longer booms to expand the distance between them, so the scaling properties are different to pipe based radiators.